The Massachusetts official overseeing most of the state’s clean energy investments has a personal portfolio that includes stock holdings in many non-clean energy businesses.

The 2010 ethics filing of Patrick Cloney, executive director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, reports 44 holdings worth more than $1,000, of which 10 are in the energy field. They include oil companies ConocoPhillips, Canadian Oil Resources, Canadian Oil Sands, Suncor Energy, and Gazprom, as well as power plant owners in the US and China and one of the nation’s largest natural gas pipeline operators.

Cloney said he didn’t personally select any of the stocks. He said he invested his money with Kinetics Asset Management because he liked the firm’s investment philosophy. The company made stock purchases on behalf of Cloney and other clients in keeping with that philosophy. “I didn’t have the ability to say ‘buy that’ or ‘sell that,’” Cloney said. He also notes the spring of 2009, when his investment bets were placed, was a great time to invest in virtually any sector because the market overall was so low.

Cloney says he is a big believer in the need to develop clean energy resources, but the presence of oil companies in his personal portfolio says a lot about the financial markets, at least the markets in the spring of 2009. Investment managers were flocking to Big Oil and other mature energy companies because they represented safe investments. By contrast, the investments Cloney is pursuing for the Clean Energy Center in wind, solar, and other technologies are far more risky, and that’s why the state is involved, to help close the financing gap.

To view Statement of Financial Interest filings for more public officials in Massachusetts, see CommonWealth’s Full Disclosure page.