The Clintons’ fossil fuel payments are bigger than just campaign cash

When a Greenpeace activist confronted Clinton about all the money she is taking from the fossil fuel industry, Clinton falsely accused them of spreading lies.

However, Greenpeace has shown documentation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has taken over $4.5 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry, ~$1.32 million directly into her campaign and another ~$3.25 million into her Super PACs. This represents a significant conflict of interest with regard to climate change. In addition to climate change, Clinton’s Big Oil allies harm planet Earth in other ways: two of her biggest lobbyist bundlers were involved in Chevron’s efforts to dodge consequences for poisoning the Amazon over an area the size of Rhode Island.

Greenpeace’s campaign is focussed on getting candidates to pledge to refuse future fossil campaign donations, so they do not discuss the enormous payments that have been made into Clinton’s personal bank account. To truly account for Clinton’s conflict of interest, we must also look at how she and Bill Clinton earned their personal fortune. Indeed, Clinton received $1,916,000 in payments from investors and other stakeholders in the Keystone XL pipeline. Her husband also made speeches to Keystone stakeholders for which he was paid ~$1.8 million.

So while Clinton and her proxies are lying about Greenpeace’s numbers, her conflict of interest actually far exceeds what even Greenpeace is putting forward. Indeed, even the ~$8 million mentioned above is a low estimate that does not include the totality of the Clintons’ speaking fees from fossil fuel stakeholders. Neither does it include donations to the Clinton Foundation, which is a nexus of the Clintons’ power, prestige and global influence.

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