Pickens: 'We've had our wake-up call'

“Go back to sleep America. The oil crisis is over.”

And so begins T. Boone Pickens reentrance in the energy policy debate. The line, translated by Pickens as Arabic is splayed across the screen, is part of a new, national television ad campaign to promote natural gas as an alternative to foreign oil.

To the statement that the oil crisis is over, Pickens responds with a sharp, “I don’t think so. Our economy is bleeding billions for foreign oil.”
See the advertisement here.

When he started the Pickens Plan campaign two years ago, the famous financier and author of "The First Billion is the Hardest" had an ambitious goal of taking all the natural gas now used to generate electricity, replacing it with wind power and then using the natural gas to power cars and trucks.

The plan seems a bit more modest, promotion of the NAT GAS Act. The legislation (Hr. 1835, and S. 1408) uses tax credits to encourage replacing the 8 million heavy-duty trucks powered by diesel or gasoline with ones that run on natural gas.

To add some kick to the campaign, Pickens seems to be tying the effort to the recent terrorist scare on the Detroit-bound airliner.

“We’ve had our wake-up call,” Pickens says in the ad. “It’s time to act.”

The failed attack "reminds us that we are still at war," Pickens told reporters on a conference call announcing the new ad campaign. "There is an enemy  out there."

He said the ad would run nationally on cable TV over the next 10 days. Washington DC residents will see it for three weeks. Pickens declined to say how much the ad buy was costing. 

Joining Pickens on the conference call was John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and now CEO of the Center for American Progress. CAP has also also likes natural gas as way to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

CAP released another report today that noted the United States imported 4 million barrels of oil a day from “dangerous or unstable” countries in 2008.