AUSTIN—He’s said to be the richest man in Texas politics. But voters might have a hard time figuring that out from the public disclosures Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has given the state Ethics Commission.

Nowhere does it say the former CIA agent, through a privately held trust, is a major shareholder in a Houston energy and investment company. There’s no mention of his far-flung cattle ranches, private bank investments or luxury condo. Nor is there any word of the hedge funds, stocks and bonds or publicly-traded fuel distribution company he acknowledges are or have been part of a trust fund estimated to be worth up to $200 million.

It just says the David Dewhurst Trust is valued at “$25,000 or more.”

Some ethics watchdogs question whether Dewhurst, a Republican who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect GOP candidates in Texas and beyond, has complied with mandatory disclosure requirements. Either way, they say the lack of transparency about his wealth and personal dealings makes it impossible to determine if the long-serving lieutenant governor has any conflicts of interest.

“It certainly flies in the face of the spirit of financial disclosure,” said Edwin Davis, director of research at Common Cause in Washington, D.C.

Elected lieutenant governor in 2002, Dewhurst holds one of the most powerful jobs in state government. As presiding officer of the Texas Senate, he plays a major role in deciding the fate of thousands of bills affecting business, consumers, education, roads and a host of other issues.

Dewhurst told The Associated Press in an interview that he has disclosed everything required under state law and that he never mixes his public duties with his private business. He bristled when asked how much he was worth and whether he would release his tax returns.

“We’re not going there. Do I look stupid today?” Dewhurst said during an hour-long exchange at the state Capitol last week. “In Texas, we have a long tradition of not talking about the number of cattle you own or your net worth.”

Dewhurst, who worked for the CIA in early 1970s, struggled at first after returning to his native Houston in 1978 for a career in the booming Texas energy sector.

When oil prices tanked in the early 1980s, his oil-field services company, Trans-Gulf Supply, went bankrupt. But Dewhurst bounced back and by the late 1980s another of his companies, Falcon Seaboard, had branched out into the lucrative energy co-generation business, selling electricity to utilities and other industrial users.

Dewhurst finally got his payday in 1996, when Falcon Seaboard sold three power plants to CalEnergy Co. for $226 million. When he ran for Texas land commissioner in 1998, it was widely reported that Dewhurst had put his assets into a blind trust, an investment tool designed to create a firewall between public service and personal business dealings. President Bush, for example, has placed most of his family’s wealth in a blind trust.

But Dewhurst told the AP he decided against a blind trust years ago. He said he put most of his assets, including his shares of Falcon Seaboard and cattle ranches reportedly worth millions of dollars, into a standard grantor trust from the day he took elective office in 1999.