Pickens Plan

Boone Pickens likes to make money - and he sure likes giving it away. That’s one of the many takeaways readers get from an interview given by Pickens just days before his 85th birthday that was published in Monday’s Tulsa World.

Pickens says he has donated almost as much as he’s now worth, including $525 million to Oklahoma State University athletics and academics. He says he plans on giving away more money to nonprofit causes he supports, including OSU, medical research and groups that help veterans.

As members of the Pickens Plan Army well know, Pickens puts considerable emphasis on leadership and the need for a plan. Thanks to both of those elements, Oklahoma State has seen a surge in support.

OSU President Burns Hargis said Pickens’ record-setting donations to OSU athletics and academics had a multiplier impact. The university recently announced it had reached its $1 billion “Branding Success” fundraising campaign goal early.

“We’ve attracted over 80,000 new donors to our campaign,” Hargis said. “We’ve created thousands of scholarships, about 130 endowed chairs and professorships. … It’s just a different place, and it’s a different place because of Boone Pickens.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Senate Bill 519 (SB 519), authored by Senator Rob Standridge and Representative David Derby, makes critical updates to Oklahoma’s motor fuel tax law to create an environment that promotes natural gas vehicle (NGV) adoption and investment in refueling infrastructure.

Unfortunately Oklahoma currently taxes domestic liquefied natural gas (LNG) almost twice as much as foreign diesel. Furthermore, LNG trucks are required to purchase an annual fuel tax decal in lieu of a tax at the pump. This unnecessary system forces a station attendant to verify that the LNG vehicle has a decal before the driver can refuel. As you can imagine, this is a very inefficient process that diesel is not burdened with.

Oklahoma’s policy of favoring a primarily foreign fuel over cleaner domestic natural gas must be ended.

Click here to email your state legislators today and ask them to support SB519.

The oil import numbers are in for April. As usual, the news is anything but good. As of last month, the average price has settled in comfortably above a floor of $100 per barrel.

According to figures just released, $102.25 was the average price per barrel of oil imported to the U.S. Meanwhile, the cost of a barrel produced here in the U.S. was almost $10 less per barrel.

Overall, there was a slight uptick in overall imports in April with 299 million barrels imported. This total amounted to 54% of the overall U.S. supply.

That works out to a little more than $1 billion a day or an astounding $708,564.10 per minute that left the U.S. economy and went overseas.