Building A Progressive Future

One of my favorite Disney movies as a child was Beauty and the Beast. From a child who was born with a thrill for taking ugly, mean things and making them beautiful (I was really into painting old furniture), you could see the appeal: a stubborn and self-serving beast was transformed into a sweet, giving prince through the healing power of love. Oh, if only real life was this idyllic.

Unfortunately, in the real world, wealth and power don't magically yield to justice and conscience, even if it's presented as such on the surface. Take oil tycoon and bill-footer of last election's Swift Boat crusade T. Boone Pickens. Pickens has been on a $58 million publicity tour to promote his plan to erect wind turbines in the Midwest. “The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power,” the website for his plan says. “The [United States'] addiction [to foreign oil] has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of crisis.” Pickens has leased hundreds of thousands of acres for a giant wind farm in West Texas, where he plans to erect 2,700 turbines and produce energy for urban areas such as Dallas and Fort Worth.

A Texas oilman pursuing his own private crusade to make wind power a reality in the United States? Sounds like a fairy tale come true, right? Not quite. Half of Pickens's plan calls for more support for wind power. The other half calls for a large-scale conversion of motor vehicles to natural gas -- another finite, carbon-spewing fossil fuel. Kind of like shifting our addiction from heroin to crack cocaine.

It turns out that Pickens' main concern is not really about the harm that our country's main sources of energy are having on our environment. Turns out, as predictable as it is, the oilman's man concerns boil down to money. Pickens plan for wind energy is both a lucrative investment for himself, and a plan to address the increasing costs of energy in the United States, so it comes as no surprise that he plans on taking the freed up natural gas from his wind turbines and using it for transportation. It's a win-win plan for him, but a win-lose plan for the public and the planet.

Which is why it's a little disconcerting to find that many a progressive leader are singing his praises. With all the latest compromises our Democratic-controlled Congress has been rolling out- FISA, the war budget, etc. - the Pickens Plan poses a similar danger for the ostensibly greener party not doing what is needed to turn our country around. 

Pickens is testifying before Congress and running ads calling on the American people to back his Pickens Plan. It's clear that Pickens is seeking widespread support for his half-baked energy plan. Let's tell him we'll support his plan if he drops or changes the second half -- like, say, a crash program to double fuel efficiency standards, accelerate the development of plug-in hybrids and electric cars, and bring our public transportation systems into the 21st century, including high-speed rail. Email Melissa McKay, PR for The Pickens Plan, and tell her that we want Pickens to finish what he started.