By Lina Garcia
February 2, 2009

On the eve of the Presidential Inauguration, T. Boone Pickens laid out his plan to the nation's mayors on how to promote greater energy independence, focusing on increasing the development of renewable energy supplies in the U.S. and utilizing more natural gas to power vehicles, especially larger vehicles and fleets.

Pickens, who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management and has been a national spokesperson on the urgent need for America to develop domestic energy resources, especially wind power, began his speech by thanking the 185 mayors who have endorsed his future energy blueprint, known as the "Pickens Plan."

Launched July 8, 2008, he explained that his plan seeks to reduce American dependence on imported oil by investing approximately $1 trillion in new wind turbine farms for power generation, which Pickens believes would allow the nation to shift natural gas currently used for power generation to fuel trucks and other heavy vehicles that operate on compressed natural gas (CNG). In his remarks, he told the mayors that his plan could cut the nation's annual expenditures for imported oil by $300 billion (43 percent).

When Pickens first unveiled his plan, the price of gasoline was $4.11 per gallon, which he noted has currently dropped to under two dollars. But his point in citing the price decline is his belief that this drop in costs is only temporary and reminded the mayors that gas prices will rise again. Aside from the inevitability of higher gasoline prices, Pickens cited the nation's dependency on foreign oil as a national security issue.

"The U.S. is not viewed favorably around the world because we have not been able to address our energy dependency problem. Today, we're importing almost 70 percent of our crude oil. Some of it comes from friends while some of it comes from enemies too," he said.

Pickens also pointed out that President Richard Nixon in the early ‘70s stated that by the end of the decade, the U.S. would not be importing foreign oil. At the point when President Nixon made the statement, Pickens said, "We were importing 24 percent;" an import share that subsequently rose to 28 percent by the end of the decade. He also discussed how almost every President since that time had made the promise of ending America's dependence on foreign oil. He added that other countries like Russia have joined OPEC, which is not a favorable move for the U.S.

Pickens told the mayors that when we analyze the sources of our oil, we will discover that sometimes we're paying for both sides of a war. According to Pickens, President Obama's promise to end oil dependency in ten years, particularly from the Middle East and Africa, means that we must also cut ties to countries like Venezuela. He also said that Venezuela has already made a deal with China to soon supply all their oil to them. Citing other global developments, Pickens said he believes that oil prices will again rise to $100 per barrel, once the world economy strengthens and demand for gas rises.

"If we don't do more than what we've done in the past 40 years, which is nothing to create an energy plan, gas prices will rise again. Let's jump over to the year 2019, when we will then be importing 75 percent of our oil and the price will then be $200-$300 per barrel. We will be in a very serious predicament," he said.

To solve this problem, Pickens warned that the U.S. must move to utilize our own resources, including wind and solar energy. This will also entail fixing our energy grid, which will allow us to capture wind energy from the Great Plains as well as solar energy from the desert Southwest. "Fixing our grid will allow us to move that power easily out of those corridors and generate more power across the nation," he said.

"I am not opposed to nuclear power. I'm not opposed to anything that is American. But I'm opposed to foreign oil," he said.

On the issue of offshore drilling, he stated that he's not opposed, but rather he does not believe drilling will solve our consumption problem, since we will not be able to keep up with our demand. "If we could get two million barrels within ten years, I would be pleasantly surprised. But we're currently importing 11 million, so two million is not going to solve the problem. We need to utilize every resource we have and get it over to the transportation sector because 70 percent of oil we import goes to transportation."

In addition to expanding wind and solar power resources, he urged the mayors to support his efforts to change the way some of our largest vehicles are powered, citing southern California and the use of CNG-powered trash trucks to illustrate how larger vehicles can both reduce gasoline consumption and pollution. For example, one diesel trash truck in southern California that switched to natural gas can reduce the pollution equivalent of 325 cars on the road. Pickens wants to implement this same model for 18-wheel trucks. "Using natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. The reason we haven't switched over to use more natural gas is because we haven't had a national leader to cut our dependency on foreign oil. But I really believe that President Obama will serve as that leader," he said.

Pickens estimates his plan will not only create 400,000 jobs but also help reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil by four percent. He also reminded mayors that natural gas is a transition to the day when new battery technology will be available to help power vehicles instead of natural gas, sometime over the next decade. According to Pickens, if leaders follow his plan, the nation can reduce its foreign oil dependency by 50 percent in ten years.