Pickens Plan District Group CA-43

Comment

Comment by Dani Lanz on June 1, 2009 at 4:42pm

Support the NAT GAS Act of 2009 (H.R. 1835)
New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2009

Call Representative Xavier Becerra's Office: (202)225-6235 and ask Representative Linda Sanchez's office (202)225-6676 and ask them to co-sponsor HR 1835.

The NAT GAS Act:
• Gets more natural gas vehicles (NGVs) on the road faster by extending several tax credits (alternative fuel credit for natural gas, natural gas fueled vehicle credit, and the natural gas vehicle refueling property credit)

• Balances the cost of NGVs on the front end through tax credits for the incremental costs and allows the credits to count against the AMT provisions and be transferable.

• Supports infrastructure investments through tax credits for building refueling stations.

• Sets government as the example requiring that at least 50 percent of new vehicles purchased for government fleets be capable of operating on natural gas.

Natural Gas is Clean, Abundant, and Domestic
Across the board, NGVs achieve some of the cleanest levels of emissions on the road today:

• We import almost 70% of our oil from foreign countries yet natural gas is an abundant and domestic natural resource – 98% of the natural gas used in the United States is from North America.

• Newly available technology has given us access to natural gas from shale, extending proven US natural gas reserves to nearly 120 years at current consumption levels.

• Natural gas is available on nearly every street in America through a network of 1.5 million miles of distribution pipelines across the country.

• AT&T recently announced plans to purchase 8,000 American made natural gas vans. With the incentives included in H.R. 1835, more business can be encouraged to make similar investments.

• According to the EPA, cars running on natural gas cut overall toxic emissions by 93 -95%.

Please contact your Member of Congress and ask them to support H.R. 1835.

Boone on the issue: “America’s national and economic security depends on moving off foreign oil as quickly as possible. Natural gas is the cleanest, most abundant, most economical domestic fuel to replace imported diesel. The U.S. has enough natural gas reserves to last us more than 118 years – we should turn to it as an immediate replacement for foreign oil in fleets and heavy duty vehicles. A battery can’t move an 18-wheeler-the technology isn’t there yet. Natural gas buys a bridge to the future.”

Comment by Dani Lanz on May 7, 2009 at 11:06am

T. Boone Pickens – oil and gas entrepreneur, corporate pirate, physical fitness buff, cattle rancher, geologist, compressed natural gas vehicle advocate and wind energy visionary – has a story he likes to tell about wind.

A reporter supposedly went down to Texas with him to interview ranchers about the coming of giant wind turbines to the open ranges. Looking for controversy, the reporter wanted to interview locals who opposed the turbines. He couldn’t find any. Finally, he went to Pickens. “There must be somebody.” Pickens sent him to a cowboy who, Pickens knew, would give the reporter something to write about.

“You live here,” The reporter, approaching the man, confirmed.

“Yep.”

“A long time?”

“Yep.”

“Do you like all these turbines being built?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” the reporter exclaimed, frustrated with the taciturn man and the fact that he wasn’t getting what he wanted. “Do you know anybody who DOESN’T like them?”

“Yep.”

“WHO?” The reported asked excitedly.

“The guy who ain’t got any,” the cowboy said.

Pickens has a plan. By now everybody knows that, a fact proven by a recent but yet-to-be released Harris Poll. According to Pickens, 70% of those surveyed were familiar with the Pickens Plan to shift U.S. natural gas over to fuel the nation’s heavy vehicle transport and use the abundant winds of the Central Plains in place of natural gas to generate electricity for the nation’s power grid.

More important to Pickens, 78% of those surveyed favored the Plan.

As the result of his $60 million dollar campaign to put his plan across (entailing an ongoing personal appearance tour), Pickens - a natural talker and storyteller - has found all the exact formulations to win approval from his audiences. It did not, of course, take much effort win approval from the wind industry professionals who composed his audience as he was interviewed by former CBS Newsman Bill Kurtis at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) WindPower 2009. His plan to put wind to work at its maximum potential and get Congress to fund a new national transmission superhighway to deliver Plains wind to population centers is exactly what the wind industry wants as well.

The particulars of the Pickens Plan - how much oil dependency costs in American money going to people who don’t like America, how wind has totally reversed the deterioration of Sweetwater, Texas, and can do the same throughout the MidWest, how his plan provides the only real, comprehensive national energy policy so far presented to the country – are abundantly available at the website. What is always refreshingly surprising when he launches into his drawling, loquacious presentation is how well Pickens can talk. His optimism, in this time of economic travail and deal-making slowdown, was encouraging. His stories were delightful. His confidence was contagious.

Recently, Pickens has added some new talking points to his call to get America off foreign oil.

He is backing the huge push coming from the Obama administration, the wind industry and all the other New Energies to get Congress to pass the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) now working its way through Senate and House subcommittees.

Like its other advocates, Pickens believes an RES, requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025, is exactly the kind of stable, long term policy that will bring a long, steady New Energy expansion.

He is insisting a transition to a New Energy economy is going to happen because the American people, the new President and the Congress all want it. He believes meaningful legislation will be passed by the end of the summer.

He has developed a new nonchalance toward political opponents. He doesn’t seem to believe they threaten his plan because opposition leaves them open to being accused of being FOR dependence on foreign oil and he invited his audience to make that accusation if they encounter such recalcitrants.

He says he is not worried about the part of his plan that calls for transitioning the nation’s heavy transportation to compressed natural gas. He wants to do it by the California model. California has transitioned half its trash truck fleet to compressed natural gas by making it illegal to buy new diesel-powered trash trucks and giving trash-hauling companies a $50,000 credit for every new natural gas-powered truck they buy. A purchase of 10 new natural gas-powered trucks gets the company a free natural gas fueling station.

He says he is not worried about the enormous expense of building the necessary new transmission system because his friend Warren Buffet told him private enterprise will do it when the demand for it is there.

He believes significant Not-In-My-BackYard (NIMBY) and Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anything (BANANA) opposition to new transmission will not materialize. He recounted a chat he recently had with Ted Turner about new transmission crossing their ranchlands. “If it’s good for this country, its good for Ted Turner,” Turner told Pickens, who says his answer is the same. “I have the feeling many many landowners feel the same way,” he added. “I think we’re ready to go.”

There is one other new verse in the Pickens Plan sermon T. Boone has been dedicatedly preaching since July 2008. It’s something else he got from Ted Turner. “When we go green,” he quotes Turner, “it will be the best economy America’s ever had.” He smiled. "I like Ted's predictions. I think he's a smart guy."

He ended his appearance the way he always ends his appearances. “Sign up with me. Help me.”

He got a standing ovation.

Comment by Dani Lanz on April 17, 2009 at 10:20am

Greetings:

Across the United States, we have seen what ordinary citizens can accomplish. A number of elected officials are supporting the Pickens Plan because their constituents asked them to.

There are a number of crucial elements of the Pickens Plan which are now before Congress. The Pickens Plan is a comprehensive effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We want to stop the hundreds of billions of dollars from flowing to foreign governments and keep it in the United States and recycled through OUR economy.

Please reach out to your elected officials and ask them to support:

- Incentives to build out our clean, and renewable domestic energy production capability especially wind energy in the Great Plains and solar energy in the Southwest;
- A 21st Century electricity transmission grid to move that energy from where it is produced to where it is needed;
- A national Renewable Energy Standard so utilities, producers, and consumers can plan on a system-wide scale rather than dealing with confusing and contradictory state-by-state regulations;
- Strong incentives to refit older homes and commercial buildings and to outfit new construction to increase energy efficiency. Energy we don’t use is energy we don’t have to import.
- Leadership in increasing the use of DOMESTIC natural gas especially in heavy trucks – 18-wheelers – and fleet vehicles which are used in a local or regional area and go back to the same central facility each night. Express delivery trucks, buses, refuse and recycling trucks and campus/municipal vehicles are examples.

Legislation on all of these items is currently moving through the House and Senate. Now is the time to get it done. Please write, call, email, FAX or make any appointment to meet your representatives today!

Please take action by clicking HERE.

Comment by Dani Lanz on April 2, 2009 at 12:49pm

Pam Barnes AZ-03 and her group talk energy at a Virtual March signing--Great Turnout!

Comment by Dani Lanz on April 1, 2009 at 2:45pm

The Virtual March is On!

YOU ARE 500 PEOPLE.

For each day of the March please CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS!

I’m asking you to do this every day of the March because in political arithmetic your effort is counted as 500 in the minds of our elected officials.

Every email legislative aides receive is statistically calculated to represent 500 people in a congressional district who feel exactly the same way...even if they didn’t actually write. That’s absolute fact. It’s a simple thing to do, but it has tremendous impact.

So sign in and sign up! Every Day.

Comment by Dani Lanz on March 31, 2009 at 12:16pm

Comment by Dani Lanz on March 20, 2009 at 9:45am

Easter recess is almost here and we want your local elected officials to see your efforts! So work on getting opinions submitted to your local newspaper.

Think local. Every bit helps. Reach out to your local green groups, environmental groups--anyone that has an interest in clean energy, solar, wind, alternative fuel. Encourage their involvement in the March--it's coming up fast!

If you have a group/organization that wants to get involved--ask them to send in their logo and estimated number of march participants from their organization! Keep me posted on your activities too--I report up the chain every week and believe me--they are interested in hearing what you are up to. Thanks for all of your hard work!

Comment by Dani Lanz on March 10, 2009 at 1:30pm

Greetings!

The virtual march is in less than 4 weeks and this week we're picking up the pace.

The goal is to get everyone in the District Group focused and engaged
on some of the activities going forward. As usual, we are tracking all
of the activities on the leaderboard--so be sure and check out to see how your group is doing!

Many of the activities are things you are already doing but I want to be sure you are commenting on this page some of the results of your activities so the group knows what everyone is up to.

Specifically, we are focusing on the following action items:

1. We'd like each district to host a District Meeting or Conference Call in
the next couple weeks to discuss how you can take action between now and the virtual march. Materials for hosting a house party/meeting are available at the RESOURCE CENTER.

I am available any time to work through an agenda for those meetings and keep everyone focused and on task.

2. We've been busy recruiting third party groups (i.e. American Wind Energy Association, Owens Corning, AEP, AutoNation, etc) to participate in the Virtual March with their memberships/employees. A press release will be going out this week announcing those groups and you can also track them on the Virtual March web page. Each District Group is also
being challenged to find at least one local group or business that is willing to participate in the virtual march and communicate with their members/employees to get them involved by registering online for the Virtual March. The Clean Cities Coalition or any renewable group/organization/company are ideal opportunities to get them involved. Your local electric company are also great targets. If your company has not gotten involved--make a presentation and get them to sign up! I have posted a document with some talking points you can use for this outreach
and it will also be uploaded to the Resource Center. As you recruit
organizations, report them back to me and comment about them on this page so we can get them added to the list on the Virtual March page.

3. We are asking each District to attempt to get 3 letters to the editor in
support of the Virtual March placed in their local newspapers (although just 1 would be great, obviously). Letters to the Editor are probably more realistic than op-eds--some of the papers have been notorious for NOT publishing ours--let's keep trying.

4. Continue recruiting new supporters signed up specifically to participate in the virtual march. Have them sign up on the virtual march page!

5. Schedule a meeting/call with your Member of Congress or staff
in-district to discuss their position on energy legislation. This is a
heavier lift, but a good ask for anyone with direct contact or relationships with their elected officials--report back to me the response you receive.

I know this is a lengthy list, but this is what we've been preparing for since the inception of the Pickens Plan campaign July 8th, 2008. I also know not every District will accomplish all these tasks - but whatever you are willing to do and can accomplish over the next few weeks is so important!

So team this is what it's all about. This is what it comes down to--our best opportunity and hope for energy independence.

Your determination, hard work and ingenuity is appreciated. Thank you all--and let's show Washington what an organized, collective group of passionate citizens can accomplish!!

Comment by Dani Lanz on February 21, 2009 at 11:47am

Please watch Boone's latest commercial. It's a good one. Pass it on to everyone you know. Remember to tune in to the Energy Summit on Monday, February 23rd at http://www.pickensplan.com/summit at 10:15 a.m. EST. This is what we have been working for these many months. This is where it all comes together.

Comment by Dani Lanz on February 17, 2009 at 7:09pm

Please watch. This is exciting news!

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last