The widely reported possibility of United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice's nomination to become secretary of state now has a lot of people talking about a Sunlight Reporting Group story, first published almost exactly a year ago, about her stock holdings in TransCanada, the company trying to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. So we thought we'd show you what all the chatter is about.

Rice's holdings in the company that wants to pump tar sands from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico are becoming another flash point in the debate over her much-discussed but still-unofficial candidacy to replace Hillary Clinton. That's because the State Department will play a key role in determining whether the international pipeline -- which it already held up once last year -- will ultimately go forward.

It's already provoked an acrimonious debate and massive amounts of lobbying that crosses the U.S.-Canada border and reached all the way to Europe. Last year, Sunlight dove into at least nine databases to track it all down.

According to an article in today's Washington Post, the number of lawmakers owning and trading stocks has nearly tripled since 2001. This brings with it a concern that personal financial conflicts of interest may interfere with the honest legislating the public expects from their representatives or appear to to the general public, lessening trust in an institution that is hardly held in high-regard.

You can read the whole Post article to hear about the various stories of lawmakers owning stocks and taking positions that would support their bottom line. I'm going to focus on the underlying disclosure issues that are brought up from this problem.

As has been reported here and at Real Time Investigations, personal financial disclosures for lawmakers are wholly inadequate, particularly in reference to stock trading. As the Post article notes, "The congressional financial disclosure system, an annual form filled out and policed by members of Congress, is supposed to help keep lawmakers honest and reassure the public by making stock holdings transparent. But the reporting is delayed, information is limited and the paper forms prevent the computer analysis of trading that is commonplace elsewhere."

Financial disclosure forms are filed annually. There is no way to police a practice when the reporting is this rare. There is also no reason that the reporting could not be in real time. All of this information is reported in real time to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Stock sales, purchases and trades could easily be reported in real time to the Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate and publicly disclosed in a delayed fashion so as not to directly affect the daily trading on the exchanges or futures markets.

Rep. Brian Baird sponsored a bill that would begin to move the disclosure train in the right direction. The Stop Trading on Congress Knowledge Act (H.R. 682) -- please forgive the mortifying acronym -- would require lawmakers to disclose to either the Clerk of the House or Secretary of the Senate all stock activity within 90 days of taking action. The bill would also require those trading intelligence to lawmakers on financial matters to register and disclose their activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.

Baird's bill looks like a good vehicle to move disclosure in the right direction, not only on financial disclosure, but also on lobbying disclosure. I'm going to go into the bill and relevant sections to check what it will change and how that could move lobbying disclosure down the road a little more.

"My name is Daniel Plainview and this is my son and partner H.W. Plainview. I'm an oil man." Ok, ok, there won't be blood, but there will be money made from oil profits. Over the last two weeks, gas prices and oil industry influence have been a key focus in both the media and here on this blog.

Last week, I looked at campaign contributions from the oil industry to a group of Republicans staging a pro-oil industry protest on the floor of the House. There are other ways to look at the economy of influence using publicly available data. For one, members of Congress must disclose their assets in personal financial disclosure forms. In this case, I want to look at stocks, in particular oil stocks. Thanks to Open Secrets' personal financial disclosure database, I was able to put together the nifty chart below.

This chart shows stock holdings in the leading oil companies by members of the House of Representatives. If you aren't familiar with personal financial disclosures, they require lawmakers to list assets in a range (i.e.: $15,001-$50,000). In the chart you will see a low estimate, a high estimate, and an average. In some cases, lawmakers list the actual value - not a range - and that is listed in this color.

So, who's going to make money if Congress passes pro-oil industry legislation:

(Source: Open Secrets)