In a wide ranging interview with Philip Klein of The American Spectator, T. Boone Pickens shared his thoughts on topics ranging from the economic advantages of natural gas to the status of energy legislation on Capitol Hill. One point he repeatedly hammered home was that natural gas is the only fuel that can replace imported oil:

“You need to replace oil from the Mideast, the OPEC oil, and you replace it with the one resource you have in America, which is natural gas. We don’t have any other resource that will replace that oil. Now, you say it’s more expensive. Well, no, it’s not. It’s infinitely less expensive. One Mcf of natural gas is $4.50. It’s the equivalent of 7 gallons of diesel. They’ll do the same job. One Mcf at $4.50, or 7 gallons of diesel and $21. So it’s very easy to say which one is the cheapest.

Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner than imported oil, yet the Pickens Plan is not about converting all vehicles on American roadways to run on natural gas. The focus of his plan is brand new heavy-duty trucks:

“I’m not talking about your car. I’m not interested in your car. I’m interested in 18-wheelers. Because they use 20,000 gallons a year. So if I could get the 8 million 18-wheelers to natural gas and away from diesel, that’s 2.5 million barrels a day. So that cuts OPEC in half with 8 million vehicles. And there are 250 million vehicles in America. So, the stations will come with the vehicles. That’s a no-brainer.”

Pickens also gave an update on the NAT GAS Act:

“The natural gas will pass quickly. We have 144 co-sponsors in the House on 1835, and if it goes standalone on the first vote you get 350 votes for it, so no question it will pass.”

It’s been more than two years since Pickens last sat down with The American Spectator. Yet during that span, the underlying precept to his Pickens Plan has remained constant:

“The overall concept that I have is, let’s get on our own resources. And that means you’re going to use natural gas, wind, solar, ethanol, nuclear. I don’t care what it is, but get on our own resources.”

Read the entire article HERE.