Boone Blog – Press Club & Georgetown University

Monday

The two big events of the day were a noon speech at the National Press Club and an afternoon town hall at Georgetown University – both in Washington, DC.

The National Press Club is the Washington, DC home to many newspapers, radio and television stations.

Someone told me that in recent history only two people have sold out one of these noon luncheon speeches: Billy Joel and … Boone Pickens! I guess one guy with two FIRST names and another guy with two LAST names sort of balance things out.

Anyway we had about 300 journalists and others in the room. I had a slightly different message than I’ve had before, because I put it on the reporters to hold these politicians to their word.

Every President since Richard Nixon has said that he would reduce or eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. And as you know all too well, not a one of them have come even close to keeping their word.

The press corps is the only group of citizens who have direct access to the President and Vice President, Senators and, Governors and State Legislators. We can ask the same questions the reporters can, but the reporters have a megaphone – their newspapers or TV programs – to tell us whether the politicians are honoring their word.

But I told them they have to use that megaphone on behalf of the people of America. We’ll see if they do.

Next stop for the day was Georgetown University for a town hall with the students. My grandson is a sophomore there so I had to be on my best behavior.

They’re students, so they were used to sitting through lectures. I went through my white board presentation and they followed along pretty closely.

When I finished up, aside from the main points of the Pickens Plan that I was pushing at them, I wanted to plant this idea firmly in their minds:

This is not for me, this is for you … and for your kids. Your generation, I told them, is going to have come up with the new technologies which will finish the job of getting rid of foreign oil imports – the Pickens Plan provides the bridge to give you the time to get that done.

— Boone