Q&A with T. Boone Pickens

T. Boone Pickens made a name for himself, and a few billion dollars, as an oilman and corporate raider. These days he has a new mission: promoting the “Pickens Plan .”

By improving the nation’s electric transmission system, vast wind resources from the Dakotas to Texas could be tapped to power population centers hundreds of miles away, according to Pickens. The natural gas that once went to electric utilities could instead be used as a transportation fuel.

{mosads}Because natural gas is cleaner than gasoline and wind doesn’t pollute at all, the Pickens Plan has attracted advocates like Sierra Club President Carl Pope and former Vice President Al Gore.

Pickens, a Republican fundraiser, welcomes the support, but his main motivation is keeping $700 billion that would otherwise go to purchasing foreign oil in the United States: “I’ve got one enemy. I’ve got one rifle. I’ve got one crosshairs. And it’s focused on one spot.”

An interview with Business & Lobbying Editor Jim Snyder begins with Pickens explaining when he started thinking about his plan.

I actually believed you could do this in 1988. Twenty years ago. That’s when I was CEO of the company Mesa Petroleum. One [million cubic feet] of natural gas equals eight gallons of gasoline. I thought that if I can get to $5 or $6 for natural gas, I could save my a–. Because at that point we had distributed a lot of money to our shareholders believing the price of natural gas was going to go up. And I borrowed money to do that, and my back was against the wall. And I thought that if I could get this over to a transportation fuel, where it should be, because its 80 percent cleaner than gas and diesel, and was cheaper, and it was domestic … I’d get up in front of a crowd and say, “This fuel is cheaper, it’s cleaner, it’s domestic.” You know what the first question I’d get? “How much cheaper?” They didn’t give a damn whether it was cleaner or domestic 20 years ago. It didn’t have anything to do with it. … It was really hard for me to sell. …

And Gazprom [Russia’s state-controlled gas company] last week announced that they are going to put natural gas fueling stations all over Europe. What does that tell you? Yeah, it’s a good idea, I think. Not that the Russians need to show me a good idea, but it does confirm what you knew.

Natural gas is being used as a transportation fuel now. Eight million vehicles in the world today are on natural gas. Only 142,000 of those are in the United States. What’s that tell you? It will all happen if you promote the use of the fuel. If President Bush had promoted natural gas like he did ethanol, a lot of things would have happened by now.

Q: What do you think about the current energy debate on Capitol Hill?

There’s nothing they are saying that I can see is going to solve the problem. Does [drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf] solve it? Doesn’t solve it. It might help.

But just as a geologist, I look at East Coast and the West Coast, and it wouldn’t be very exciting for me to go in there. … You know why? Where has the oil been produced offshore? The Gulf of Mexico. The reason is because the deposition there has been fed by the Mississippi River. Just like the Niger River is the cause of the Nigerian delta production over there in Nigeria. When you look around, it has to have been fed by some river.

When you are talking about the West Coast of the United States, you may have some out there. But the East Coast? … It’s not good.

But let them go look for it. What the hell? It ain’t going to hurt anybody. Go look for it. But the first question I would ask is, you know they are throwing 86 billion barrels around like it’s recoverable. That’s oil in place that they are talking about. …

They mislead the public. The public thinks, “Well, God. If we got 86 billion barrels of oil sitting out there, why don’t we go drill it and produce it and lower the price of gasoline to $2?” That’s kind of the way it’s characterized. Which I think is totally misleading. I don’t think you should even hold a hearing if that’s what the hearing is about because that doesn’t help anybody.

Q: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said you were his mortal enemy all these years, but was happy you were working on the same side now.

I feel honored that he thought so harsh of me. I know Harry, and face-to-face we’ve always been very friendly. They know if I say I’m out of the deal — I’m not into any 527s or anything else in this campaign. I’ll vote for McCain. But I’m not working on his campaign.

Q: Are your views on energy more in line with Democrats’ or Republicans’?

I’d like to think they are in line with America. I don’t see a plan by either Obama or McCain that is going to solve the $700 billion problem. Neither one of them address that.

Q: How much are you going to spend on the [advertising] campaign? Are you going to increase the amount of money you spend on lobbying?

Fifty-eight million is what I signed for. They want to give me a budget for ’09. I said let’s see how we do in ’08. If we go to ’09, that will be heavy-duty lobbying. But I’d rather not get into that. I’m hoping that my plan or a better plan shows up before I have to go do any of that.

Q: That’s a lot of money to spend on a public advocacy campaign.

It is. It is. I’m worth a lot of money. People say, ‘He’s doing this so he can maybe get rich on the wind’ … That’s not what this is about. …

I’m 80 years old and they weren’t talking about the subject. I thought this is my last chance to … elevate this to where the American people and the candidates are going to understand the seriousness of where we are.

The security of this thing is horrible. We should never leave Iraq without a call on that oil. It should be made available to us at market price. I mean, we’ve earned that by the trillion dollars or whatever it is we’ve spent plus the fact that we lost 4,000 people.

And we should have a call on it. Did we go there for it? Hell, no, we didn’t go there for it. … This came up the other day. They said, “How would you suppose we do that?” I said, “When they push one of those documents in front on me and say, ‘We need another $100 million,’ ” I’d say, “Here’s one for you to sign.” That’s the way I’d go. Every time I sign one for them, I’d get somebody else to sign one that says we get a call on the oil. At market price, so they don’t lose any money.

Q: Are high gas prices here to stay?

 It’s better that they are high. From the standpoint that [a lower price] raises demand. And if demand comes up, they’ve got to come up.

Q: What do you think of the debate on “speculation”?

It’s a waste of time. Doesn’t have anything to do with it. You have 85 million barrels of oil available in the world, and demand is at 86.4. I don’t think that guy over in China paying $140 for oil is blaming Wall Street speculators for what’s happened to him.

Everybody tries to place the blame. And the blame is our own lack of leadership over the last 40 years on energy.