T. Boone Pickens has issued his 12th monthly press release shining a spotlight on the amount of oil the United States continues to import. In a press release published Monday, December 14, “based on the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. imported 61% percent of its oil, or 339 million barrels in November 2009, sending approximately $26.4 billion, or $ 591,477 per minute, to foreign governments.”

Since the beginning of the year, the U.S. has imported over 4 billion barrels of oil at a cost of $240 billion. That is in spite of the deep, worldwide recession. As Pickens pointed out:

“The International Energy Agency said Friday that world demand for oil will increase in 2010 as economies recover. As demand goes up, so does the price, which means we’ll be sending even more American dollars overseas if we don’t act to get on our own resources immediately.”

In the release, Boone also said:

“We’re almost finished with 2009, and we really haven’t made any progress in reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

“Failure to address this issue threatens our national and economic security, and that’s unacceptable. We have an alternative resource in natural gas that is right here in our own soil and with abundant supply to last more than 100 years. But, while we can be frustrated at our failure to reduce our dependence on foreign oil in 2009, we can be hopeful that we are closer to passing a bill in Congress that will incentivize us to use natural gas in transportation in early 2010, which will allow America to recapture control of its energy policy.

“We urge the leadership in Washington to get The NAT GAS Act passed and to make progress on reducing foreign oil dependence once and for all.”

A study released in June by the Potential Gas Committee, a group of academics and industry specialists supported by the Colorado School of Mines, estimates that we have more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, the only available source that could immediately replace foreign oil as a transportation fuel.

The NAT GAS Act of 2009, H.R. 1835, was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 1, 2009 and has 126 bipartisan cosponsors. The Senate version of this bill, S. 1408, was introduced on July 8, 2009 as a bipartisan bill by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

— The Pickens Team