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10 Truths T. Boone Pickens Doesn’t Want You to Know about the Pickens’ Plan for California |
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T. Boone Pickens recently dumped another $5 million of his personal fortune into feel-good ads promoting his “renewable energy” and “clean fuels” initiative. As his TV ads flood the airwaves, I thought you might be interested in these 10 truths about Prop. 10:
1. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is trying to steal Californian Kids’ lunch money. Like a grade-school bully, Pickens is using the sheer size of his wallet to try to ram through a self-enriching ballot initiative that the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst has estimated will cost an entire generation of Californians hundreds of millions of dollars annually – over $330 annually for 30 years!
2. In fact, his $5 billion measure is really a $10 billion Boone-doggle.
3. Pickens’ shareholders paid a pretty penny for his “magnanimous” public policy. Pickens claims he’s investing his own money out of a selfless motivation for “a better America.” In fact, Pickens has financed Prop. 10 by manipulating the price of his own Clean Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ CLNE) stock. Pickens “shorted” around $20 million worth at $18 per share on the open market, and then re-purchased $5 million of shares directly from the CLNE corporate treasury. This caused a free-fall of CLNE’s share price (worse than the broader market) to just $10 per share.
4. T. Boone the “Oil & Gas Man” is really the “Tax Man.” With California facing staggering budget shortfalls, Pickens’ Plan will certainly require a tax hike, or else come at the expense of schools, health care and other critical needs.
5. You wouldn’t buy a car on a thirty-year mortgage. Not with your own money you wouldn’t, and neither would Pickens and his country club buddy Aubrey McClendon (CEO of Chesapeake Energy, Prop. 10’s other major backer). That’s why they want to use Californians’ money to build a market for their natural gas companies. Under Pickens’ Plan, our children and grandchildren will be paying off Prop 10’s lavish subsidies of $50,000 per natural gas-powered truck long after those vehicles are rusting in a scrap yard.
6. There is no requirement that vehicles funded under Prop. 10 will even remain in California. This is in contrast to on-going California alternative fuel subsidy programs that have provided CLNE with millions of dollars in funding.
7. Prop 10 doesn’t require any results. Despite T. Boone’s campaign’s high-falutin’ claims, Prop. 10 doesn’t require even one particle of emissions reductions, reduce petroleum consumption by a single ounce, or generate a single watt of renewable energy.
8. There’s no broad-based coalition supporting Prop. 10, despite the Yes-on-10 campaign’s claims of helping the environment and reducing oil dependence, its only major backers are those who stand to gain financially from its passage
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9. Nearly “everyone” opposes Prop. 10 including every major editorial board (the L.A. Times even called Prop 10 a “reprehensible scam”!); every major environmental group (Sierra Club, NRDC, CLCV, Environment California…) and it has united unlikely allies like the California Federation of Labor and California Chamber of Commerce.
10. Natural gas looks cheap now, but it won’t be for long under the Pickens Plan. The natural gas burned in power plants is bought by electricity generators at wholesale on the commodities market, but Pickens and McClendon want to sell that natural gas to motorists at retail. Plus, increasing demand for natural gas will certainly increase natural gas prices across the board.
Anthony Rubenstein is a nationally recognized expert on government policy and marketplace issues regarding petroleum use reduction, and the adoption of alternative fuels and vehicles, as well as clean renewable energy technologies. He is the former founder and Chairman of Californians for Clean Energy, the force behind California’s 2006 Proposition 87, the largest Clean Energy referendum in U.S. history. The intent of Prop 87 was to make California permanently the global leader in clean technology development and adoption by funding clean tech research centers at Universities across California, and by reducing the use of petroleum fuels in California via market incentives to foster the use of clean alternative fuels and vehicles, as well as renewable and energy efficiency technologies. Despite a record-breaking $110 million opposition campaign by the petroleum industry, Prop 87 was narrowly defeated, with support from 45% of California voters.
I am from Michigan and so not entirely familiar with the proposed California legislation. But from what I read, the proposal is consistent with Mr. Pickens current push to get this country off of foreign oil as quickly as possible. Mr. Pickens does not “exlude” all alternative technologies, he simply understands those that are available NOW to solve the problem, and those technologies that are not ready yet.
Why is it that everytime a wealthy businees man seems poised to make a few bucks…we attack him. The bucks coming out of your pocket to fill your tank with gas, and in the devaluation of your home…are being transfered to Saudi Arabia and Dubai.
To the point made in item 10 above: as I understand Mr. Pickens, his plan is to divert the NG currently being used in power generation, over to transportation (heavy trucks…not cars), and to replace that NG with Wind generated power. I fail to see how this “swap” would put any greater demand on NG than the present state.
League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment California all OPPOSE Prop 10. Why? It squanders $10 billion to steer us away from promising alternative fuel technology, onto a fossil fuel natural gas bridge to nowhere.
30 daily newspapers wrote editorials against Prop 10. Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols says vote No, and points out that NOTHING in PROP 10 stops interstate trucking companies from moving their trucks to another state after they collect the $50,000 handout. No on 10 - Don’t cut our schools to make a Texas oil tycoon richer. visit: http://www.stopprop10.org
No on Prop 10
Uh, John. That’s great logic. Why don’t you folks in Michigan sign on to Mr. Pickens’ plan and pay for those vehicle subsidies? I’m a 52-year-old native of the Fruits and Nuts State and I’ve had quite enough, thank you.
Hey Greg,
I was simply commenting on what I percieve to be some of the technological merits of the national Pickens Push, the dire situtaion we find ourselves in with regard to dependency on foreign oil, and the supply/usage trade off on Natural Gas placing no greater demand in total.
Amhed appears to be the one supplying all the “logic”.
Yes silly Americans, stop supporting rich American businesses. We need another 1000m skyscraper in Dubai to watch your crumbling economy. Seriously, why give another American money when you can give it to me and the people who want to kill you?