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WASHINGTON – T. Boone Pickens has a new role model: Al Gore.
Mr. Pickens, a longtime Republican partisan, and Al Gore, the former Democratic vice president, don't agree on much when it comes to politics. But Mr. Gore's global-warming awareness campaign has set a bar for Mr. Pickens' own effort to sound alarms about the dangers of depending on foreign oil.
"The goal is to have a greater impact than Al Gore has had on global warming," said Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Mr. Pickens. "He envisions an aggressive campaign to make this the No. 1 public policy issue in America and drive to real measurable change."
Whether that will happen is uncertain, but Mr. Pickens has already made it to Washington, where he presented his plan to a Senate panel on Tuesday. Afterward, the Texas oilman said he's approached both presidential candidates about discussing his plan for reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil.
"We still don't have the candidates talking about it," Mr. Pickens said. "I want to elevate it into the presidential debate."
With Congress taking heat for high gasoline prices but deadlocked over whether to expand domestic drilling, the presidential race offers a shortcut for influencing energy policy. Mr. Pickens, 80, plans to take part in a Las Vegas energy summit next month – where he'll appear with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former President Bill Clinton – that will develop recommendations to be unveiled at both parties' political conventions. While Mr. Pickens has garnered Democratic praise for his plan, he has more natural ties to Mr. McCain's campaign. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a close McCain ally and national-security hawk, invited Mr. Pickens' testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Tuesday. Mr. Lieberman, I-Conn., voiced frustration with "incremental steps" toward a viable energy policy and said he was "spoiling for some bold T. Boone Pickens-type action." "I hope his boldness will infect a lot of other people here in Washington," he said. Tuesday's hearing was loaded with the kind of peak-oil predictions that Mr. Pickens has used to make headlines. At one point, he said oil could reach $300 a barrel if demand continued to outstrip supply. His plan turns on reducing demand by boosting wind power for electricity and using natural gas to power automobiles. Mr. Pickens, who is heavily invested in West Texas wind farms, is running a $58 million advertising campaign to promote his ideas and earning a lot of free attention from the media. No stranger to politics, Mr. Pickens has hired a dozen Washington lobbyists to keep his ideas in circulation, according to aides. Other lobbyists are talking to governors with renewable-energy agendas, including Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, aides said. Mr. Pickens still insists that regular people are more important to his plan than lobbyists. His Web site features links to groups that say they have hundreds of members in nearly every state. Mr. Pickens was coy Tuesday about who would build the national grid needed to carry renewable energy from West Texas and other wind corridors to the rest of the country. He estimated its price between $70 billion and $100 billion. "If the government wanted to build a grid, do it," he said. "But if they don't want to do it, I think the money is there to do it privately." Kenneth B. Medlock III, a fellow in energy studies at Rice University's Baker Institute Energy Forum, said the strength of Mr. Pickens' plan is its use of available energy sources, rather than new technology such as advanced biofuels, which don't exist. Some of his goals, such as reducing oil imports by 30 percent in 10 years, are aggressive, Dr. Medlock said. They would turn on advancements in power storage and a faster turnover in vehicle fleet to natural gas-powered automobiles. "Typically those sorts of things take longer than 10 years to occur," Dr. Medlock said. "I'd say 20 years is probably more feasible." The plan faces other technological hurdles. Because wind doesn't blow all the time, the country would need backup sources of power or a way to store electricity when it wasn't needed, which Mr. Pickens said "is not too far into the future." Some lawmakers have questioned whether using natural gas for transportation would drive up its price, which is high but lower than oil on a per-gallon basis. Such concerns helped stall climate-change legislation. Opponents warned that new controls on coal-fired power plants would trigger widespread switching to natural gas as a feedstock. "We have had such pressure from the chemical industry and others that use it ... to make it available to them so they can keep jobs here, that we have not focused on automobile engines to be fed by natural gas," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. How America can wean itself off foreign oil, according to T. Boone Pickens: •Use eminent domain to site the transmission infrastructure needed to ship wind and solar power around the country from its source in Texas and the Midwest. •Authorize a 10-year, $15 billion federal tax credit for wind- and solar-power projects. •Require that all government vehicles – including public transportation buses – use compressed natural gas instead of diesel or gasoline. T. Boone Pickens is blazing an independent path as he pushes leaders to adopt his plan to wean the U.S. off foreign oil. While lawmakers from both parties quote him liberally, Mr. Pickens has criticized both parties for promoting measures that he thinks are insufficient and even feckless: •On Democrats' proposal to lower prices by removing oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve: "A waste of time. We need to fix a problem, not fool around with stuff like that." •On Democrats' insistence that financial speculators are to blame for driving up the price of oil: "That is just wasting time as far as I'm concerned. The market is the market, and you have 85 billion barrels of supply, and demand is 86 and a half billion barrels. Eight-five billion doesn't cover 86 and a half billion." •On Republicans' arguments that new coastal drilling is a vital part of reducing foreign imports: "I'm not a big believer. I think you are going to get a rude awakening as to the value of the East and West Coast when it's opened up and when it's put up for sale."
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