Oil Money? Nah .....No Problem.

[Armstead]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/hillary-clinton-bundlers-fossil-fuel-lobbyists

Nearly all of the lobbyists bundling contributions for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign have at one time or another worked for the fossil fuel industry.

A list of 40 registered lobbyists that the Clinton camp disclosed to the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday revealed a number of Democratic Party lobbyists who have worked against regulations to curb climate change, advocated for offshore drilling, or sought government approval for natural gas exports.

Clinton, the former secretary of state, has called climate change the most "consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world" and says it would be a major focus of her administration if she wins the White House. But having so many supporters who have sold their services to fossil fuel companies may complicate her emphasis on pro-environment policies.

Scott Parven and Brian Pomper, lobbyists at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, have been registered to lobby for the Southern California-based oil giant Chevron since 2006, with contracts totaling more than $3 million. The two bundled Clinton contributions of $24,700 and $29,700, respectively. They have helped Chevron over the years resist efforts to eliminate oil and gas tax breaks and to impose regulations to reduce carbon emissions.....

Aside from lobbyists currently working to advance fossil fuel interests, 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.

.....In June, Clinton's campaign announced the hiring of former TransCanada lobbyist Jeff Berman as a consultant.

[rhett o rick]

1. This is the corruption we are fighting. We need to get the Big Money out of

our politics.

[Armstead]

8. Amazing how many "Democrats" are obscuring the forest by focusing on the trees

[rhett o rick]

9. They are blinded by their authoritarian idolization. nm

[Hoyt]

2. What's she going to do with donations from oil, renewable energy, environmental groups? Which will

she favor?

[Armstead]

3. Which would be the larger donation?

Areticle is not about Clinton but illustrates the problem...

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/pro-environment-groups-were-outmatc/

Pro-Environment Groups Outmatched, Outspent in Battle Over Climate Change Legislation

It was supposed to be their time.
With significant majorities in Congress, a president promising action and favorable public opinion all on their side, many environmentalists believed their political stars had properly — and finally — aligned.
Sensing the unique opportunity to address global warming on a national scale, environmental interest groups poured considerable capital into federal lobbying expenditures in an effort to topple their significantly more wealthy foes in the energy industry whose political standing appeared uncharacteristically wobbly.
At the height of the legislative push, during 2009, pro-environmental groups spent a record $22.4 million on federal lobby efforts. That is double the average expenditure between 2000 and 2008.
Advocacy groups lobbied independently of, and in partnership with, like-minded corporations. Industry leaders — the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Fund — hit hardest, investing more than $6 million. The US Climate Action Partnership, an unprecedented conglomeration of leading advocacy groups, energy businesses and some of the U.S. largest producers, spent $1 million independently.
Yet even as pro-environment groups seemed poised to capitalize on favorable trends, moneyed opponents girded for a fight with more financial capital than ever before.
Clients in the oil and gas industry unleashed a fury of lobbying expenditures in 2009, spending $175 million — easily an industry record — and outpacing the pro-environmental groups by nearly eight-fold, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis.
fuelingwashington.jpgSome of the largest petroleum companies in the world together spent hundreds of millions of dollars in various attempts to influence politics during the past 18 months
ExxonMobil, the industry leader in 2009, spent $27.4 million in lobbying expenditures that year — more than the entire pro-environment lobby.
And in July, congressional debate on global warming stopped cold.
In other words, Goliath whipped David.
“The way it turned out was a huge disappointment, to put it mildly,” Nathan Wilcox, the Federal Global Warming Program Director for Environment America, one group that lobbied heavily on comprehensive climate change legislation, told OpenSecrets Blog.
“The opposition outspent us, and they took it to a new level this time.”

[uponit7771]

4. Sanders should stop taking oil money then right? Nah, podium bird said it was OK if Bernie does it!

[Armstead]

6. Do me a favor. Find Sanders bundlers who organize maximum contributions for him...

from large executives and lobbyists with a vested interest in oil policy.

[RiverLover]

5. Gordon Giffin

One of the many robber barons Ready for Hillary.

Million$ to one, when oil prices go back up, if Hillary is our president, Keystone XL will get approved.

[Scuba]

7. But she's never been convicted of any crime, so it's all good.

That's how low the bar is now for some "Democrats."