The council’s report notes that the trade deficit in oil reached $327 billion in 2011. That figure accounted for 58 percent of the total U.S. trade deficit.

“High and volatile oil prices have pushed the cost of petroleum to levels that would have seemed unimaginable just over a decade ago. This has contributed to a rapid expansion of the U.S. trade deficit, rendering the nation increasingly dependent on foreign capital inflows and building up an enormous financial liability to foreign entities.”

Read more HERE.

The Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy has released the oil import numbers for April 2012 and our addiction to OPEC oil has not abated.

According to the EIA, we imported 316 million barrels of oil in the month at a total cost of $37.8 Billion. That represented 56 percent of our total oil use for the month and brought to total for the year to 1.28 billion barrels at a cost of $154 billion.

At this rate we will spend nearly a half trillion dollars to import oil in 2012 despite President Obama’s State of the Union Address call for a concerted effort to utilize domestic resources.

– The Pickens Team

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“Energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens, a major investor in oil and natural-gas companies, said the U.S. can at least end oil imports from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, about half its total, through new drilling and by shifting diesel-swilling trucks to natural gas. Any other oil needs should be from politically stable allies such as Canada, Pickens said.”

The newspaper noted that every American president since Richard Nixon “has called for the U.S. to wean itself from needing oil from unstable or unsavory countries.” Only now America has the opportunity to do exactly that.

“The U.S. is already the world’s fastest-growing oil and natural gas producer. Counting the output from Canada and Mexico, North America is “the new Middle East,” Citigroup analysts declare in a recent report.”

In addition to the security implications, developing America’s abundant energy resources has another crucial benefit: revitalizing our economy.

“In practical terms, more energy independence could mean 3.6 million new jobs, enough to cut unemployment by two percentage points, says Citigroup energy strategist Seth Kleinman. It could help manufacturers and chemical businesses that use lots of energy or make products from natural gas. It might give the U.S. a structural advantage on trade partners in energy costs, helping to offset the edge that cheaper labor gives nations such as China, Kleinman says. Already, U.S. natural gas prices are a seventh of what they are in Beijing, Pickens says.

Read more HERE.

In the piece the author, Lane C. Kidd, writes about Boone’s dedication to the Pickens Plan which would allow the United States to “regain control of the world’s wealth and economic power, something that would ‘change the dynamics of the world.’”

The article recounts Boone’s spending some $100 million of his own money to promote the concept of getting away from our dependence on OPEC oil which “is sapping the nation’s wealth and productivity.”

Kidd quotes Pickens as saying “Trucking consumes half of the five million barrels we buy from OPEC each day” and so he is aiming his considerable ammunition at the trucking industry and the Congress.

Because of the price differential between natural gas and diesel – about $1.50 per gallon – Pickens says

“I’ve talked to trucking guys whose companies consume 100 million gallons of fuel a year and they see very quickly how they can save a dollar and a half a gallon. It doesn’t take but about a second for them to see that’s a hundred and fifty million dollars.”

This is the first of two parts, the second part will be published soon.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

Delta Air Lines is getting a $30 million subsidy from the Keystone State as part of a $180 million deal to buy a Phillips 66 refinery south of Philadelphia.

‘The state better get ready because other refineries are going to want subsidies for them, too,’ he told CNBC’s Closing Bell. ‘How they gonna handle that one?’”

Read the full story here.

“Natural gas has suddenly become almost everyone’s favorite chassis for building an energy independent future.”

According to this international news organization, both of the nominees for the presidency this year are following the path that Boone Pickens began championing in 2008 when he launched the Pickens Plan to end our addiction to imported oil and get this country the energy plan it deserves.

President Obama has pledged to “take every possible action to safely develop this energy.” Mitt Romney calls the domestic gas “a godsend.”

Pickens himself sees the use of domestic natural gas as a no-brainer:

Energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, an early natural gas booster, contends it’s “obvious” that Washington should enact policies to encourage natural gas production and use throughout the economy.

But no matter how obvious or plentiful this energy source is, what is needed most is a willingness to put a plan in place and act on it:

“Do we have to take advantage of this?” asks Mr. Pickens, with his characteristic Texas Panhandle pragmatism. “Well, if you don’t, you’re going to go down in history as the biggest fools that ever came to town.”

Read the entire article HERE.

“The coming energy renaissance could be just the elixir the U.S. economy needs.”

In looking at the bigger picture, Fortune noted the irony of the shale gas revolution and noted that “… only a few years ago the conventional wisdom was that America was running out of natural gas. Now becoming ‘the Saudi Arabia of natural gas,’ as some industry promoters like to say, means that America will start exporting lots of the stuff.

“We’re going from being a very large sinkhole for all hydrocarbon products to becoming the low-cost energy producer in the world.” - Charif Souki

The package includes requirements for the state to purchase vehicles that run on natural gas and, according to Pickens, is an “aggressive move to move the state’s school buses off OPEC oil/diesel/gasoline and onto domestic natural gas.”

One of the bills would permit hydraulic fracturing or fracking as a method of recovering natural gas safely and efficiently. That bill, “known as the Clean Energy and Economic Security Act, would legalize the practice within about two years” and passed on Wednesday.

To read the full article, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

“America is waking up to the important role that our ever-expanding reserve use of domestic natural gas can do in transportation to solve the national security and economic crisis tied to our continued dependence on OPEC oil. The good news is that, while we wait for the federal government to demonstrate leadership on this issue, the states are moving. I commend Senate Pro Tem Phil Berger and other North Carolina legislative leadership on their aggressive move to move the state’s school buses off OPEC oil/diesel/gasoline and onto domestic natural gas. It’s model legislation, and I hope other states take note and follow North Carolina’s lead.”

The decision to go with CNG rather than diesel was driven by economics and the volatility of the price of diesel. For RFTA, the cost of diesel has risen 15% since January 1, 2012, while CNG averages about $2 dollars per gallon equivalent nationally.

This is especially significant because it demonstrates the breadth of interest nationwide in utilizing America’s domestic energy resources. The Roaring Fork Transit Authority is not located in a metropolitan setting. Its buses service the roof of the Rockies - from Glenwood Springs to Aspen.

“This is the first rural Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in the nation and the decision to fuel our buses on domestic natural gas is expected to save approximately $350,000 per year in fuel costs,” said RFTA CEO Dan Blankenship. “Fuel savings are expected to be even greater in the future, as we replace the remaining 65 diesel buses in our fleet with ones that operate on CNG. Natural gas is an abundant, domestically produced fuel source that will help RFTA become more energy independent, while contributing to the U.S. economy.”

Read more HERE.

On Tuesday, Frito-Lay announced it would add 67 trucks that would run on compressed natural gas, known as CNG, to its fleet. Eventually, the company said, a majority of its longer-range vehicles would run on CNG, as well as liquefied natural gas for longer-distance hauls.

The CNG-powered trucks would save the equivalent of $2.50 a gallon compared with diesel at current prices, as well as reduce greenhouse emissions by 23 percent when compared with diesel rigs, the company said. Currently, 18 trucks burning natural gas in 8.9-liter Cummins Westport engines are undergoing a pilot test.

To read the entire article by Jim Motavalli click HERE

– The Pickens Team

Smith said, “There is no free market for oil. It’s controlled by a cartel, OPEC. They own 80 percent to 90 percent of the reserves in the world. They produce about 42 percent.”

He said too many Republicans in Congress hear the word “alternative” and immediately think it’s an Administration effort.
“This isn’t about liberal programs and changing society. This is about energy conservation and national security by getting us off of imported oil,” Smith said.

Lutz, in the same interview, said he “all for ‘drill, baby, drill’ and the vision of the U.S. potentially becoming self-sufficient in petroleum and gas production. It is a dream that we fully support.”

To read the CNBC report of the interview, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team