Susan Rice holds stock in Keystone pipeline developer

Susan Rice, who might be nominated by President Obama for secretary of State, has stock holdings in the Canadian company that is seeking approval from the State Department to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Rice's holdings in TransCanada Corp., valued at between $300,000 and $600,000, are listed in a financial disclosure report for 2011 that was filed earlier this year.

The holdings open up Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to criticism from environmentalists at a time when she’s already under fire from Republicans over her descriptions of the attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya.

Green activists are strongly pushing the Obama administration to reject TransCanada’s proposal for the pipeline that would bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.

The administration is planning to make a decision on the project as soon as early 2013.

OnEarth magazine — which is published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group — reported on the holdings earlier Wednesday. 

The 2011 disclosure form requires a list of assets of Rice and her spouse, who is Canadian-born. The form is available on the website of the Center for Responsive Politics. 

In addition to the TransCanada stock, the form lists assets in a range of oil-and-gas companies active in Canada and the U.S., such as Suncor Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, Devon Energy, and the pipeline company Enbridge Inc.

The White House did not comment Wednesday when asked whether Rice would divest the holdings if nominated for secretary of State.

Administration officials are able to recuse themselves in matters where there is a conflict-of-interest.

For instance, two members of the Securities and Exchange Commission did not participate when the SEC voted 2-1 to finalize rules requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

Environmental groups bitterly oppose the Keystone project due to greenhouse gas emissions from extracting and burning oil sands, forest damage from the massive projects in Alberta, and fears of spills along the route.



But the project has strong support from oil and business groups, and many unions, who tout jobs from the project and increased energy ties with Canada, which is already the largest supplier of oil to the U.S.