Posted on 07/29/2008 4:06:53 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is pushing a national campaign to make the U.S. "energy independent" through wind power and vehicles that run on natural gas. His blitz of TV ads featuring his own down-home voice has picked up a lot of admiring news coverage. To date, Pickens has yet to explain whose dime will pay for this.
Well, Californians can clarify exactly whose dime it will be: Ours. Along with being the country's biggest wind power developer, Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fueling station company that is the sole backerof the stealthy Proposition 10 on California's November ballot. This measure would authorize the sale of $5 billion in general fund bonds to provide alternative energy rebates and incentives -- but by the time the principal and the interest is paid off, it would squander at least $9.8 billion in taxpayer money on Pickens' self-serving natural gas agenda
...Much of the measure's billions could benefit Pickens' company to the exclusion of almost all other clean-vehicle fuels and technology. Engines that run on compressed natural gas have a place in pollution reduction, especially for heavy trucks and public buses. But natural gas is a nonrenewable fossil fuel that we import from foreign sources, and it is no better (and in some cases worse) when it comes to emissions and fuel efficiency compared with the best hybrid cars or the new ultra-clean diesel engines. Most insidiously, Proposition 10's lavish rebates for natural gas-powered cars and trucks could crowd out superior technologies from taking root in California, the largest transportation market in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
When government grants subsidies to an individual or corporation to follow a certain course, that is control. The subsidy is the mechanism.
I am saying again typing very slow so you all can understand:
Well, thank you very much for that, for I am a bear of little brain...
Picken is working within the system we have NOW.
Yes he is. He sees an opportunity presented by our current irrational energy policy, and like the good businessman he is, he is moving to exploit it. He is betting that our Congress is too stupid, too lazy or too corrupt to do anything about it, and I would reckon that is a pretty good bet.
Not the one we all wish we had. He is a good business man because he sees things as they are and acts on that knowledge. It is irrelevant if we do not want gov in the economy it's there and American business must work in this corrupt socialist system ..improvise and over come comes to mind.
But he is not improvising in order to overcome government interference to build something that should be built. He is building something for the purpose of extracting a subsidy from the government. This is a non productive expenditure, and it is poor public policy.
In fact, Pickens is not overcoming or improvising at all. He is taking the government's instructions and implementing them. For doing so, he will be rewarded by that government with money from your pocket and my pocket. He is acting more like a trained dog than as a free man, doing tricks to get a treat.
Pocket picking is a fairly common metaphor for the government taking money from the taxpayer and offering nothing in return. Perhaps you have seen it before?
Of course, Pickens is doing nothing illegal. In fact, he will be rewarded handsomely by the government for following their instructions to the letter.
And what about the $5 Billion in bonds (Prop 10) that Pickens is promoting? Are you saying he won't benefit from that? That $5 Billion of California taxpayers' money is somehow his to risk?
There is a lot of irony in all of this.
Pickens seems to forget that, under that scenario, every city and town, every vacant lot, every green-space field, every abandoned industrial acre, would be covered many layers deep in now-junked gasoline cars and trucks. There's no way the "recycling infrastructure" would be able to handle that volume of junked cars. I wonder how "green" the environ-weenies will feel then, seeing sky-high piles of old cars -- rusting away, leaching fluids and heavy metals, providing habitats for untold trillions of mosquitoes, flies, and rats -- everywhere they go.
Did that.
Rubenstein is a competitor of Pickens and has an ax to grind.
Nothing wrong with competition. Other than competing, what ax does he have to grind?
Do you really believe the taxpayers of CA would not be paying if Big Oil was socked with the cost of Rubensteins Prop 87?
No. I'm not sure why that is relevant.
Big Oil's margins are slim and they are expert at passing increased costs on to consumers.
Of course they will.
What it heaven's name would you expect them to do -- hide it under the rug?
at any rate he is getting rich off it.
Excuse me. I meant he is getting richer.
Alternative energies should come online on their own time, not with massive subsidies and mandates.
I agree with Pickens on natural gas for our vehicles, we have tons of it and natural gas is actually a better fuel than oil-based gasoline.
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