Gov. Sebelius invested in coal power, but blocked new coal plant?

News stories yesterday revealed that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius disclosed that she and her husband would need to divest investments in three stocks and a mutual fund to avoid a conflict of interest as HHS Secretary. This suggests many questions:

Why were some of these investments not a conflict of interest for Sebelius as Governor? Are the conflicts of interest statements in Kansas of much value if none of Sebelius’ “problem” investments were ever reported when she was governor?

Where are the “clean energy” folks protesting her investments in “dirty energy” like coal, and other “greenhouse gas” causing energy sources?

The four problem investments for Sebelius were Kronos Worldwide Inc., NL Industries Inc., Westar Energy Inc., and the Fidelity Advisor Energy Fund.

Sebelius filed her 2008 Statement of Substantial Interest (SSI) in April 2008 with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission and it’s available from the Kansas Secretary of State. The Center for Public Integrity published her SSI from April 2006, which lists mostly what was in the 2008 report along with another ownership interest. None of the four investments reported today can be found on her Kansas conflict of interest statements. Are SSIs in Kansas adequate when they miss all four of these investments?

News reports speculated that the stocks Kronos Worldwide and NL Industies could be a possible conflict of interest for Sebelius as HHS Secretary since the FDA regulated these companies that manufactured titanium dioxide.

What about the other two energy-related investments?

Not much can be said about the Fidelity Advisor Energy Fund, since there appears to be four separate Fidelity funds that might have that name: FAGNX, FANRX, FANIX, and FANAX.

Did Gov. Sebelius invest in Westar because of their wind energy project?

But what fraction of Westar’s generation capacity is from wind? The answer was 0% for 2008 since the wind power project was only completed in late 2008. What other generating capacity does Westar have?

At best the new 295 MW will represent a little more than 4.3% of the total. But with the rule of thumb that wind turbines only provide power about 40% of the time, the available capacity would be closer to only 1.8% of the total capacity.

Even with an upper-bound value of 5% wind in an investment, why would anyone invest in a business for only 5% of what it does?

Why didn’t Gov. Sebelius invest in pure wind stocks? Why was Gov. Sebelius investing in a company that had over 50% of power generation from coal, at the same time she was vetoing a new coal plant? Why was she favoring one business over another? If coal is so bad, and Sebelius is so “green,” why was she making money from coal?

If Gov. Sebelius was so committed to reducing greenhouse gases, why was she making money from her investment (coal, natural gas, disel fuels for power) in creating such gases?

Why is this only a conflict of interest now that Sebelius wants to be HHS Secretary?

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