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'Pickens Plan' promotes wind, natural gas
Billionaire pitches how to make U.S. less dependent on foreign oil
By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:41 a.m. EDT July 8, 2008NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- T. Boone Pickens on Tuesday laid out his "Pickens Plan" to reduce American dependence on foreign oil, with the target of cutting demand by more than a third in the next two years.
The colorful Texas billionaire, a former corporate raider and oil man turned hedge-fund manager, said wind power and natural gas could take up the slack as a viable alternative to spending $700 billion a year for foreign oil.
Pickens is building a mammoth wind farm in Sweetwater, Texas, and also launched Clean Energy Fuels (CLNEclean energy fuels corp com
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Sponsored by:
CLNE) , a company that runs natural-gas filling stations for fleet vehicles.
Pickens also said he's lobbying to have the Texas-sized price tag for foreign oil become a central theme of the presidential election between Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz.
"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem," Pickens told USA Today. "So we're going to make 'em talk about it."
Pickens set plans to launch a TV and Internet campaign behind his proposal.
He noted that President Nixon said in 1970 that the U.S. was importing 20% of its oil and vowed to bring that down to zero by 1980.
"That didn't happen," Pickens said. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"
Steve Gelsi is a reporter for MarketWatch in New York
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