T. Boone Pickens talked with the editorial board of the Santa Fe New Mexican about the Pickens Plan and the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The editors responded with an editorial titled, “As Gulf gusher eases, a plan to ease our oil dependence.”
In it, the editors tell their readers that Boone is pushing for a bill which would
For putting in gas-burning engines when the diesels propelling those 18-wheelers wear out …
Eventually, he figures, they’d save truckers vast numbers of dollars – and at the same time wean us from the sheiks and tinpot dictators from whom we buy so much oil.
The editorial mentions a bill recently introduced by Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) along with fellow Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tom Carper of Delaware and Michael Bennet of Colorado to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The principal sponsor, Senator Merkley, uses the exact language of the Pickens Plan in explaining why the goal of the bill is so important:
This year, more than two-thirds of America’s oil imports will come from nations that too often do not share our goals or values. This dependence on overseas oil costs our nation a billion dollars per day that could be used here at home. It also prevents the United States from fully investing in home-grown American clean energy and undermines efforts to reduce pollution in our air and water.
The Santa Fe New Mexican editors also pointed out a central pillar of the Pickens Plan:
Since transportation amounts to 70 percent of our oil consumption, this bill pushes engine efficiency and alternative energy sources. Pickens, with his proposal to convert big rigs, appears to be in harmony with Udall and Co..
As Boone Pickens has said from the very beginnings of the Pickens Plan: “I’m for anything American.”
To read the entire editorial in the Sante Fe New Mexican, click HERE.
— The Pickens Team