Bernie Sanders releases anti-fracking ad

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

April 12, 2016 | 11:38 AM

As Presidential campaigns turn their attention to delegate-rich New York and Pennsylvania, the fracking debate has emerged as a wedge between the two Democratic rivals. Bernie Sanders, who wants to ban fracking everywhere, has released this ad:

New York currently bans fracking, while fracking has made Pennsylvania the second highest natural gas producing state behind Texas.
At a rally on Monday, Sanders praised New Yorkers for pressuring Governor Andrew Cuomo to prevent shale gas drilling in the state, and criticized Hillary Clinton, saying the two had a strong difference of opinion over the issue.
At a debate between the two candidates in Michigan last month, Clinton expressed conditional support for fracking.
“I don’t support it when any locality or any state is against it, number one,” she said. “I don’t support it when the release of methane or contamination of water is present. I don’t support it, number three, unless we can require that anybody who fracks has to tell us exactly what chemicals they are using. By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.”
New York voters go to the polls next Tuesday, while Pennsylvanians vote a week later, April 26.