The following letter was printed in the Wall Street Journal Monday morning:
For six months I have been warning about the danger to America’s economy and national security presented by the Chinese utilizing state-owned banks to provide funding for state-owned oil companies to buy or control oil supplies (“China’s $20 Billion Bolsters Chávez,” page one, April 19). Since Dec. 1, 2007, China has spent approximately $175 billion on oil purchases and “loans for energy” deals to secure future oil production.
China’s oil imports jumped 33% in January, according to China Daily, and “64.5% of China’s oil consumption is likely to be met by imports in 2020.” The world is coming out of recession, and the demand for oil in every industrialized country is going to grow. What’s the shorthand for this? China has a plan. We have no plan.
We cannot, should not and need not compete with China for oil. About two-thirds of the oil we import is used as gasoline for our 250 million cars, light trucks and sport-utility vehicles, and as diesel for our eight million heavy-duty trucks, which use about a third of that transportation fuel. If we can move that fleet from diesel to domestic natural gas over seven years we would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and would no longer need a drop of oil from the nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
There is legislation now making its way through Congress that would do just that: The NAT GAS Act (H.R. 1835 and S. 1408). We have natural gas reserves in excess of 200 years due to modern recovery techniques. We can create jobs, clean up our environment, enhance our economy and protect our national security by using clean, domestic natural gas instead of dirty, imported diesel.
Any energy bill that doesn’t include using domestic natural gas for heavy trucks isn’t a plan for America; it’s a plan for China.
T. Boone Pickens
Dallas
Read more about China’s plan HERE.