T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil man and a major donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth – the organization that discredited John Kerry and helped bring George W. Bush back to the White House in 2004 – has become one of the biggest backers of wind power in the United States.
Not only has the billionaire’s company, Mesa Power, recently invested $2 billion to build an enormous windfarm in Texas, but Pickens has begun actively lobbying the United States government to wean the US off of foreign oil. Today, Pickens was in the US Capitol to bring his message to Congress. He’s spent what I imagine is not a small amount of money on TV ads that have been playing on CNN (below) and has built a website that rivals some of the best environmental campaign sites that I’ve seen, complete with links to popular social networking sites like Facebook.
But before people begin to think Pickens has taken a complete 180 turn, his plan is focused on reducing the US dependence on foreign oil and seems agnostic as to how. According to CNN, he seems to back nuclear and domestic drilling in sensitive areas like the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge in order to reach his goal.
