Hillary Clinton is a supporter of the fossil fuel industry and a defender of fracking, and told a private meeting last year that extreme environmental activists need to “get a life,” according to new illegally obtained emails posted by WikiLeaks.
“[M]y view is I want to defend natural gas,” Clinton said in a transcript of a private meeting with a trade union last September that was sent to her campaign. The emails are from the hacked accounts of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
“I want to defend repairing and building the pipelines we need to fuel our economy. I want to defend fracking under the right circumstances,” she said. “I want to defend this stuff.”
The popular notion of Clinton is that she is a political opportunist, and will say anything to get elected, comes across in her comments. But the emails also confirm what many, including GOP strategists, have known for a while: Clinton is far more of a moderate on environmental issues than some think when compared to her former rival Bernie Sanders.
On Friday, an industry campaign called Fracking for President responded to the email transcript. The campaign pretends that fracking, the method of drilling that injects sand and water underground to produce oil and natural gas, is a presidential candidate. The practice has made the U.S. the largest oil and gas producer in the world.
“I am honored to have Hillary Clinton’s endorsement at this crucial stage in our campaign,” said the imaginary presidential candidate Fracking in a statement issued by the pro-fracking campaign. “From the very beginning, we have focused on a positive vision for America: jobs, energy security, and cleaner air. Hillary Clinton is clearly committed to the same goals, which is why she said she wants to ‘defend Fracking,’ and that environmental critics of our work should ‘get a life.’ I wholeheartedly agree.”
According to the leaked transcript, Clinton told union members that her former rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, represents the most radical environmentalists and their positions on fossil fuels and climate change, which she rejects.
“So you know Bernie Sanders is getting lots of support from the most radical environmentalists because he’s out there every day bashing the Keystone pipeline,” Clinton said. “And, you know, I’m not into it for that.”
Clinton said she is “already at odds with the most organized and wildest” among the activist community, which at the time were showing up at her rallies to harass her for not going far enough on climate change. A year ago, she was often confronted at her rallies and hand-shaking events by environmentalists asking her to make a pledge to ban the production of all fossil fuels if elected president.
“They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it,” Clinton said. “They say, ‘Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?’ No. I won’t promise that. Get a life, you know.”
Clinton went on to say she wants to strike the “right balance” between energy and environmentalism, “and that’s what I’m [inaudible] about — getting all the stakeholders together.”
“Everybody’s not going to get everything they want, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work in a democracy, but everybody needs to listen to each other,” Clinton added.
Other illegally-obtained emails published by WikiLeaks last week showed Clinton is not for imposing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, or a carbon tax, in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists blame for warming the Earth’s climate.
An email chain published on Thursday showed that Clinton’s campaign managers thought her supporting a carbon tax would be “lethal” to her campaign.
Campaign manager Robby Mook emailed Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon back in June of last year saying getting behind a climate tax would be “lethal in the general [election], so I don’t want to support one.”
The debate over her supporting, or not supporting, a carbon tax dovetail with the beginning of the primary election season and increased pressure from the Sanders campaign to push her more to the left.
Mook said he was nervous about coming out with a policy that goes either way on a carbon tax, over fears Sanders would use it against Clinton to draw contrast between his and her differences.
“Bernie I assume DOES support such a tax and it could be fodder for him if we say unequivocally now that we don’t support one,” Mook told Fallon. “[I] don’t want to give Bernie contrast right now.”
