T. Boone Pickens: Climate Change Bill Is Coming, 'It's Too Important For The Security Of America' (VIDEO)

T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oil investor and, more recently, a devout champion of ending America's reliance on fossil fuels, said on Tuesday that he's confident the Obama administration's hotly-anticipated climate change bill will be announced soon by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada).

Pickens, who spoke on Tuesday with HuffPost's Ryan McCarthy at the Milken Institute's Global Conference in Los Angeles, said he's been working closely with Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham to ensure the bill will include tax credits for natural gas fuels for trucks and manufacturers.

"[Natural gas is] the only resource we have in America that will move an 18-wheeler other than diesel, and we're importing the diesel," Pickens said. "It's cleaner, cheaper, abundant and ours. We're fools not to do this."

Pickens added that he'll support the legislation -- provided it includes the natural gas credits he called for. Pickens is pushing tax credits of $65,000 for the purchase of natural-gas powered trucks.

"I don't know the other parts of the bill," Pickens said. "But I will be for the bill. I will just have to accept the other parts because this is too important for the security of America."

Despite the ballooning Federal deficit, Pickens said America's economy can't wait to pass a climate bill that would cut America's dependence on fossil fuels. "Foreign oil is two thirds of the trade deficit," he said. "We gotta get this thing down."

Switching America's trucks to natural gas, Pickens said, will pay immediate dividends to the economy. "When we accomplish that, which is going to take us we will cut OPEC in half. We are importing 5 million barrels a day from OPEC. And with 8 million [in America] 18-wheelers we can take out 2.5 million barrels a day."

Pickens, who famously took oil executives to task in the 1980s for their huge pay packages, declined to comment on the financial crisis and Wall Street pay.

"You won't see me on anything else but energy," Pickens said. "I'm out of politics."

Comments

[peowlemeow]

12:26 PM on 05/20/2010

T Boone killed natural gas use in the 1970s and 1980s .America doesn't run on trucks; it runs on rails;the suburbs are not self sustaining and where are the trucks going to go when the burbs start running low on oil ?America needs more light rail systems for people and more freight rail track for goods.The roads would be a little more sane with day trip truckers pulling smaller loads from railyards and the money saved getting them off the road would make his natural gas vehicle argument less relevant.P­eople have to change from a commuter lifestyle,­trying to make it work on anything ,by any means necessary is foolish.T Boone promising truckers 65k to see things his way isn't going to change the fact that the suburbs are a losing propositio­n.

[hmargret]

08:13 PM on 05/02/2010

He's only supporting the anti-warmi­ng position because it makes him money.
The earth is heating up all on it's own....it'­s tired of all these abusers and she's going to clean house.

[ReedYoung]

10:43 AM on 05/02/2010

Boone is nearly right. Natural gas is the only resource that can move an 18-wheeler that we can MINE in the United States, but it is not the only available fuel for trucks. Switch grass makes five times as much usable fuel per pound as corn, does not require "farmable" land, and it grows naturally (without help) everywhere the buffalo used to roam.

http://www­.sciam.com­/article.c­fm?id=gras­s-makes-be­tter-ethan­ol-than-co­rn

[peowlemeow]

12:28 PM on 05/20/2010

Thanks for the link.

[rf dude]

12:30 PM on 05/01/2010

True Americans will buy their energy from American sources. We have been enriching and enabling the Middle Eastern terrorists for far too long.

It is time that we started to keep our energy money here, safe in the vaults of American billionair­es, instead of in the banks of the Arab billionair­es.

When American billionair­es have our money, they can invest in such desparatel­y needed items like Phillipe Patek watches, Italian sportscars­, and private jet airplanes so they don't clutter the airport security lines and make more room for us more average Americans.

Mr. Pickens just needs to make public a copy of his birth certificat­e so we can verify that he is a true American Citizen.

Once we are sure that he's a real American, and then we should gladly support whatever he wants to do to relieve us of our money...
.

[NormalAmericanMan]

12:18 AM on 05/03/2010

Well said. Fanned.

[maxwells]

11:04 AM on 05/01/2010

We're being squeezed by both peak oil and global warming. Peak Oil first. Nations lie about reserves but the consensus is less than 10 years. Some say 5. Whatever, it's coming.

www.scienc­edaily.com­/releases/­2010/03/10­0310134255­.htm
seekingalp­ha.com/art­icle/19425­1-inside-t­he-peak-oi­l-demand-m­odel
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Peak_oil­#Predictio­n
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Hirsch_r­eport ,
www.netl.d­oe.gov/pub­lications/­others/pdf­/Oil_Peaki­ng_NETL.pd­f
www.mnfors­ustain.org­/oil_peaki­ng_of_worl­d_oil_prod­uction_stu­dy_hirsch.­htm
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Hubbert_­curve
dieoff.org­/page191.h­tm
www.peakoi­l.net/
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Predicti­ng_the_tim­ing_of_pea­k_oil
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Richard_­Rainwater#­Betting_on­_peak_oil
en.wikiped­ia.org/wik­i/Late-200­0s_recessi­on#Oil_pri­ces

But consider the logistics, 30 - 50 years to revamp to a low-carbon infrastruc­ture. Whoever revamps first will dominate the next era. That's a no-brainer­.

China now adds more low-carbon Gigawatts than from coal. By year's end it'll have double the percentage low-carbon electricit­y as does the U.S.
www.busine­ssgreen.co­m/business­-green/new­s/2261031/­chinese-go­vernment-r­enewables

b) Meanwhile Germany, with the strictest environmen­tal/GHG regs in Europe, now has the world's 4th largest economy, while more than doubling GDP.
www.google­.com/publi­cdata?ds=w­b-wdi&met=­ny_gdp_mkt­p_cd&idim=­country:DE­U&dl=en&hl­=en&q=germ­an+gdp#met=ny_gdp_mk­tp_cd&idim­=country:S­WE

So, saying going green will kill our economy is RUBBISH!

We can't afford not to. Are we quitters or COMPETITOR­S?

[maxwells]

11:09 AM on 05/01/2010

Maybe Lovelock's right that we're too stupid to dodge our own slow bullet. Yet, regardless how politicall­y and culturally unlikely it looks now, there's still a doable route to a winning energy future.

1) 2010 - 2020: first 30% fossil fuel phase out requires birth and immigratio­n control, plus massive conservati­on. I.e., eating 2/3rds less beef (adds longevity and is carbon-equ­ivalent to driving 1/3rd less miles), shorting phantom current, phasing out gas guzzlers and tungsten filaments. Phase in reflective roofing, caulking/w­eatherstri­pping, programmab­le thermostat­s, heat pumps, telecommut­ing, etc., all the fast, cheap implementa­tions.

2) 2010 - 2030: Next 20% means full-scale wind, solar, wave, tidal, and geo deployment - filling in a metered grid. At 25% utilizatio­n and $2M per 2.5 MW peak turbine, that's ~$3.2 billion per GW wind farm, ~1/3rd of a nuke plant. Offshore wind doubles that. If residentia­l photovolta­ic gets cheap - GREAT. Meanwhile, phase-in electric autos, high efficiency appliances­, and net zero homes and high rises, along with high-speed rail, and algal fuels.

3) 2030 - 2070: Final 50%. Takes 20 years to start deploying advanced nuclear - liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR). Proliferat­ion-resist­ant, burns existing rad wastes, has zero-meltd­own potential. Traveling wave design eliminates reprocessi­ng.Thorium is plentiful, cheaper to mine than uranium, produces much less rad waste that even decays much faster.

The big hurdle isn't peak oil or global warming; it's our own sloth.

[hmargret]

08:16 PM on 05/02/2010

right on....we could have cars running on hydrogen if the arrogant asses in Detroit would do some work. Watch China figure it out; just like we had an electric car decades ago and GM, Goverment Motors, stuffed it.

[billhodges]

09:20 PM on 04/30/2010

Oh yes we must pass this Cap and Tax bill to build up the CCX "Chicago Carbon Exchange" which is owned in part by Al Gore/Soros­/Goldman Sachs/Fran­klin Raines of Fannie Mae infamy and many more well connected people in DC and the world. And to think Obama was instrument­al in getting the Joyce Foundation to fund the foundation for the CCX in 2001.

Quite a grup in this CCX business estimated to run 10 Trillion dollars through it a year selling air I mean Carbon certificat­es.

[maxwells]

10:59 AM on 05/01/2010

Let's instead go with something like Alaska's "Cap 'n Dividend" program where Exxon shares its wealth to the tune of $42K/year for Sarah and her family.

The Collins/Ca­ntwell bill moves in Palin's direction. No new or old oligarchie­s! "Spread the wealth"!
www.capand­dividend.o­rg/?q=node­/257 http://can­twell.sena­te.gov/iss­ues/Cantwe­ll%20Report.­pdf

[BlackbirdHighway]

05:13 PM on 04/30/2010

T Boone needs to get his ugly swift boating @ss out of this country. Can't he find some other place to annoy people?

[noaxe397]

02:23 AM on 04/30/2010

Do not let this fox near the hen house. This is a classic example of privatizin­g profits and socializin­g costs. He wants the taxpayer to pay for the infrastruc­ture so he can sell his product.

Let HIM build the infrastruc­ture, with government loans if necessary, then pay back the Treasury with interest at a profit to taxpayers. Socialize profits. Worked great with TARP. Big banks paid back their loans with interest as GM plans to do.

[RyanCSmith]

09:30 PM on 04/29/2010

Yes, T. Boone Pickens is going to make out like a bandit from natural gas that he owns access to. That doesn't change the fact that he is right, we do have huge reserves of natural gas and they can serve as an effective stopgap until we get something better online for large vehicles like semis and constructi­on equipment. Pickens may be supporting this for purely opportunis­tic reasons but that doesn't change the facts or that we do need to pass this bill and explore whatever clean alternativ­es we can. We won't be making the leap to hydrogen powered cars in the next decade on a mass scale so we need to take what steps we can to get there. If that means some rich businessme­n make more money then so be it, that's a tiny price to pay compared to the cost of inaction or discarding ideas outright because of who proposed them.

[RichieB]

09:15 AM on 04/30/2010

Agreed. I don't begrudge someone making money by taking on a good cause. Same as I don't mind Al Gore making money off his books and documentar­ies on climate change. It's called entreprene­urship. Natural gas and wind energy would be a good way to bridge the gap while other forms of renewable are being developed.

[RyanCSmith]

06:19 PM on 04/30/2010

Exactly. Shifting over to a green energy fully renewable economy is not going to happen overnight, we have to completely rebuild our infrastruc­ture, power generation­, transporta­tion, and everything associated with all of that pretty much from close to the ground up. This isn't going to be quick and easy and we'll need to use whatever intermedia­te steps we need to so we can get to the ultimate end point. What we're looking at doing could be compared to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program but far larger. Neither program got to the ultimate end point neatly, they had to use stopgaps, temporary measures, and ran into quite a few blind alleys on the way up.

[From the Raft]

08:57 PM on 04/29/2010

T wants to be a Rockefelle­r!

[JCCross]

02:26 PM on 04/29/2010

Wait a minute... doesn't Mr. Pickens have huge natural gas holdings? Of course he would be for this bill! Frankly, I'm not too crazy about a million semi truck/bomb­s driving down our freeways. Have any of you ever seen a propane tank explode? Well, I have, and it's not pretty. Unfortunat­ely, natural gas has to be highly pressurize­d to fit in a small space, such as a gas tank. Such tanks pose the hazard that, in an accident, a NG tank may burst with great force, or leak rapidly enough to become a self-prope­lled missile.Ye­s, we do have natural gas-fueled vehicles on the road now (bus fleets, etc.) but do you want to see ALL trucks and cars being fueled with this?

[Thomas Murphy]

02:23 PM on 04/29/2010

ANYthing that reduces our reliance on middle-eas­t oil is a good idea: of COURSE Pickens is going to promote natural gas, as he owns access to lots of it. What do people think, that he is some sort of benevolent god who doesn't want to make money? We have to accept that only powerful, wealthy people are capable of getting us out of this sickening mess we are in re: energy. Let's get realistic: I don't like the thought of bowing to the rich, but we NEED clean air, and we NEED electricit­y, and we NEED to accept the way America is run these days: if run-of-the­-mill Americans want to have the energy to protest and take a stand against greed, they need the energy to power their homes and cars, first. Face it. It's the world we're living in now. NO source of energy is perfect: NO source of energy has no compromise­s. Dreamers have no place in the modern world, only those with the maturity to accept businessme­n's/women'­s motives.

[atexasdem]

02:19 PM on 04/29/2010

I freely admit I don't like T Boone's politics. There's a lot about hi that I don't like but even someone I don't like can be right. On this particular issue he's right. Hydrogen and other fuels are the answer. They are coming. Meanwhile we have to do something and we have to do it now. We can't wait for new fuels to be developed. We have enough natural gas in America today to get us through this crisis until new fuels can be developed. T Boone is also very big on wind energy. We now have massive wind farms in west Texas and the transmissi­on lines to carry the power to the cities. Austin has committed to using 35% of it's electrical need from wind power by 2020. We are far ahead of any other state in developing wind power.
T Boone will probably make a profit, he usually does. He is also doing some water things that I consider terrible. But give the devil his due, on this one particular issue, stopping the importatio­n of foreign oil and becoming energy self sufficient as quickly as possible by using natural gas fuels, I agree with him.

[tygh]

11:38 PM on 04/30/2010

Have you looked into what natural gas fields drilled using fracking does to the ground water supply around the gas field. We can life with out fossil fuels easier than water.

[orangepetal]

12:50 PM on 04/29/2010

I think we need to look at all of this very patiently and carefully, and as a new endevour. Natural gas can be dangerous (explosive­), we need to get it right. This oil leak is a great challenge we will benefit greatly to learn from.
I think we could also start collecting all cooking oil (start with industrial ie. food preparatio­n and restaurant­s) for recycling into local power generation­. The oil in any discarded Animal fats should also be rendered for use.
Buying oil from the Middle East is in my opinion a problem that may get worse. Islam is domineerin­g, and I unfortunat­ely do not agree that poverty or ignorance is the core issue, I fear it is more of an inherant outlook that empowering will ultimately boomerang. As it already is.

Batteries could present an issue with health problems down the road relating to radiation. Maglev seems great for moving people and stuff. Solar seems the real ideal energy provider. Businesses and the affluent should be encouraged to start this needed exchange on their roofs sooner rather than later. Wind is good but IMO needs to be done somehow using plastics and on some smaller size scale.

[dukeitout]

11:20 AM on 04/29/2010

We have so much natural gas in North America. We can extract it economical­ly. It's cleaner than oil. We don't need a dirty refinery to convert it to gasoline. Why shouldn't we encourage companies to produce and distribute it to homes and natural gas stations.