T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore

T. Boone Pickens is the Texas oil billionaire who funded the "Swiftboat Veterans and POWs for Truth" propaganda campaign and then reneged on an offer to give a million dollars to anyone who could disprove any claims by the swiftboaters.

I would never have expected to agree with T. Boone instead of Al, but I do. In his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security committee, he said that he and Al talk frequently about energy and global warming and the difference between them is that global warming is a "page 2 issue" for him because his page 1 issue is the national security threat of buying foreign oil. Therefore he believes our first priority should be energy independence, and then global warming. Gore, on the other hand, comes at the issue with global warming as the more cruial concern.

Now, I think "clean coal" is BS and nuclear power still has that waste disposal problem, so they may not be very good solutions. I'm not ready to rule them out.

T. Boone is opening the conversation to natural gas and wind energy. His voice may legitimize alternative energy. Thanks, T. Boone.

I have a modest suggestion: Why don't we place an export tax on every barrel of oil we sell to anyone but Canada and Mexico and an equal import tax on every barrel we buy from anyone but Canada and Mexico and use the money to fund wind power, solar power, oil and gas exploration, and pollution control for coal power.