From the Denver Post:

T. Boone Pickens swooped into Colorado for the second time in the past month Wednesday, drumming up support for his plan to cut the country’s foreign-oil dependency. A standing-room crowd of about 375 at the Elks Lodge warmly welcomed the 80-year-old Texas oil-and-gas tycoon, applauding his entrance before an official introduction.

Attendees included residents from this farming community about 200 miles southeast of Denver, visitors from neighboring states and politicians such as U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and state Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo.

“I want you with me, and that’s the only way to get the pressure on Washington to do what we need to do,” Pickens said.

And from the Pueblo Chieftain out of Colorado:

With a Texas swagger and drawl, Pickens stood before people from across Colorado and surrounding states talking about cutting the nation’s demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade.

He said his proposal would reduce America’s estimated $700 billion annual dependence on foreign oil imports by greatly expanding the use of wind energy, and freeing up natural gas for use as a transportation fuel.

Unveiled on July 8, the plan calls for replacing more than one-third of imported energy and saving more than $230 billion a year. “Politicians in Washington have never addressed this question and the question is that we are importing more foreign oil all the time and it is being imported from few friends and several enemies. I am convinced that we are funding both sides of the (Iraqi) war,” Pickens said. Pickens said that $700 billion a year to buy oil is more than four times the cost of the war in Iraq.

“Everybody talks about the cost of the war but they don’t talk about the cost of oil,” he said.

“Can you imagine how much we could do for the country if we had that money here instead of there? When it leaves it’s gone” he added drawing cheers from the audience.