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.

This week I participated in an international meeting on "Achieving Greater Transparency in Legislatures through the Use of Open Document Standards." It was co-hosted by the United Nations, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and included representatives from 16 parliaments, non-governmental representatives, multi-lateral organizations, and academia. It is impossible to recapitulate all the conversations that took place, but  presentations are (or will be) available online here and video will be available online as well.

I was struck by the candor of the participants, the breadth of the undertakings by the various parliaments, and the apparently sincere desire of many parliaments to learn from each other and from the non-governmental community. For my part, I made a presentation on the state of legislative transparency in the American context, with a focus on principles to evaluate whether electronically-stored government data is being properly made available for public use, followed by an examination of first steps that parliaments can take to increase public access to legislative information. The full text of my remarks are available below.

Access to Parliamentary Information and Open Data Standards

President Obama is speaking to the General Assembly of the United Nations right now. He spoke out on the need to increase transparency and use technologies to increase democratic participation. Here's the relevant quote--full text here:

Each of these countries gives life to democratic principles in their own way. And even as some governments roll back reform, we also celebrate the courage of a President in Colombia who willingly steps aside, or the promise of a new Constitution in Kenya. The common thread of progress is the principle that government is accountable to its citizens. The diversity in this room makes clear - no one country has all the answers, but all of us must answer to our own people. In all parts of the world, we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable. Now, we must build on that progress. And when we gather back here next year, we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency; to fight corruption; to energize civic engagement; and to leverage new technologies so that we strengthen the foundation of freedom in our own countries, while living up to ideals that can light the world.

(Emphasis mine.)