Let me say, at the top, that I have worked for, around, and with T. Boone Pickens since he first introduced the Pickens Plan in the summer of 2008. The plan has evolved as new data have been released, especially with regard to the astonishing amount of natural gas that can be economically recovered from shale deposits under the continental United States. I was – I won’t type “shocked” and sound like Claude Rains in “Casablanca” – but I was disturbed to read Tim Carney’s piece vilifying Pickens and a company he largely owns, Clean Energy Fuels, for pushing to get the NAT GAS Act bills through the U.S. House and Senate.
Pickens is not a newcomer to the oil and gas business. At 83, he has been in the industry as a degreed geologist and businessman for well over a half century. In 2009, a report released by the Potential Gas Committee, in conjunction with the Colorado School of Mines, first demonstrated that natural gas should no longer be considered a scarce natural resource whose use should be closely monitored and husbanded.
That report stated that the United States had reserves of natural gas that could last 100 years. In the two years following, those estimates have been reinforced or, in the case of a report released by the National Petroleum Council, concluded that we have enough natural gas reserves to be able to match supply with demand until the outer limit of the report’s calculations – 2035, essentially adding another quarter century to our natural gas reserves.
By the end of this month, we will have imported nearly a half trillion dollars worth of oil. Even putting aside our two largest trading partners – Mexico and Canada – only a fool would ignore the astonishing outflow of dollars; much of which go to OPEC and other nations which are not friendly to American interests.
That is all by way of background. My disturbance came from the notion that The Washington Examiner was now adopting the Occupy Wall Street theory that good can only be done if the person doing it suffers in return.
Carney’s assertion, for example, that Pickens would make $100 million if the price of Clean Energy Fuels reached a certain level is correct. What he left out was the estimated $82 million Pickens has spent on making our dependence on OPEC oil a part of the national political conversation.
He also fails to mention that, far from being a subsidy in the model of subsidies for ethanol, the NAT GAS Act largely provides a tax credit for fleet owners to offset the up-front costs of purchasing trucks built to run on natural gas.
The NAT GAS Act has a sunset provision of five years on the theory that when domestic manufacturing ramps up, the costs of production will decrease to the point that a credit is no longer necessary.
In addition to that, the tax credit – which means fleet owners can keep more of the money they earned as opposed to the federal government writing a check (something else I would have thought would appealed to The Examiner). It is fully paid for by fees attached to the purchase and use of natural gas as a transportation fuel.
I have no idea whether Carney’s admitted (albeit in the next-to-the-last graf) monetary connection to Koch Industries led to his having written his column. That’s between him and his editors.
But I do know that The Examiner has allowed one of its senior writers to publish a column which is in direct opposition to the views the paper itself has professed to hold.
Rich Galen is a consultant to the Pickens plan and publisher of Mullings.com.
