T. Boone Pickens was a guest on the all-news radio station in Washington, DC – WTOP.  Here is a summary of his conversation:

WTOP: In the wake of the terrible oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, how does this change our energy policy? Joining us live now is oil man T. Boone Pickens who has had a number of ideas recently for getting the country off our oil dependency. Mr. Pickens has been talking about natural gas and wind. Mr. Pickens are either of those ideas catching on?

BOONE: We’re importing over 70 percent of our oil. Of that 40 percent is on the State Department’s list of countries U.S. citizens shouldn’t visit. If you look at all the people we have in the Gulf region, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, it’s probably costing us between $500 and $1,000 per barrel of oil. That would be totally unacceptable if we were being charged that amount.

The alternative to importing oil from our enemies is domestic natural gas.

Here’s what would be a very quick fix, involving a reasonable number of vehicles, which we could do as a test – to see if the model would work – would be to replace our 8 million 18-wheelers currently burning largely imported diesel, with trucks which run on domestic natural gas.

That would replace 2.5 million barrels a day – half of our daily imports from OPEC.

We should run a test using 18-wheelers because they use such a large amount of imported oil and a refueling infrastructure is much simpler than for passenger vehicles.

I want to go All-American: Batteries are great, hybrids are great, ethanol I can live with, natural gas is great, and you’ve got butane and propane. Let’s put it to the American people and say: “Look, let’s get off our enemies’ oil.” Let’s look out five years and let American’s pick a fuel (it has to be domestic) they would choose for their transportation fuel.

I think they would be it would bring the country together, it would be great for our economy, it would clean up the environment, and it would help our national security.

We have to reduce our one-billion-dollar-per-day oil import addiction. We want to continue to use Canadian and Mexican oil because that helps the regional economy.

WTOP: A lot of people remember your commercials which featured windmills. Are you off wind energy?

BOONE: Absolutely not. I want renewables, I want solar; and I want wind – get on American resources. But, wind and solar don’t move an 18-wheeler. The only fuels which will do that are diesel or natural gas.

WTOP: Are elements of [the Pickens Plan] in the Senate energy bill?

BOONE: Yes. They’re in the Kerry-Lieberman bill and the Bingaman bill. They’re in there because ours is the only part of anyone’s legislation which reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

We need to be honest with the American people. There are a lot of environmental pieces to these bills and I’m fine with that. But, you can’t shut down 52 percent of our power generation from coal and replace it with wind and solar. That isn’t going to happen.

WTOP: If the Senate doesn’t act do you have to start from scratch next year?

BOONE: I’m still hopeful that we’ll get a bill this year. We have more natural gas reserves than another other country in the world. It’s 30 percent cleaner than diesel, it’s cheaper, and it’s ours.

We will be fools if we do not take advantage of this resource.

WTOP: Thank you for your time, Mr. Pickens.

BOONE: You bet!

— The Pickens Team