T. Boone Pickens Has a Plan

You may have noticed the price of gas is up, as you fill up your tank. You may have noticed that your electricity bill is higher this summer than last. You may have noticed the price of groceries is up as you shop for dinner.

When President Bush came into office, he submitted an energy plan to Congress and it went nowhere. It included, for the first time, alternative energies like hydrogen cells, and other new technologies developing out there. As has been the habit for the past 30 plus years, Congress pushed it to the back burner.

Year after year. The same thing.

No new refineries built since 1970. No increased areas of exploration for oil. No wind technology off pristine coastal views from mansions. Bigger and bigger cars and an explosion in sales of SUVs. India and China get stronger and more productive.

If today's energy costs are a surprise to you, where have you been? For years I have been telling anyone who would listen to contact their congressional delegation to demand a viable, common sense energy policy. That is where the buck stops.

As easy and tempting as it is to blame the big oil companies and executives with large salaries and bonuses, they are hardly the sole source of today's problems. Where was everyone when those of us in the oil drilling business were dealing with lay-offs, slashed salaries, and facing career changes due to $8 a barrel oil during the 1980's? Sure. Not a word when gas is cheap. Americans were more than happy to just fill up and don't think about future years or what may be coming down the road.

Since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, after campaigning on change, peace, love, and hugs for all, the price at the gas pump has doubled. Remember when everyone was complaining about $2 a gallon gas?

In order to remain as partisan as possible and beholden to every environmental group on the far left, the Democrats are the party of 'NO'. No to drilling, no to nuclear plants, no to anything other than these elusive 'alternative' energies we keep hearing about. Every Democrat from Obama on down the line says drilling won't help our immediate needs. We have to develop alternative energies.

Well, if drilling had been approved even as recently as 10 years ago, under Bill Clinton's administration, the price of your next tank of gas would have been a lot less. Simply saying no because it doesn't help tomorrow is insane. Something has to start sometime.

As Nancy Pelosi demands the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be drained so that it looks as though she has a thought and is doing something, she fails again to learn from history. That action has never accomplished the goal. Clinton tried it. Nothing. The Bush administration has stopped adding to it. It is not within the law for reserves to be released, except for an emergency. $4 a gallon gas is not an emergency. Painful, yes. But not an emergency.

The real emergency behind Pelosi's latest shell game is the 9% approval of Congress that became known this week. There's her emergency. The first woman to be Speaker of the House embarrasses all of us of her gender.

Now, Pelosi says drilling in areas currently off limits is a hoax. "It's a decoy to punt your attention away from the fact that their policies have produced $4 a gallon gasoline." Whose policies, Nancy?

The Democrats say use it or lose it to oil leases currently held by oil companies on federal land. Problem is, as they know but are too caught up in an election year to be honest brokers of the truth, a land lease doesn't guarantee oil production. Most leases, as a matter of fact, turn out to be unusable. If it was so easy as to just buy a lease and start successfully drilling, don't you think we'd have avoided this mess to begin with? And, I won't bother to rebute the "two oil men" in the White House slur that the hacks continue to spew. What crap. Showing continued ignorance doesn't move us forward or solve the problem.

Hence, 9% approval ratings. The American people are not so stupid as they think.

Enter T. Boone Pickens. This 80 year old successful oil man has a plan. He has begun the rollout of this plan and you can access the web site for all the scoop. Check it.

He is investing his own money and putting up a wind farm in the Pampa, Texas area. West Texas has an abundance of wind. He refers to the midsection of our country, stretching from West Texas to the border with Canada, as the "Saudi Arabia of the Wind". Anyone listening?

It isn't happening overnight, even for him. But, it's a viable solution and it's a start. Its renewable, clean and domestic. Maybe this begins to tamp down the idiotic notion that those in the oil drilling business don't care about the environment, as though they don't also need to breath clean air; drink clean water; enjoy the land and sea.

A wind farm began construction in the Gulf of Mexico, as oil drilling continues, but it proved too expensive for the investors. Some wind farming is happening now in West Texas. It is an alternative that can work along with continued, and more, oil drilling.

Common Sense.

It's a start.

Oh, yeah. There's this - Obama now is open to increased oil drilling, as is McCain. Funny what an 80% poll number in favor of that will do.

Speak up. Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.