New Senate candidate Kenyatta backs pause on fracking
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta spent his first day as a candidate for U.S. Senate answering questions about his ideas on fracking and energy policy.
The Democrat from Philadelphia is running for the Senate seat now held by Pat Toomey, a Republican who is not seeking re-election in 2022. If elected, Mr. Kenyatta would make history as Pennsylvania’s first Black and first openly gay U.S. senator.
Mr. Kenyatta announced his bid on prime-time national television Thursday night. In a videoconference with reporters Friday, he said Americans must be “stewards of our public spaces” to ensure clean air and water, something that requires “investing in green energy, creating jobs, union jobs, jobs that can be generational jobs.”
Asked whether he supports a ban on fracking, Mr. Kenyatta said wants to “double down on clean energy” and that he supports a moratorium on fracking “in large part because I believe that the future of energy production and also the future of good paying jobs for Pennsylvanians is going to be in the sustainable jobs that clean energy can produce.” He also said the country should stop giving tax breaks to big oil and gas companies.
Asked later to expand on his plan for a moratorium, Mr. Kenyatta said:
“Following the industry’s own actions, I support a moratorium on new fracking and agree we need to be moving toward new cleaner energy jobs, but we can’t eliminate the thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania fracking without having a plan to replace them with new, good paying union ones.
“We should be doubling down on clean energy and sustainable jobs. Pennsylvania can be the place that exports new technology that will protect our planet and create good-paying, union jobs in the clean energy sector. That’s going to protect our planet and also create new, good-paying, clean energy union jobs. I look forward to meeting with environmental advocates across Pennsylvania and releasing more details on my priorities over the course of my campaign.”
During his news conference, Mr. Kenyatta recalled a commercial during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 in which celebrities went to Norway to build electric batteries for cars.
“Why the heck aren’t we building that stuff in Scranton or in
Altoona or in Johnstown or Uniontown or Pittsburgh?” Mr. Kenyatta said. “We have to own these future jobs. We have to corner the market in Pennsylvania on clean energy.”
Mr. Kenyatta, who joins a Democratic primary field that includes Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, said he’s running for the Senate because America is “at a crossroads,” made clear by the riots at the Capitol in January.
“That’s a reminder for us that there’s nothing written on a tablet somewhere that says, ‘America has to succeed,’ ” he said. “America succeeds in expanding the promise of the country — a promise of America that has excluded far too many Americans for far too long.”
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr. Kenyatta, 30, grew up poor in North Philadelphia, where his first job at 12 was washing dishes at a vegan soulfood restaurant to help his mother, a home health aide, pay the bills. His family had to move five times when he was a kid.
“Every month we were sitting at that proverbial kitchen table — but sitting there literally figuring out how to make it work,” Mr. Kenyatta told The Inquirer in an interview ahead of his campaign launch. “If we’re going to secure a democracy for the future, we have to have a system that actually works for working people. The people that will be best able to lead us to that place are people ... who know exactly what it looks like when government fails.”
Mr. Kenyatta, who announced his campaign on MSNBC, has been a frequent presence on cable news shows and was a top Pennsylvania surrogate for Joe Biden. That’s given him a bigger national platform than typical for a secondterm state lawmaker — one he could use to raise money for an expensive and competitive statewide campaign.
The American Federation of Teachers, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and the Working Families Party all issued endorsements to coincide with his announcement.
Other Democrats seen as possible candidates include U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Chester County, U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of Allegheny County, U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia, and Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh.