(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PICKENS: I\’m T. Boone Pickens. I\’ve been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can\’t drill our way out of, and I have a plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let\’s discuss that plan and more. T. Boone Pickens is joining us here on LATE EDITION. Thanks very much for coming in.

PICKENS: Sure, thank you.

BLITZER: Why did you decide at this stage in your life, you\’re 84-years-old.

PICKENS: No, no, no, 80.

BLITZER: 80-years-old, I\’m sorry, 80-years-old is a lot less than 84-years-old. You\’re 80-years-old, you\’re still a young man. You\’ve got billions of dollars, I don\’t know how many billions, but plenty of billions and now you\’re spending a lot of money to try to get America weaned off its addiction to foreign oil.

PICKENS: Wolf, I became convinced that I was the only person that really understood the energy situation in the United States.

BLITZER: The only person in all of the United States.

PICKENS: Well, the only one willing to speak up. A lot of people agree with me, about 95 percent of the people coming on to my Web site, pickensplan.com, that I\’ve had over 4 million hits on that, that agree with me. And what it is is we\’re dependent on foreign oil. It\’s 70 percent now of our imports and we\’re spending $700 billion a year. We can\’t afford to do is.

BLITZER: Have you seen any impact from these commercials that you\’re running, the work that you\’re doing that people are beginning to appreciate what\’s going on?

PICKENS: Yes, absolutely. I\’ve made two town hall meetings now, in the wind quarter.

BLITZER: When you say the wind quarter, you mean sort of in the plain states, in the middle part of the United States from Texas going up to Canada. There\’s an area there that you say is really conducive to tapping wind power as a source of energy?

PICKENS: And it\’s being developed but too slowly. But Topeka, Kansas, was one town hall meeting and the other was in Colorado. We\’ve had huge turnout. They fill up the hall an hour before I get there. I\’m telling you the truth, the absolute truth and they turn people away.

BLITZER: What about the response from the federal government, because if there\’s going to be any action along the lines that you\’re advocating to use solar and wind and other alternative sources of energy in addition to oil and natural gas, the government is going to have to get involved.

PICKENS: They sure are, and I\’ve had great, great opportunity to talk to them.

BLITZER: Democrats and Republicans?

PICKENS: Both of them.

BLITZER: The legislative and the Executive Branch?

PICKENS: It\’s totally non-partisan, and that\’s the way I did — I\’m out of this campaign. I\’m not supporting –

BLITZER: But you\’re a Republican, you\’ve always been a Republican.

PICKENS: I\’m not doing anything for McCain in this campaign.

BLITZER: Really?

PICKENS: No, I\’m not..

BLITZER: Because the last time in 2004, you were actively campaigning for Bush against John Kerry, and you were involved in that swift boat controversy.

PICKENS: That\’s so far back, I don\’t even remember it.

BLITZER: So that\’s gone?

PICKENS: That\’s gone.

BLITZER: So this time around you\’re not going to be working for either of them.

PICKENS: No, neither one. This is non-partisan. I\’m paying my $58 million to inform the American people and Washington on what our energy problems are. And they are huge, and we can\’t go any further under the operation that we have now, and we can solve it. I do have a solution.

You\’re going to have to get to the wind, and you\’re going to have to get to the solar, and both of them have to be used. They are fabulous resources for this country.

Second, we have an abundance of natural gas, plenty of natural gas to fuel — I would prefer to fuel trucks instead of vehicles like yours and mine, but a lot of people — see, I have a Honda GX, which is natural gas. It\’s a great car, but it\’s not where I\’m going with this idea. The idea goes to the trucks, is where it goes to.

BLITZER: So you use that natural gas, you use the solar, you use the wind, but all that\’s going to take a long, long time to get going, isn\’t it?

PICKENS: No. I mean, you have the technology for all of it. All the technology is in place. The government will have to move quickly to give corridors to transmit the power out of the wind corridor.

BLITZER: Out of the middle part of the United States.

PICKENS: That\’s right. They will have to give corridors to move that.

BLITZER: How long will it — will that take realistically to build the infrastructure, to get the authorization to use wind as a significant source of energy in the United States?

PICKENS: I would say five years, five years, but you\’re going to have to go like Eisenhower did with the interstate highway system. They\’re going to have to say this is an emergency, and there is no question it\’s an emergency. It\’s a crisis.

BLITZER: You mean in terms of taking land and just making it part of this natural –

PICKENS: Give the corridors through there, pay the people for the land, but it has to be done.

BLITZER: Here\’s what Senator Obama says in a new ad on this whole issue of energy. I\’m going to play a little clip for you.

PICKENS: OK, good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On gas prices, John McCain is part of the problem. McCain and bush support a drilling plan that won\’t produce a drop of oil for seven years. Fast-track technology for alternative fuels, a $1,000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil, a real plan and new energy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now, I know you\’ve had a chance to study both of these plans, the McCain plan, the Obama plan. You\’re a Republican, I assume you\’re going to vote for McCain, but what do you think of their respective proposals?

PICKENS: Well neither one of them are a plan to do anything soon. Mine will do it now. The natural gas is available. The technology is available. See, there are 8 million vehicles in the world on natural gas. Only 142,000 in the United States. That\’s plenty — the technology is there.

BLITZER: Have you had a chance to brief or speak with these two presidential candidates?

PICKENS: No, but I think it\’s coming up pretty soon though.

BLITZER: Who are you going to see?

PICKENS: Which one? I think both of them.

BLITZER: You\’ll see both of them?

PICKENS: I think I\’m going to have an opportunity to talk to both of them.

BLITZER: And when you speak to them, what will be the first thing, the most important thing, the message you\’re going to give Senator Obama and I assume it will be the same message for Senator McCain?

PICKENS: It has to be the same message, but the way I see it, I would be speaking to the commander in chief, I would be the general. I would explain to them what the problem is and I would give them the solution. And then they would ask the questions of me to see if I know what I\’m talking about, and I know what I\’m talking about.

And this can be accomplished. The gas is here, the natural gas. See, General Motors makes 19 vehicles for natural gas, but none in the United States. They are all in South America and in Europe. And then three months ago Gazprom, the Russian oil company announced that they were going to do natural gas fueling stations all over Europe, so the Iranians announced two weeks –

BLITZER: What you\’re saying is the time has come for natural gas in vehicles in the United States.

PICKENS: Absolutely, but see the Iranians are switching over from gasoline to natural gas and then selling the oil to the world market.

BLITZER: T. Boone Pickens, you have a tough mission ahead of you, but let\’s hope it works if the U.S. can wean itself off of the addiction from imported foreign oil, that would be good for the country. PICKENS: It has to work. Do I have one more minute?

BLITZER: Go ahead. PICKENS: OK, that $700 billion that I think I can change that $700 billion.

BLITZER: The amount that the U.S. is spending, sending abroad to import oil?

PICKENS: I think I can get the $700 billion down by $200 billion in five years, and I think I can get 40 percent of it down in 10 years. If we do that, that would create jobs here in this country, and we would have the money here, profit that would be made and taxes would be paid and the economy would move forward. We wouldn\’t have that huge outflow of money to somewhere.

BLITZER: Thanks very much for coming in.

PICKENS: Thank you.