Self-Serving? Sure, but T. Boone Pickens Is Right About a National Energy Policy

T. Boone Pickens made his money in oil and finance and his reputation as a contrarian/conservative political donor.

Now he's embracing a new role: energy activist. You may have seen him talking about the "Pickens Plan" in TV commercials. He spoke about the plan over the weekend in Dallas to a conference of newspaper editorial writers from around the country.

"For 40 years, we have had no energy plan for America. We have to find a way to get by on our own resources," the 82-year-old former oil executive and arbitrageur said.

"We are importing 67 percent of our oil. We're the only country without an energy plan."

Close. The United States imports about 57 percent of the 20 million barrels of liquid fuels — mostly oil — that it uses each day.

But he's dead on with his remarks about a national energy policy. We don't have one, despite promises by several presidents, including the current one, to end the country's addiction to imported oil.

Until we have one, we probably can expect continued reliance on foreign sources to meet a significant part of our energy needs.

Mr. Pickens, of course, has a few ideas on how we might proceed.

He wants to increase the use of renewable energy sources like wind power. It's that idea that briefly made Mr. Pickens the darling of the political left.

But another big part of the Pickens Plan is to transform the nation's fleet of large tractor-trailers from diesel to cleaner-burning and more abundant natural gas.

By doing so, Mr. Pickens said Saturday, "we are replacing something that is dirty, expensive and the enemy's."

It's no secret that at least some of the billions of dollars we spend each year on imported oil winds up in the hands of terrorist groups.

About 70 percent of the oil Americans use each day goes for transportation — much of it for cars and trucks that make possible our suburban lifestyle.

If we truly want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and stop putting our money into the hands of terrorists, that's where we have to direct our efforts.

Mr.

Pickens asserted that transforming the nation's fleet of 8 million heavy trucks to burn natural gas would save 2 million barrels of oil a day. That's 10 percent of consumption, not an insignificant amount. But it's going to take a lot more than that to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.

It would require years to convert the existing fleet, not to mention a significant investment in infrastructure to establish natural-gas filling stations around the nation.

And then what? No matter how vast our reserves of natural gas, market forces still apply. Increasing demand for natural gas creates the likelihood that prices would rise.

As "a token to show leadership," Mr. Pickens suggested transforming the federal government's entire fleet of vehicles to burn only natural gas.

Guess who owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which owns natural-gas fueling stations?

Still, Mr. Pickens is absolutely right about the need for a national energy policy, a point we've made on this page before.

The real problem with his plan, however, is that it does nothing to address the role of fossil fuels in causing climate change.

Without a policy to encourage the creation and adoption of clean-energy technology, we'll simply replace one form of energy dependence for another.

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