T. Boone Pickens: ‘The Biggest Deterrent To An Energy Plan In America Is Koch Industries’

[kristopher]

T. Boone Pickens: ‘The Biggest Deterrent To An Energy Plan In America Is Koch Industries’
By Joe Romm on May 3, 2012 at 5:54 pm

Billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens has a bone to pick with the country’s leading pollutocrats.
Pickens said in an interview Wednesday with Yahoo’s Daily Ticker that Koch Industries, the company owned by Charles and David Koch, is the major stumbling block to a coherent U.S. energy policy:

“The biggest deterrent to an energy plan in America is Koch Industries,” the BP Capital founder tells Yahoo’s Aaron Task. “They do not want an energy plan for America because they have the cheapest natural gas price they’ve ever had, and they’re in the fertilizer business and they’re in the chemical business. So their margins are huge. And they do not want you to have an energy plan, because if you had a plan, then natural gas prices would come up.”

Back in October, a German state minister explained that the country could decarbonize with renewables because “We Don’t Have the … Koch Brothers.” He was referring to the Kochs’ lobbying for dirty fuels and against clean energy, and its spending on climate science disinformation, which exceeds that of ExxonMobil. As Business Insider explains:

The second-largest private company in the United States, Koch Industries has spent at least $5 million in lobbying in each of the past four years, and given at least $1,000,000 in seven of the last eight election cycles, according to data from OpenSecrets.
In 2008, the company spent nearly $18 million on lobbying for oil and gas interests alone, according to Open Secrets. They’ve already spent $2.3 million on oil and gas lobbying in 2012.

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More at the link (including video of Pickens' interview):
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/03/476039/t-boone-pickens-the-biggest-deterrent-to-an-energy-plan-in-america-is-koch-industries/

[patrice]

1. What does anyone expect from an oil fortune founded on Russian SLAVE labor under Stalin &

supported by a bunch of Tories who never got over their infatuation with royalty, no matter how our Revolutionary War turned out.

[physioex]

2. You wonder which scum bag to root for....

No wait, we will end up the losers regardless.

[kristopher]

3. I understand hating Pickens for what he's been...

But his position on making money from energy today is largely in line with what science tells us is the best response to climate change.

He first wanted to move all transportation to natural gas while deploying wind for electricity. When he learned that battery electric was best for personal transportation though, he change his proposal to only moving the trucking sector to natural gas; which is exactly what we should do.

I know he is a greedy Republican and what he did in SwiftBoating Kerry was reprehensible, but I have no trouble knowing who I support in that conflict.

[patrice]

5. No I don't, because I don't wear scum-tinted glasses, since I CAN see things as they are. nt

[rfranklin]

4. PIckens is serving himself with this line...

If he wasn't in competition with the Koch Brothers he wouldn't give a damn about what they do.

[msongs]

6. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sometimes - lack of political will plays a role in this

issue as well

[Bjorn Against]

7. T Boone Pickens is a greedy asshole, but it is in his self interest to be right sometimes

He sees enormous profits in clean energy and enormous competition in Koch, he will take our side because he has a big financial interest in our side when it comes to energy issues. On pretty much every other issue he is wrong, but he is often right when it comes to clean energy even if he is only saying it because it is profitable for him to do so.