And they’re all saying the same thing.
1)The Washington Post has given the Sanders campaign 3 Pinocchios:
As our colleague Philip Bump noted, about 0.15 percent of Clinton’s campaign and outside PAC money is from the “oil and gas industry,” compared to 0.04 percent of Sanders’s contributions. So it’s pretty hard to describe that as “significant,” as Sanders did in his interview.
They mentioned the Super PAC contributions:
Then another $3.35 million donations were directed by such lobbyists to Priorities USA, a Super PAC backing Clinton. We should note that under the law Clinton cannot coordinate with the Super PAC so she has no control over these donations.
So that adds up to more than $4.5 million. That’s certainly a bigger number than $333,000, but it’s still only 2 percent of the total contributions received by Clinton and outside groups backing her. Indeed, the Center for Responsive Politics does not list oil and gas as one of top 20 industries contributing to Clinton’s campaign.
And they addressed the whole thing about lobbyists:
There’s a further problem with this calculation. Greenpeace counts all of the money raised or contributed by lobbyists as “oil/gas industry” funds, but these lobbyists have many other clients besides the oil industry. Ben Klein, one of the lobbyists highlighted in the Greenpeace report, also lobbies for American Airlines, Cigna, and Hearst, according to the lobbying disclosure database, so in theory his contributions to the Clinton campaign could also be labeled as funds for airline, insurance or media industry.
“When a lobbyist represents a number of different kinds of clients, it’s a little disingenuous to say that the money was bundled by ‘lobbyists for the oil and gas industry’ without a big caveat,” said Viveca Novak, editorial and communications director at the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Sanders campaign openly admit that they’re getting their numbers from a partisan source instead of a nonpartisan source:
CRP is generally considered the gold standard for tracking campaign contributions, but the Sanders campaign rejects its method of counting. “When it comes to looking at how much a campaign has received from the fossil fuel industry, we believe that Greenpeace is the gold standard,” said senior adviser Warren Gunnels.
And their conclusion:
The Sanders campaign is exaggerating the contributions that Clinton has received from the oil and gas industry. In the context of her overall campaign, the contributions are hardly significant. It’s especially misleading to count all of the funds raised by lobbyists with multiple clients as money “given” by the fossil-fuel industry.
2)Here’s Politifact’s analysis of this:
They point out that it’s illegal for companies to donate to campaigns:
Neither Clinton nor Sanders — or any other presidential candidate, for that matter — can accept money from fossil fuel companies (or any other corporation). That would be illegal under federal campaign finance laws.
They ran down the numbers both campaigns have raised from contributions from individuals who work in the fossil fuel industry:
According to the latest tallies from Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton's campaign has received $307,561 from people who work for oil and gas interests so far in the presidential race. Sanders has received nearly six times fewer dollars — $53,760.
And let’s not forget who the fossil fuel industry is really supporting:
So far, 97.7 percent of donations from people connected the oil and gas industry have gone to Republicans.
Here’s their take on the lobbyists/bundlers:
But in Clinton’s case, that doesn't include "bundlers," a fancy name for fundraisers who collect money from individual donors and bundle the money together for a campaign.
A bundler might, for example, arrange to have each executive from an oil company, along with each adult member of his or her family, give $1,000 per person, which is bundled together and given to the campaign. It's legal because the individuals aren't violating the per-person limit.
The Huffington Post article from July 17, 2015, cited by Sanders found that "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." It links to 40 registered lobbyists but only offers details on some donors who still work for the industry.
However, the Greenpeace report says that when you add in the bundlers’ donations (lobbyists with some alleged tie to the fossil fuel industry), Clinton's total rises to nearly $1.8 million. The fossil fuel industry's share of the Clinton coffers goes up to 0.8 percent.
And on the Super PAC contributions:
The Greenpeace report goes a step further to include $4.25 million going to Priorities Action USA, the super PAC that supports Clinton.
But it’s a stretch to draw a direct line between those super PAC donations and Clinton’s campaign. Under federal law, the candidates have no control over super PAC spending.
3)MSNBC's Steve Benen talks about "Big Oil" contributions
Some key points:
It would be ridiculous, of course, to suggest the Sanders has been corrupted because that guy, “feeling the Bern,” chipped in $27. But because of the way contributions are categorized, money from an oil company CEO and a donation from a gas-station janitor are both counted the exact same way: it’s technically money from the “oil and gas industry.”I can think of compelling lines of attack against each of the candidates, but this probably isn’t one of them. There’s ample room for a debate about Clinton’s and Sanders’ energy and environmental platforms – both, by my estimation, are offering excellent policy blueprints – but neither appears to be in Big Oil’s pocket.
4)NPR is echoing what the others have said:
Put another way, the oil and gas money is two-tenths of 1 percent of Clinton's $159.9 million overall fundraising. It roughly equals the amount Sanders raised every 16 hours in the first quarter of 2016.
The Sanders campaign has relied primarily on small donors, although it, too, lists more than $50,000 in oil- and gas-related donations.
Hillary didn’t get much money from them when she ran for the senate as well:
In an analysis last December, FactCheck.org didn't rate the issue of Clinton's fossil fuel funds, but it didn't get very excited about it either. The analysis also looked back at her Senate campaign, where the industry contributions were equally paltry.
All the emphasis is mine.
I recommend reading all four articles fully.