I gather you’ve got some good news.
I sure do. The Western States Land Commissioners Association just endorsed the Pickens Plan at its winter conference in Santa Fe.
That’s great. Tell us a bit about the association. You and the other members are responsible for a huge amount of the American West, aren’t you?
There are 23 states represented by the Western States Land Commissioners Association. All told our members manage 447 million acres of land, mineral right properties, and land beneath navigable waterways.
Half a billion acres could go a long way towards achieving the Department of Energy’s estimate of generating 20 percent of our country’s electricity from wind.
Not just wind but other renewables as well as all the opportunities that exist with traditional hydrocarbons. One thing is clear. We’ve got the resources. We’ve got the answers. What’s been lacking is leadership, someone like Boone to come along and point this country in the right direction.
Are people surprised to see Texas taking the lead in renewable energies?
I had a reporter from the BBC try to tell me that it doesn’t make sense for Texas to have the nation’s largest wind farm. That there was no reason we should be a national leader in wind energy. I couldn’t disagree more, and I told him so. Texas is a national leader in the energy business. Not just one type of energy. That’s wind. That’s natural gas. That’s nuclear. These are just a few of the resources we’re going to have to use if we plan to move the United States away from its dependence on foreign oil.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE