T. Boone Pickens Says U.S. Awash in Oil, Gas

T. Boone Pickens, the nation’s champion of home-grown energy, is hitting the road again, armed with new geological information that he calls shocking. He is telling lawmakers and business leaders that the United States has far more oil in reserves than previously believed, maybe even double Saudi Arabia’s 250 billion barrels. “We have resources in America that can change the globe,” he says. And oil isn’t even part of his revised Pickens plan, which calls for the mining of some 4,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the equivalent of 700 billion barrels of oil. The reason it’s just sitting in the earth and not helping to cut gas prices, he says, is a lack of leadership in Washington. “This country has to have an energy plan,” he says. His goal is to get congressional approval of a plan to use tax credits to switch 18-wheelers to natural gas, which would expand availability to consumers. Pickens says the House GOP is on board with the plan and will push it this year.

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