A Member of Congress on the Pickens Plan

Boone has made it absolutely clear, since July 8 when he launched the Pickens Plan, that this had nothing to do with partisan politics. On almost every television show, someone asks Boone who he’s supporting for President. He says the same thing: “I promised to stay out of this race and I’m a man of my word.”

Here’s an example of why we are so strong on keeping the Pickens Plan out of politics. Up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is running for her third term in Congress. She recently sat down with the editorial board of the Argus-Leader newspaper and talked about all the things you have to talk about with the editors of newspapers.

We wanted to point out to you how strong our message is—and how deeply the New Energy Army is “drilling down” into the public policy debate—with this excerpt from Rep. Herseth Sandlin’s interview.

EDITORIAL BOARD: What are your plans for expanding wind power generation and the transmission of that power?

HERSETH SANDLIN: Well, first we do need beyond a one year extension of the production tax credit. We need a multiple-year extension, four or five years at a minimum, 10 years at the most, although that’s going to be difficult.

On transmission, we have to look at a public/private partnership here to get this done. Absolutely, you need federal authority to site the energy corridors on the timetable that we want to harness this wind and have it displace fossil fuels and natural gas from our electricity sector.

T. Boone Pickens is of the mind that if we site the corridors, the private investment will be there and it will flow and it will get done. I would like to think that would be the case.

But I think we have to set a very aggressive timetable and we can’t have a patchwork system developed. And that’s where I think we do need some direct infusion of public money in addition to private investment.

Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin is a Democrat, she’s read the Pickens Plan and she is on board.

— The Pickens Plan Team

PS: Don’t forget to sign the Pickens Petition! You can do it by clicking here.