Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice’s first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project.
Rice's financial holdings could raise questions about her status as a neutral decision maker. The current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Rice owns stock valued between $300,000 and $600,000 in TransCanada, the company seeking a federal permit to transport tar sands crude 1,700 miles to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, crossing fragile Midwest ecosystems and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.
Beyond that, according to financial disclosure reports, about a third of Rice’s personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel -- including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil. Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine. That includes Enbridge, which spilled more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
Rice also has smaller stakes in several other big Canadian energy firms, as well as the country’s transportation companies and coal-fired utilities. Another 20 percent or so of her personal wealth is derived from investments in five Canadian banks. These are some of the institutions that provide loans and financial backing to TransCanada and its competitors for tar sands extraction and major infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL and Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 700 miles from Alberta to the Canadian coast.
In 2010, for instance, when Rice and her husband held at least $1.5 million in Royal Bank of Canada, the institution was labeled Canada's most environmentally irresponsible company by the Rainforest Action Network for its support of tar sands development. Public pressure from environmentalists and Canada’s First Nations tribes convinced the bank to stop funding tar sands projects earlier this year....
On the banking side, Rice has investments totaling at
least $5 million and up to $11.25 million in Bank of Montreal, Bank of
Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada,
and Toronto Dominion. A report by the Dutch consulting firm Profundo
Economic Research says several of these same banks are largely responsible
for underwriting the expansion of Canada’s tar sands industry.
“Investment in tar sands infrastructure now surpasses that of
manufacturing across all of Canada,” according to the report.
Which
means that regardless of Keystone XL’s fate, Canadian companies will
continue to seek ways to pump bitumen from northern Canada to coastal
refineries and ports, where it can be shipped to Europe, China, and
other overseas markets. NRDC and other environmental groups have presented evidence that Enbridge is making plans
to reverse a pipeline that currently carries regular crude from the New
England coast to Montreal, and use it to ship tar sands oil in the
other direction instead.
Since it crosses the U.S.-Canadian border, that plan would also require State Department approval.
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