"T. Boone Pickens, who made his fortune in the oil business -- and I don't think anybody would consider him unfriendly to drilling -- was right when he said that this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of," Obama said at a White House news conference. "We can't place our long-term bets on a finite resource that we only control 2 percent of....Even if we tap every single reserve available to us, we can't escape the fact that we only control 2 percent of the world's oil but we consume over a quarter of the world's oil."
Yes, Mr. President, you are exactly right. However, at some point we'd like you to live up to all that "change" you campaigned on and change what we use to power our vehicles and electrical grid, at least our larger industrial and commercial vehicles and power sources.
Los Angeles has seen great rewards with it's more than 2200 vehicle Metro bus system transitioning to Natural Gas. Google, eBay, and Walmart have already been switching to clean, cheap electrical power from fuel cells that run on natural gas rather than get their power "on the grid."
While we'd like to think such large organizations made these changes through altruism, the truth of the matter is likely that they see the fiscal sense of these changes. Meanwhile, the U.S. is still spending greater than $640,000 A MINUTE on foreign oil. Oil from places unfriendly to us and UNlikely to put any money back in our economy, and much more likely to be spending that money trying to harm us. It doesn't matter what your leanings may be, if you're American, you agree this money would be much better spent circulating IN America; jobs created, technology developed, schools filled, and society benefiting.
T. Boone Pickens has formulated his "Pickens Plan," a viable strategy to get the United States free from foreign oil by increasing efficiency when oil is necessary, and using natural gas, solar, and wind energy strategically. He also agrees with Obama, however, that diving into our strategic oil reserves won't do much good.
"Tapping into our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not the answer. Storing foreign oil for a rainy day is no more of a strategy than stocking your basement with canned goods as a way to avoid a nuclear attack. It's a short term fix for a long term problem," Boone said.
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