With US Elections a few days away, politicians reach their final attempt to attract Pennsylvanians who rely on the trucking industry addressed multiple times.
It is not difficult to understand how the fracking industry in western Pennsylvania is crucial to its local economy. The rolling green hills have been dotted with picturesque, woodsy farmhouses and fracking machines in Washington County, all just 30 miles west of Pittsburgh.
Fracking, the excavation of shale rock for natural gas, is a massive business in Pennsylvania. Moreover, according to the United States Census, income rose between $47,823 in 2010 to $63,119 in 2018 in Washington County.
It also has increased average home prices and, as per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has added about 30,000 employments to the state.
This is why, in the US presidential election, this question jumped to the top of the thoughts of the Pennsylvania voting public.
Three separate state events have been held by Trump on Monday, and former Vice President Joe Biden also made a sudden visit to a voter registration office in Chester, just right outside of Philadelphia.
In their remarks to voters, both parties considered fracking the main wedge issue. At the debate a week ago, when Trump questioned Biden regarding his stance on fracking, the subject had taken center stage. It can also be remembered that Trump had promised Michigan that he would get women's husbands back to work upon the reopening of the economy.
However, for citizens of Keystone State cities and towns, fracking is not just a matter of presidential discussion every four years - it is also their livelihoods. A few in the state claim that prohibiting fracking, as well as their own manufacturing companies, could affect everything.
On US elections and fracking
As the politicians reach their final attempt to attract supporters in the stronghold state of Pennsylvania, whereby thousands of people rely on the industry for their livelihoods, the debate about fracking has been addressed multiple times.
But Americans may be asking in many other regions of the world what precisely it is and why the nation put so much matter to it.
Fracking, shortened for hydraulic fracking, is a form of removing natural gas by digging into the earth hundreds of meters below and pumping a solution of water and even chemical agents into the surface of the earth to breakdown horizontal hard rock formations.
However, Pennsylvania has emerged from fracking as well as the industry around it much more than other counties.
President Donald Trump is actively contemplating issuing an executive order, which would show his approval for fracking just days before Election Day. The campaign of Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said that he would not outright prohibit fracking but promotes a ban on new fracking on federal property.
Scott Detrow, who had recently reported Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracking industry for NPR's StateImpact program, stated, "The eastern part of the state, the part of the state that Joe Biden needs to do really well in to win next week, has always been very skeptical of this process."
"President Trump seems to be operating like 100% of Pennsylvanians want to see as much fracking as possible," he added.
On the other hand, Biden is supporting a shift to renewable energies, although he has consistently said that he does not want to prohibit fracking as a whole.
