Fact-checking Kamala Harris on energy production, independence

Republican candidates often criticize Democrats for throttling the U.S. energy sector or blame them for high gasoline prices. But just days before she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, stole a page from the Republican playbook and boasted about U.S. energy production during Joe Biden’s presidency.

In July 18 remarks in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris said, "Today, America has record energy production and we are energy independent."

Harris is right about record energy production, but she’s only partly right about energy independence. By some definitions, the U.S. is energy independent, but by an important one, it’s not.

This part of Harris’s statement is accurate.

Overall U.S. energy production — which includes everything from heating oil to gasoline to sources used to generate electricity such as coal, natural gas and renewables — hit 102.82 quadrillion British thermal units in 2023, more than 4% higher than the 2022 level, which was the previous record.

This reflects recent growth in U.S. energy production, which has flourished under both of the last two presidents, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Experts credit the growth in shale oil and shale gas production, increases in renewable energies such as solar and wind and improvements in the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles.

As for the other part of Harris’ statement, some definitions of "energy independence" have been met — but not all.

One definition that was met under both Trump and Biden is the U.S. exporting more energy than it imports. 

The Energy Information Administration, a federal office that tracks energy statistics, found that in 2019 — when Trump was president — the United States became a net exporter of overall energy for the first time since 1952. 

That has continued ever since, with the gap widening to a record level in 2023, the most recent full year with available statistics. 

Another, narrower, measure of energy independence is whether the U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum specifically. In 2020, the U.S. became a net exporter of petroleum for the first time since at least 1949. That has continued through 2022, the last year with available data.

A third form of energy independence occurs when domestic energy production exceeds domestic consumption. This has been so from 2019 to 2023.

When we asked the Harris campaign to support its claim, it pointed to these metrics, and to a March 2024 report by the financial services company J.P.Morgan that used these statistics to support its conclusion that "the U.S. has achieved U.S. energy independence for the first time in 40 years." 

There is one important metric keeping the U.S. from complete energy independence. The data for crude oil — which is used to manufacture gasoline, which for many consumers is top of mind — has not followed the same pattern as energy overall.

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Crude oil imports outpaced exports in each of the four years Trump was president, and during Biden’s first three years in office. Crude oil and petroleum are different; the U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, a finished product, but a net importer of crude oil, a raw product used to make petroleum and petroleum products.

There’s a reason for the imbalance in crude oil imports and exports, experts say. Although the U.S. theoretically produces enough crude oil to satisfy its consumption, the U.S. cannot refine all of the crude oil it produces. 

Crude is graded by its weight and its "sweetness," a measure of the oil’s sulfur content. Most U.S.-produced oil is "light" and "sweet," and although some U.S. refineries can process it, many cannot. 

These refineries are built to process heavier, less sweet crude (also called heavy, sour crude) from the Middle East and other overseas suppliers. That’s a holdover from past decades, when the U.S. was primarily importing its crude.

This mismatch keeps the U.S. from simply using its own crude production to serve all of its domestic needs. Changing the mix of refineries to accommodate U.S.-produced crude oil would be expensive and take years to complete.

This means the U.S. is exporting a lot of its domestically produced crude on the international market. To make up for this, the U.S. still must import a substantial amount of oil for domestic use.

Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies, said a more accurate term for the U.S. position right now is "net self-sufficiency."

"To be self-sufficient means you produce everything you need," Finley said. "On a net basis, that is true for the U.S. in recent years. But to be independent means that what happens around the world doesn’t matter to you. That is absolutely false."

For instance, much of New England relies on foreign imports of oil and natural gas because the region lacks pipeline capacity and because of laws that regulate domestic shipping, said Hugh Daigle, an associate professor of petroleum and geosystems engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

So, even in a period of greater energy independence for the U.S., its supply is still sensitive to international events, experts said. Harris’ claim glosses over this reality. 

"While the U.S. produces more energy than it consumes, it remains closely connected to — and dependent on — global developments," Finley said.

The last time we looked at a claim about energy independence in 2023, we rated it Half True. However, in that fact-check, of former Vice President Mike Pence, we did not also address the claim Harris mentioned about record-high energy production, which she was correct about.

Harris said, "Today, America has record energy production and we are energy independent."

Harris is correct about overall energy production being at a record high, and she is correct that the U.S. is energy independent by some definitions — being a net energy exporter, a net petroleum exporter and producing more energy than it consumes.

However, the U.S. is not a net exporter of crude oil, which is the source of gasoline. 

Many U.S. refineries cannot process the type of crude oil produced in the U.S., so serving the domestic market requires importing a different type of oil from overseas. This keeps the U.S. and its economy beholden to overseas developments.

We rate the statement Mostly True.