USNWR: T. Boone Pickens: Break Our Foreign Oil Addiction With Natural Gas

T. Boone Pickens: Break Our Foreign Oil Addiction With Natural Gas
By T. Boone PIckens
Posted May 26, 2009

"America is at a crossroads" sounds like tired campaign rhetoric, but when it comes to energy policy, we are in the middle of the intersection.

Since July 8, 2008, when I launched the Pickens Plan to reduce our escalating dependence on foreign oil, I have talked about that dependence as the greatest threat to our economy and our national security. Our consumption is out of whack—25 percent of the world's oil production with only 4.5 percent of the world's population and just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We have to get off foreign oil, and the only way is with domestic fuels.

Some argue that we should take a free market approach to energy, that government should be hands off. That's ridiculous at many levels, but I always ask, do you think OPEC is a free market? I am not suggesting we "pick winners" among resources. I'm for anything American.... Read more