Perhaps it is fitting that today on 9/11 I was among three to four thousand folks gathered to hear T. Boone Pickens promote his plan, ‘The Plan’, for energy independence in the  United States. This is a well funded publicity campaign if I’ve ever seen one, combining components of advertising, public affairs, press relations, lobbying, and social media to drum up support towards one million supporters signed up on ‘The Plan’ at www.pickensplan.com . Our distinguished speaker came fresh from an appearance on Jay Leno last evening where he pitched ‘The Plan’.   

Perhaps one of the greatest security threats to the U.S. is our dependence on foreign oil. Mr. Pickens’ plan is to build a bridge to alternative energy using the vast natural energy resources of North America. He discussed many things we will feature in an in-production podcast in the next couple of days. However, he specifically suggests that the quickest way to energy independence is a combination of not only immediate U.S. oil drilling, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, and most importantly as a scalable and immediate ‘bridge’, compressed natural gas (CNG). He especially stated that 30 percent of fuel is used in the transport industry. Therefore, he feels strongly that we should direct most of the natural gas capacity and transition effort to America’s trucking industry.  

The large audience, including me, responded very positively for the most part to the Pickens’ Plan. However, two gentlemen I interviewed before and after the presentation expressed concern for the future of Utah’s national low price of 87 cents per gallon. That compares with much higher rates of $2.89 in California, $2.69 in Arizona, and $2.89 in Washington. Their point is that Utah uniquely controls Questar’s CNG rates through the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). If Pickens acquires Questar as he has other CNG suppliers nationally, would he not seek to derail PUC regulation of price to match the rest of the nation, pocketing the profits?

I’ll be podcasting these gentlemen’s comments shortly as well.  So watch for the coming podcasts while we also go to school on one of the largest Public Relations campaigns we will see in a long time.  

Let me know what you think.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Green PR, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.