In the current issue of U.S. News & World Report, T. Boone Pickens has an essay which begins:
“America is at a crossroads” sounds like tired campaign rhetoric, but when it comes to energy policy, we are in the middle of the intersection.
Boone reminds us that since July, 8, 2008, when he launched
the Pickens Plan to reduce our escalating dependence on foreign oil, I have talked about that dependence as the greatest threat to our economy and our national security.
As recently as April 2009, we were still importing more than two thirds of our oil needs which means:
With so much of our oil coming from foreign sources, even a relatively small disruption in supply can have an exaggerated effect on prices. We have the resource to change the equation in our favor-natural gas.
We have enough natural gas reserves right here in the continental United States to take care of all of our needs – power generation, transportation, chemical feedstock – for at least 100 years.
Boone wrote:
We should immediately begin providing incentives to truckers and fleet owners, to transit companies and school boards, to municipal, county, and state vehicles, for the purpose of kick-starting a natural gas vehicle industry in the United States. The NAT GAS Act will do that.
The United States government purchases about 65,000 civilian vehicles each year. Of those, in 2007, only 129 were powered by natural gas.
H.R. 1835 – the NAT GAS Act – will help us choose the right road to the future of energy independence.
America is at a crossroads, and the only good road to the future is domestic natural gas.
Read the entire essay in U.S. News & World Report HERE.
— The Pickens Team