In a story in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, T. Boone Pickens responded to the announcement last week by President Barack Obama that he is expanding offshore drilling. Excerpted comments and a link to the complete story follow:
ON THE ABUNDANCE OF DOMESTIC NATURAL GAS:
“This is our chance. I think it’s almost divine intervention that we had all this gas show up at this time in the deal,” said Pickens.
ON REPLACING DIESEL-POWERED TRUCKS WITH ONES USING NATURAL GAS
“If you replace eight million 18-wheelers with natural gas, you have cut OPEC in half,” Pickens said.
ON FEARS THAT DRILLING FOR NATURAL GAS CONTAMINATES WATER SUPPLIES:
“You’ve been fracking wells in Texas and Oklahoma for 50 years,” Pickens said. “I’ve never heard anybody complain about your damaging the water. We’re just amused that people in Pennsylvania and New York are crying about messing up their water.”
ON HIS MOTIVES:
“If I was trying to make money, I wouldn’t spend $62 million going on there, and a helluva lot of time – I put 629 hours on a plane in 2009,” Pickens said about his campaign. “So I think there’s no question about my patriotism and sincerity about trying to get us on our own resource.”
Read more HERE.