Joe Nocera wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times which appeared on April 12 in which he applauds the introduction of the NAT GAS Act (H.R. 1380). Nocera writes that People in the know call it the Boone Pickens bill.”
Writing about the abundance of natural gas, Nocera says,
Most experts say there is enough natural gas in the ground to last a century; Boone’s convinced that modern drilling techniques will allow us to find enough for several centuries.
In calling for swapping natural gas for oil imported from OPEC, Nocera notes that
there are already 12 million vehicles around the world that use either liquefied or compressed natural gas, though only 140,000 in the U.S. (They’re mostly buses and trash haulers.)
Nocera summarizes H.R. 1380:
The Pickens bill creates tax incentives – $1 billion a year for five years – to encourage manufacturers to begin building heavy-duty trucks that will be powered by natural gas instead of diesel. It also gives some tax incentives to truck-stop owners who install natural gas filling stations to help create the infrastructure.
He notes that Boone has made the point that it is politically impossible to move the nation’s car and light truck fleet from gasoline to natural gas, but the NAT GAS Act is important because
the 20 million barrels of oil we use each day, 70 percent goes for transportation fuel. The 8 million heavy-duty trucks on the road today account for 23 percent of that fuel.
Although the tax incentives in the Pickens bill would be enough to cover only about 140,000 new trucks, he hopes that it will catapult the industry toward natural gas even without the subsidies. Just moving the country’s big trucks to natural gas, he says, could cut our OPEC imports in half.
In conclusion Joe Nocera writes:
Natural gas is cheaper than oil. It’s cleaner. And it’s ours. If Congress can’t pass this thing, there’s really no hope. ?
To read the entire essay in the New York Times, click HERE. (Subscription may be required)
— The Pickens Team