Secretary of State Candidate Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar Sands
I keep wondering why Benghazi has been so blown out of proportion, it's not really an issue for Susan Rice, she said what the intelligence agencies told her to say and the right has had a field day using her as their latest chew toy. What concern's me more is her huge investments in Canadian tar sands and oil (which is smart, oil is PROFITABLE, it's why we can't make more changes in energy policy than we want to, I also believe it's immoral, profitable doesn't equal moral), more importantly, her investments in the company that wants to run a tar sands pipeline through parts of our Country.
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.
It's an important part of our Country, this fresh water aquifer is valuable land and as many understand, oil is not the future for energy, it should be seen as our past, investing more and more money into a dying energy source, a dead and dirty energy source is not the right thing to do, although it is the profitable thing to do for very few people. And Susan Rice is invested in this old, dirty energy.
Doesn't this mean that maybe, if she is nominated as Secretary of State, that she just might have a conflict of interest?
The review of the pipeline has already been put into question:
“There is overwhelming evidence that the pipeline review process has been a sham, corrupted by bias, lobbyist influence and conflicts of interest. It should be obvious to the White House that it would be wholly inappropriate to continue moving forward with this rigged process while violations of law and federal regulations are being investigated.
“In contrast to what we have seen emerge thus far from the State Department, a fair, impartial review would take into account the tremendous harm that the pipeline and tar sands extraction linked to it would cause, as well as the risks of spills and other environmental damage. If a fair review that accurately reflects the true costs of the pipeline is conducted, President Obama will have little choice but to stop the pipeline.”
US State Department to Review Tar Sands Pipeline
So I'm not quite sure how putting Susan Rice in charge of the State Department is going to make anyone feel better about the pipeline review process.
“It’s really amazing that they’re considering someone for Secretary of State who has millions invested in these companies,” said Bill McKibben, a writer and founder of the activist groups 350.org and Tar Sands Action, which have organized protests against the Keystone XL project. “The State Department has been rife with collusion with the Canadian pipeline builders, and it’s really distressing to have any sense that that might continue to go on.” Emails obtained by an environmental group last year show what critics call a “cozy and complicitous relationship” between State Department officials and a lobbyist for TransCanada, who was also a former deputy campaign director for current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential bid. The agency also assigned an environmental impact review of the Keystone project to a company with financial ties to TransCanada.
As ambassador to the United Nations, Rice has not been directly involved in the State Department’s Keystone XL review, which came to a head at the end of 2011. After initially indicating it would likely approve TransCanada’s application, the State Department ordered a review of alternate routes to avoid putting critical water sources in Nebraska at risk. The move, which officials said would likely push the approval process back to the first three months of 2013, was an attempt to spare the Obama administration a politically risky decision just before an election year.
Rice has spent the last two days on the Hill and she's expected to be the nominee, so this is a critical issue and a legitimate question.
As climate talks are ongoing in Doha, Qatar the topic of climate change is in the air. The news is not positive, from the growing impact of melting permafrost to the acceleration of rising sea levels, our time to act grows shorter.
Is Susan Rice's biggest issue really Benghazi? Shouldn't we be more concerned about her oversight of a massive infrastructure project that invests more money and energy into something we really can't afford to spend more time and energy on? When are we going to stop doing this to not only ourselves but to our kids and their kids? The answer is not in more dirty energy and endangering more precious resources we cannot replace easily.
So does this make you rethink Susan Rice as a possible nominee for SOS?