11th July 2008

T. Boone Pickens says he is launching a bold and decisive bipartisan public policy campaign on energy designed to address the single biggest crisis facing America today: our growing and dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The objective of this plan – The Pickens Plan – is to underscore the need to declare a national emergency and develop governmental leadership that will address America’s staggering dependence on imported oil.

U.S. dependency on foreign oil has reached an economic crisis point. Now dependent on foreign nations for 70 percent of its oil, the U.S. is exporting $700 billion annually, more than four times the cost of the Iraq war, said Pickens, who has worked in the oil and gas industry for nearly six decades.

Pickens said that he will fund an aggressive multi-media advertising and internet education campaign designed to focus attention on this crisis and to advance an energy plan of his own dubbed “The Pickens Plan,” that, if adopted, would reduce foreign oil dependency by more than one-third. Much of this oil is acquired from some of the most volatile countries in the world, putting our national security and economy security at risk. The plan calls for investing in power generation from domestic renewable resources such as wind and using our abundant supplies of natural gas as a transportation fuel, replacing more than one-third of our imported oil, saving more than $230 billion a year.

“Our dependence on imported oil is killing our economy. It is the single biggest problem facing America today,” Pickens said. “As we import more and more of our energy, we are participating in the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind, sending billions of our dollars overseas to buy oil for a commodity that lasts 90 days until burned in our gas tanks.

“This has to stop and it has to stop now before we get to a place where no actions can make a difference. Crisis means danger and opportunity. We know the danger but now we have the opportunity to do something that we should have done 30 – 40 years ago. Sometimes it takes a crisis to awaken us from our slumber but once aroused the American people can accomplish miracles.

“The plan I am unveiling today is doable in 5 - 10 years if we can get Congress and the Administration to act quickly. It is based on domestic resources and it’s clean. This plan provides a bridge to the future where renewable energy can become an even greater portion of our energy framework.

“My plan addresses the rapidly expanding imbalance between decreasing supply and increasing demand for oil from fast growing countries around the world like China and India. Today, the U.S. imports a quarter of the world’s oil production with just four percent of the world’s population and just three percent of the world’s reserves. This is not sustainable, certainly not at today’s prices. Conservation alone will not solve our dependence on foreign oil, but it is part of the mix. Our country has a crisis that we can solve by working together and by acting quickly and decisively. We must take strong and bold steps and challenge all of our leaders in this election year to get on board to truly change the landscape today for a better tomorrow.”

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