T. Boone Pickens plans to publicize U.S. foreign oil consumption

Texan tycoon T. Boone Pickens Jr. announced that he will be launching a program to offer the public a monthly update on how much the U.S. is spending on foreign oil.

Pickens, appearing at a press conference alongside activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., drew attention to December's figures, in which the U.S. imported 379.6 million barrels of oil, which added up to $19.3 billion dollars. This amount, Pickens contends, could fun D.C.'s schools for nearly four hundred years.

In regard to the public's interest, Pickens commented that he believes there is a demand for the information.

"I know my nearly 370,000 members of the Picken's Plan that I'm in communication with... want to see them, I think it's a pretty good sampling of what America wants to see. You watch, we'll elevate the interest in this if we do it every month," said Pickens.

He went went on to say that he believed the program will result in lowering the amount of money spent on foreign oil.

"The fun of it will be....when we reduce that number, and that is going to happen. We will reduce that number.

While the Department of Energy releases this information already, Kennedy Jr. noted that it tends to not be publicized, a situation that the nephew of assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy blames on the media.

"We're very grateful in the environmental community for this plans{plan} by Mr. Pickens to release this date, and highlight this date, and publicize it," said Kennedy.

He continued, "The big problem really with the environment in this Country is intertwined with problems in our democracy. We have a press that is really not functioning to inform us about the issues that we need to understand in order to make rational decisions in a democracy."

T. Boone Pickens is the author of the Picken's Plan, which calls for installing thousands of wind turbines in the U.S. wind corridor and using natural gas to replace the gasoline used for transportation.

Pickens is for “everything that is American”

At a hearing today in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, T. Boone Pickens, founder and CEO of BP Capital Management, spoke out in support of alternative energy. Pickens unveiled his “Picken’s Plan” which focuses on capturing the abundant domestic renewable energy resources to reduce the role of imported oil in the United States. Pickens supports every available means to use American resources instead of foreign oil such as wind, solar, natural gas, drilling in ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf.

The United States currently imports approximately 70 percent of its oil from nations who aren’t always friendly towards the U.S., which is a recipe for national disaster, Pickens said. His plan calls for investing in power generation from domestic renewable resources such as wind and using the abundant American supplies of natural gas as a transportation fuel. Pickens said that 22 percent of electrical energy can be gained from wind power in the Great Plains regions. Building up wind energy in that region will also revitalize rural America and jump start the economy.

Pickens called the government to action in supporting the plan, give a 10 year extension on Production Tax Credits, which will allow private enterprises to invest in renewable energy. The current energy crisis was recently compared to the space race of 30 years ago by former vice-president Al Gore, and if the U.S. could put a man on the moon then it should be able to invest in renewable, American energy, he said. “I am for everything that is American” and “I only have one enemy and that is foreign oil,” Pickens said.