Energy Security
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T. Boone Pickens, the Republican Texas oil mogul who has been pushing a renewable energy agenda, will be among the experts testifying before a Senate panel Tuesday on energy security.

As oil prices continue to hover around the $140 per barrel mark, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are likely Tuesday to use the Senate hearing as a forum to push for increased U.S. energy security, the idea of reducing foreign influence over the energy consumed in the United States.

Last week, Pickens began a public relations push for the energy plan he simply has titled, "The Pickens Plan." Pickens says installing wind farms in the midsection of the United States could produce 20 percent of electricity consumed domestically, alleviating the need to use natural gas to make electricity.

Under the Pickens Plan, natural gas along with biofuels would power all transportation, reducing foreign oil dependence -- according to Pickens' numbers -- by one-third.

The Economist magazine last week reported that Pickens' plan isn't entirely altruistic, however. According to the magazine, Pickens' company Mesa Power has invested $2 billion in a Texas panhandle wind farm. But Pickens, chairman and founder of BP Capital Management, also regularly points out he doesn't need the money.

The hearing, titled "Energy Security: An American Imperative," will be held at 9:30 a.m. Other panelists before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will be Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security; Geoffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Smart Growth America; and Habib Dagher, director of the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Laboratory.

Reader Comments
  
Pickens is an oil neocon
By Liz Jul 22nd 2008 at 9:23 am EDT
All he want to do is control energy.

He would be doing the same thing with renewable wind energy that he has done with oil.

The only difference between Pickens and the other greed oil barons is that Pickens is smart enough to know when it is time to leave the party and the others apparently are not.
  
Re: Pickens is an oil neocon
By John Anthony Jul 22nd 2008 at 2:23 pm EDT
Have you not heard Al Gore?

He wants us to be energy independent in 10 years, I hope Barack adopts this plan.
  
It's a start
By BobVADemHawk Jul 22nd 2008 at 6:26 pm EDT
Mr. Pickens plan, IMHO, has some merit. Until we can build the infrastructure necessary to implemnt VP Gore's plan, we can us Mr. Picken's plan to ween us off of foreign oil.