Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is adding a new wrinkle to his push for US energy independence: monthly updates to remind Americans how much money they’re paying for foreign oil.
Pickens, a billionaire who is spending US$60 million on a high-profile campaign to boost the use of wind power and natural gas, said on Tuesday the updates would be a yardstick for measuring the incoming US administration’s progress on its goal of eliminating Middle East oil imports within a decade.
“You watch, we will elevate the interest in this,” he said.
PHOTO: AFP
Pickens and environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr said oil-rich Middle East nations are using billions of US dollars to build schools, roads and airports while US infrastructure crumbles. They made the comments during a briefing at the Capitol.
Americans sent US$19.3 billion overseas to foreign governments for their oil last month, said Pickens, citing government figures.
“It is outrageous that we are sending billions of dollars — US$432,000 per minute — overseas to foreign countries while domestic programs at home remain severely underfunded,” said Pickens, who plans to highlight the monthly figures on his Web site.
Pickens met with the leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and several Congress members to promote his plan. He urged them to support a plan for converting 350,000 large commercial trucks such as 18-wheelers to natural gas.
“I think they are thinking about all of this very seriously,” he said.
Pickens last July unveiled a plan to cut oil dependency by increasing the use of wind power and natural gas. Pickens wants to erect wind turbines in the Midwest to generate electricity, replacing the 22 percent of US power produced from natural gas.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS