Clinton Accuses Sanders Campaign of Lying About the Contributions She's Received from the Fossil Fuel Industry
On Tuesday, following a rally at SUNY-Purchase, Greenpeace activist Eva Resnick-Day confronted Hillary Clinton, asking her whether she would stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry. Clinton, frustrated, jabbed her finger in Resnick-Day’s face: “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me.”
“I have taken money from people who work for fossil fuel companies,” Clinton said, which is an odd way of denying an accusation that hadn’t actually made. “I’m sick of it.” An enthused Huffington Post political reporter, Christina Wilkie, tweeted, “Hillary Clinton lost her temper at a Greenpeace activist today. And it was kinda badass.”
It’s not clear from the clip—which quite brief, and in which Clinton is obviously distracted—what lies the Sanders campaign are purported to have told. Perhaps the perceived insinuation was that contributions from the fossil-fuel industry have influenced her softer position on fracking and other environmental issues than her rival? Maybe!
Certainly Clinton couldn’t have been contesting that she takes money from anyone affiliated with the fossil fuel industry other than low-level employees, because she has disclosed (willingly!) having done precisely that. As two of Wilkie’s Huffington Post colleagues reported in July, nearly all of the 40 lobbyists disclosed by the Clinton campaign as bundling contributions for the the former secretary of state have worked at one point or another for the fossil fuel industry. And not just lobbyists, either:
There is one Hillblazer bundler — the name for Clinton boosters raising more than $100,000 — who stands out.
Bundler Gordon Giffin is a former lobbyist for TransCanada, the company working to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Giffin sits on the board of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, an investor in the pipeline. The Canadian bank paid Clinton $990,000 for speeches in the months leading up to her presidential announcement. Another Canadian financial institution with an interest in Keystone XL, TD Bank, paid her $651,000 for speaking engagements.
As for those smaller, individual contributions: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton has received $307,561 in direct contributions from people employed by the fossil fuel industry. Sanders, meanwhile, has received $54,060.
Taken by itself, this is not a particularly significant number—it’s far more than Sanders has received, but far less than someone like Ted Cruz. Earlier this month, however, Vice News reported that fossil fuel interests have contributed $3.25 million to Priorities USA Action, the largest super PAC supporting Clinton’s White House bid:
The bulk of fossil fuel industry contributions to Priorities USA Action came from two donors. Donald Sussman, the founder and chairman of Paloma Partners, donated $2.5 million. His hedge fund is invested in energy companies like Phillips 66, AGL Resources, and Occidental Petroleum. David Shaw, chief scientist at D.E. Shaw Research, a computational biochemistry research company, gave some $750,000 to the Clinton-affiliated PAC. He also donated $50,000 to Clinton’s Ready PAC, formerly known as Ready for Hillary. Shaw served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. His investment management firm D.E. Shaw & Co., LP has major holdings in Marathon Petroleum Corporation.
As well as holding substantial assets in oil and gas, Shaw is also an investor in solar energy projects and an ambitious offshore wind project in New England. Greenpeace said that the split in such investments signals a concerning incongruity in interests, especially given Shaw’s role in PCAST, which has previously submitted recommendations to the president to continue efforts to decarbonize the economy and invest in renewable energy.
And, while Clinton says she supports—with many, many qualifiers and caveats—regulating the fracking industry, she also is happy to take the industry’s money: On January 27, she attended a fundraiser in Philadelphia co-hosted by Michael C. Forman, whose $17 billion “alternative investments” firm, Franklin Square Capital Partners, holds significant stakes in a number of domestic fracking companies. (Also: Jon Bon Jovi played an acoustic set.)
When asked about the fundraiser at the Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, early this month, Clinton said, “I don’t believe that there is any reason to be concerned about it.”