Trump vows at Pennsylvania rally to slash energy costs, lift LNG pause and 'frack, frack, frack'

Former President Trump vowed Saturday to slash U.S. energy costs in half if re-elected, seizing on oil and gas policies to draw a sharp contrast with Kamala Harris in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. 

"Starting on day one of my new administration, I will end Kamala Harris' war on Pennsylvania energy," Trump told the crowd. "And we will frack, frack, frack."

Fracking, the process of using pressurized fluids to extract natural gas from shale rock, is a controversial technology and one Harris previously pledged to ban when seeking the presidency in 2019. 

But fracking is necessary to access the vast gas resources tucked away in Pennsylvania. The state is not only a pivotal battleground state with 19 electoral votes. It's also the second-largest natural gas producer in the U.S.

In the absence of that clarity, Trump has attempted to fill in the blanks on Harris' policies himself. 

Harris, he said Saturday, has been against fracking "her whole life." She's been against "anything having to do with anything underground," Trump told the audience.

"She'll build a windmill," he said, "to kill all your birds."

He described the U.S. natural gas export pause, ordered by President Biden in January, as "Kamala's ban."

During a second term, Trump pledged, all that would change.

"Your energy prices will be cut in half within 12 months from Jan. 20, which is when we would take over," he told the packed stands of supporters, who responded with roars of applause. 

Some had been lined up outside the central Pennsylvania arena for hours to hear Trump speak, long before the doors opened at noon, almost six hours before he eventually danced his way onstage.

Several attendees said they'd been waiting since dawn to see Trump, and the promises made by the former commander in chief did not seem to disappoint them, if their cheers were any indication.

"We're going to fix it very fast," Trump told the audience. "Kamala broke it, and I will fix it." 

Democrats, he said, "waged a war on your commonwealth like never before." 

"They annihilated your steel mills, decimated your coal jobs, assaulted your oil and gas jobs and sold off your manufacturing jobs to China and other foreign nations all over the world.

"You're going to come back under the Trump administration."

Trump vowed to remedy what he described as the "disgusting failures" of the Biden administration in the energy sector and beyond. 

"This will be America's golden age," he said, "and every problem facing us will be solved."