Last night, a video that captured presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pointing her finger at a climate change activist went viral. What got Clinton’s goat? An insinuation by the Sanders campaign that she accepts money from the fossil fuel industry. The campaigns are now embroiled in a back and forth on how much money Clinton takes from that industry and whether this money would influence her policies were she elected.

We can’t know the answer to the second part, but we’ve done some digging to help clarify the first.

While individuals working for oil and gas interests haven’t contributed much to Clinton, relatively speaking — the industry doesn’t even make her top 20 — a review by the Center for Responsive Politics of FEC filings reveals that Clinton has taken $1.4 million in contributions bundled by lobbyists who represent the industry.

Bundlers are fundraising heavyweights who pledge to bring in a certain amount for the candidate from their personal and professional networks. So far this year, 47 different lobbyists have collected $4.1 million for Clinton’s presidential bid. Over 30 percent of this money — $1.4 million — was raised by 11 different bundlers who represent clients from the oil and gas industry. These clients include major oil companies like Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Marathon Oil. In total, the oil and gas industry paid $18.6 million to these bundlers to voice their interests in Washington in 2015.

The most lucrative bundler for Clinton has been well-known networker Heather Podesta from the lobbying firm Heather Podesta + Partners. Podesta has raised $379,731 for Clinton’s campaign so far. And while she represents a long list of companies and organizations, they include Marathon Oil and Oxbow Corp. Together, the companies paid Podesta and her colleagues $220,000 last year.

A big caveat here: Podesta, like some of the other 11 oil and gas lobbyists, represents a slew of other clients as well, so it’s somewhat disingenuous to credit the bundled money to the oil and gas industry. In Podesta’s case, the other clients include two in renewable energy: Brookfield Power and Fuels America . She also represents Uranium Producers of America; nuclear power is considered clean when it comes to carbon emissions, though there’s a debate about whether it should be called renewable.

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But overall, renewable energy interests — excluding uranium — have paid only $1.6 million, or 8.8 percent of what the oil and gas industry has, to lobbyists who’ve raised money for Clinton.

And three lobbyists were less conflicted, with fossil fuel interests among five or fewer clients they represented. No renewable energy companies were on their client lists. These lobbysts bundled $298,559 for Clinton.

For another pair of lobbyists, the priorities are crystal clear. Ankit N Desai and Theresa Mary Fariello who, together, have raised a total of $161,600 for Clinton, each have just one client: Cheniere Energy and Exxon Mobil, respectively. Desai and her colleagues were paid $3.4 million by Cheniere and Fariello and her colleagues were paid almost $12 million by Mobil.

Update April 4: This post has been revised to reflect the fact that uranium’s classification as a renewable energy source is a subject of debate.



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