T. BOONE AND THE BEST ECONOMY AMERICA’S EVER HAD

T. Boone Pickens – oil and gas entrepreneur, corporate pirate, physical fitness buff, cattle rancher, geologist, compressed natural gas vehicle advocate and wind energy visionary – has a story he likes to tell about wind.

A reporter supposedly went down to Texas with him to interview ranchers about the coming of giant wind turbines to the open ranges. Looking for controversy, the reporter wanted to interview locals who opposed the turbines. He couldn’t find any. Finally, he went to Pickens. “There must be somebody.” Pickens sent him to a cowboy who, Pickens knew, would give the reporter something to write about.

“You live here,” The reporter, approaching the man, confirmed.

“Yep.”

“A long time?”

“Yep.”

“Do you like all these turbines being built?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” the reporter exclaimed, frustrated with the taciturn man and the fact that he wasn’t getting what he wanted. “Do you know anybody who DOESN’T like them?”

“Yep.”

“WHO?” The reported asked excitedly.

“The guy who ain’t got any,” the cowboy said.

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Pickens has a plan. By now everybody knows that, a fact proven by a recent but yet-to-be released Harris Poll. According to Pickens, 70% of those surveyed were familiar with the Pickens Plan to shift U.S. natural gas over to fuel the nation’s heavy vehicle transport and use the abundant winds of the Central Plains in place of natural gas to generate electricity for the nation’s power grid.

More important to Pickens, 78% of those surveyed favored the Plan.

As the result of his $60 million dollar campaign to put his plan across (entailing an ongoing personal appearance tour), Pickens - a natural talker and storyteller - has found all the exact formulations to win approval from his audiences. It did not, of course, take much effort win approval from the wind industry professionals who composed his audience as he was interviewed by former CBS Newsman Bill Kurtis at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) WindPower 2009. His plan to put wind to work at its maximum potential and get Congress to fund a new national transmission superhighway to deliver Plains wind to population centers is exactly what the wind industry wants as well.

The particulars of the Pickens Plan - how much oil dependency costs in American money going to people who don’t like America, how wind has totally reversed the deterioration of Sweetwater, Texas, and can do the same throughout the MidWest, how his plan provides the only real, comprehensive national energy policy so far presented to the country – are abundantly available at the website. What is always refreshingly surprising when he launches into his drawling, loquacious presentation is how well Pickens can talk. His optimism, in this time of economic travail and deal-making slowdown, was encouraging. His stories were delightful. His confidence was contagious.

From PoliticalRealm via YouTube.

Recently, Pickens has added some new talking points to his call to get America off foreign oil.

He is backing the huge push coming from the Obama administration, the wind industry and all the other New Energies to get Congress to pass the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) now working its way through Senate and House subcommittees.

Like its other advocates, Pickens believes an RES, requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025, is exactly the kind of stable, long term policy that will bring a long, steady New Energy expansion.

He is insisting a transition to a New Energy economy is going to happen because the American people, the new President and the Congress all want it. He believes meaningful legislation will be passed by the end of the summer.

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He has developed a new nonchalance toward political opponents. He doesn’t seem to believe they threaten his plan because opposition leaves them open to being accused of being FOR dependence on foreign oil and he invited his audience to make that accusation if they encounter such recalcitrants.

He says he is not worried about the part of his plan that calls for transitioning the nation’s heavy transportation to compressed natural gas. He wants to do it by the California model. California has transitioned half its trash truck fleet to compressed natural gas by making it illegal to buy new diesel-powered trash trucks and giving trash-hauling companies a $50,000 credit for every new natural gas-powered truck they buy. A purchase of 10 new natural gas-powered trucks gets the company a free natural gas fueling station.

He says he is not worried about the enormous expense of building the necessary new transmission system because his friend Warren Buffet told him private enterprise will do it when the demand for it is there.

T. Boone Pickens, headliner, at WindPower 2009

He believes significant Not-In-My-BackYard (NIMBY) and Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anything (BANANA) opposition to new transmission will not materialize. He recounted a chat he recently had with Ted Turner about new transmission crossing their ranchlands. “If it’s good for this country, its good for Ted Turner,” Turner told Pickens, who says his answer is the same. “I have the feeling many many landowners feel the same way,” he added. “I think we’re ready to go.”

There is one other new verse in the Pickens Plan sermon T. Boone has been dedicatedly preaching since July 2008. It’s something else he got from Ted Turner. “When we go green,” he quotes Turner, “it will be the best economy America’s ever had.” He smiled. "I like Ted's predictions. I think he's a smart guy."

He ended his appearance the way he always ends his appearances. “Sign up with me. Help me.”

He got a standing ovation.