The Cult of T. Boone Pickens

“A year or so ago I started taking missionary lessons from a group supporting T. Boone Pickens.  I’ve taken the missionary lessons; I’ve met with him and I’ve been converted.  I now belong to the Pickens church.” — Senator Harry Reid

T. Boone Pickens: dislikes environmentalists, loves making money from taxpayers

T. Boone Pickens, the man who helped fund the swiftboat attacks on John Kerry in 2003-2004, and the man who has made disparaging remarks about “environmentalists” in public, wants you to trust him on our country’s clean energy needs.  Like Sarah Palin, he is not a scientist, doesn’t seem to be concerned about climate change, is not trained in environmental impacts, nor is he an energy specialist.  He’s an investor.  He invested in wind energy, has now put those plans on hold (because it didn’t turn out to be profitable for him) and is pushing natural gas hard. He’s pushing it so hard, he is somehow “at the table” with congressmen and women and with people like Al Gore. How did this happen?  Well, in America, if you have a lot of money, you have influence. That’s just a fact. And T. Boone Pickens has a lot of money.

He has the entire Center for American Progress believing his scheme that natural gas should be our “bridge fuel”, though it’s a fossil fuel.   Pickens gets members of Congress, one by one, to invest in his “clean energy company” Clean Energy Fuels Corp. He has former CAP head John Podesta, advisor to President Obama, convinced that natural gas is “clean”.  This is classic greenwashing.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi loves him so much she sunk thousands into this company, which is not about clean energy, unless you think fossil fuels are clean, which they are not. But the latest email from Pickens contains what I consider chilling, cult-like language.  Is he so delusional he now thinks he is deserving of worship?  This is the contents of one of his recent emails:

“The Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Energy Future Coalition released a memo about natural gas titled, Natural Gas: A Bridge Fuel for the 21st Century.  It was almost like it had been written as part of the Pickens Plan!  [It probably was.]  It calls for:

- Natural gas as the principal fuel for heavy trucks
– Natural gas as a significant fuel for power production
– Natural gas as a fuel for municipal and school bus fleets    
The memo points out that “Natural gas is ‘by the far the cleanest burning’ fossil fuel, and produces slightly more than one-fifth of all U.S. energy.”  And it says natural gas should play a larger role in our energy mix”.

Sounds like the argument for coal — we should more of it because we use a lot of it now.  Actually, we should be transporting things by electric trains instead of semitrucks that destroy the roads.

Why does Pickens feel this way?  Because he’s blowing his remaining investment years on this natural gas scheme, he’s 80 years old, and he wants some of the “climate bill” money, that’s why.  He lost a lot of money through his last energy company, Mesa Petroleum.  (more on that below).  My advice to readers:  do not trust the judgment of the Center for American Progress.  They stand for “business as usual”.   This has recently become apparent to me, since they picked  T. Boone Pickens as their favorite energy guy for the 21st century.  (More like the 18th century.)   In his second memo of the day, Pickens even lays it on thick with Al Gore, who has now become a pod person, if we are to believe his quotes:

From the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 10, 2009:

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “A year or so ago I started taking missionary lessons from a group supporting T. Boone Pickens.  I’ve taken the missionary lessons; I’ve met with him and I’ve been converted.  I now belong to the Pickens church. We’re very thankful to have him here, he’s been a good friend and a real visionary.”    [No Harry, he's not, unless you count scamming taxpayers out of lots of money for fossil fuels being a "visionary"]

Former Vice President Al Gore: “So, for some uses, I endorse Boone’s idea on the 18-wheelers.  It will be time before we get the battery efficiency necessary to run 18-wheelers and they keep their engines running practically 24 hours [per day].” [it gets worse]

Former President Bill Clinton: “I want to say a special word of thanks to Boone Pickens for not giving up on natural gas; now turns out we’ve got more than we ever dreamed we did.”

Former Vice President Al Gore: “Boone, I’ve bragged on you before – and I’m not just laying it on thick – I honest to God wish that more business leaders of your experience would care as much as you do, and throw themselves into this fight for the future of our country the way you’re doing and I congratulate you for that.”

If that weren’t horrifying enough, we now have all these people backing this greenwasher and you and I are going to pay for his development and profits in natural gas.   This is not looking good for a strong energy and climate bill, which already heavily depends on coal,  and soon, probably another fossil fuel.  We are falling under the hypnotic sway of the greenwashers.

Pickens has clearly been embraced by the Obama administration (via the Center for American Progress) and Congress for his push for natural gas.  It’s very disappointing that Al Gore is joining up with Pickens.

What happened to nuclear power, something that is virtually CO2 free, you may ask?   Many Republicans are calling for it so it has become a political issue.  Nuclear power is being treated as an evil “Republican” fuel by many groups. (Even though it’s safer than coal, and most of the myths surrounding nuclear power are not true.) That is also very disappointing, but it appears that T. Boone Pickens has not invested in nuclear power, so therefore it must be “off the table”. How did this guy get so much power? Years of experience.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb and quote a conservative who did some great research on Pickens and has found much to expose about him. (Thanks to Michael  of Michael-e.com — he did some great investigative work and saved me some).  He found that Pickens is guilty of the following greed at taxpayer expense.  Pickens supports:

…” HR-1835 & S-1408. Both of which give massive kickbacks to those [manufacturers] of Natural Gas Vehicles AND Natural Gas exploration companies.  As it turns out, as soon as he failed in getting the American public to finance his wind farm, he abandoned that plan and decided to turn his attention back to Natural Gas Drilling. The House bill gives tax credits of $200,000,000.00 and over $30,000,000.00 in GRANTS to companies doing “Gas Vehicle – Research” (ie: anyone who drills for gas or makes natural gas vehicles).  . . . . .

A good portion of that money would likely go to BP Capital Management, which is T-Boone’s “Energy Investment” company. In 1996, Boone nearly bankrupted his Oil company, ‘Mesa Petroleum’. In that situation, his ass was saved by ‘Rainwater, inc.’ who bought the nearly defunct Mesa Petroleum, which was then renamed to ‘Pioneer Natural Resources’.  Boone won’t make that mistake again. He’s determined to save his current asset company. All you need to do to understand Boone’s motivations is to look at the holdings of his “Energy Investment” company, BP Capital Management.  Here are his top 5 holdings (as of May 22, 2009):

1. 1. Transocean Inc. (RIG) – 450,000 shares, 28.19% of the total portfolio (From their web: Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, provides the most versatile fleet of mobile offshore drilling units to help clients find and develop oil and natural gas reserves.)
   2. Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) – 250,000 shares, 11.9% of the total portfolio (From their web: Devon Energy Corporation is one of the world’s leading independent oil and gas exploration and production companies.)
   3. Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) – 200,000 shares, 11.85% of the total portfolio (From their web: Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: OXY) is an international oil and gas exploration and production company, as well as a major North American chemical manufacturer.)
   4. Suncor Energy Inc. (SU) – 300,000 shares, 7.09% of the total portfolio (From their web: Suncor Energy is an integrated energy company strategically focused on developing Canada’s Athabasca oil sands. As we responsibly develop the oil sands, we are also investing in renewable energy – wind power and biofuels.)
   5. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (COG) – 200,000 shares, 5.02% of the total portfolio (From their web: Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a leading North American exploration and production independent natural gas producer.)

As you can see, only one of his top 5 holdings even remotely has anything to do with Wind Power or the environment (even that is probably just marketing). This 80 year old man, who we were supposed to believe was suddenly stuck with an “environmental conscious”, is nothing more than a typical fat cat corporate slime-ball trying to suck out as much money from the public as possible.”

He’s even got a hand in developing the Canada tar sands via Suncor. If  that weren’t bad enough, he also invests with the following:

• ANADARKO PETEROLEUM (NYSE: APC) 50,000 shares worth $1.945 million.
• CABOT OIL & GAS (NYSE: COG) 200,000 shares worth $4.714  million.
• CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP. (NYSE: CHK) 200,000 shares worth $3.412 million; higher stake than before.
• CONSOL ENERGY INC. (NYSE: CNX) 150,000 shares worth $3.786 million.
• DEVON ENERGY CORP. (NYSE: DVN) 250,000 shares worth $11.173 million; higher stake than before.
• FLUOR CORP. (NYSE: FLR) 59,000 shares worth $2.038 million.
• FOSTER WHEELER AG (NASDAQ: FWLT) 132,000 shares worth $2.306 million.
• HALLIBURTON COMPNAY (NYSE: HAL) 200,000 shares worth $3.094  million.
• MASSEY ENERGY CO. (NYSE: MEE) 325,000 shares worth $3.289 million.
• MCMORAN EXPLORATION (NYSE: MMR) 200,000 shares worth $0.940 million.

Massey Energy is responsible for mountain top removal in Appalachia.  We all know what Halliburton has done.  And Pickens has heavy investments in oil and oil exploration.

We are not talking about a socially responsible man here.

If someone knows of a way I can send this information to Al Gore, let me know. Of anyone I didn’t expect to get suckered into the Pickens scheme, it was him.  If I am reading his enthusiasm wrong, you can let me know after you watch the video here.