Pelosi and Pickens, investment partners

From the DC Examiner

...in May 2007, Pelosi invested between $100,001 and $250,000 to purchase public common stock in Pickens’ Clean Energy Fuels Corporation (CLNE). Pelosi's CLNE investment was first highlighted by the Michigan Taxes Too Much and #don'tgo blogs.
CLNE is a cog in Pickens’$6 billion plan to build a massive wind farm in west Texas and to switch millions of vehicles on American roads from gasoline to natural gas. Pelosi’s CLNE purchase is listed on her most recent congressional personal financial disclosure form, which can be viewed at Opensecrets.org.

A search of Pelosi’s official web site found no announcement of the investment in the Pickens operation. A request to the Speaker’s official spokesman yesterday for information about the investment went unanswered. Coincidentally, Pelosi’s investment came the same month as the House passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, which she hailed as making the Congress over which she helps preside “the most open and honest in history.” There are numerous ways Pelosi could provide assistance to CLNE and Pickens, including helping secure federal tax advantages. Pickens expects at least 15 percent profits on the wind farm and associated initiatives. At CLNE’s $14 per share value, Pelosi appears to own between 7,000 and 17,000 shares.

From Michigan Taxes Too Much:

Pelosi, showing in her financial disclosures that in May of 2007, she purchased (on the opening public offering apparently) a substantial amount of T. Boone Pickens clean energy fuels corp, CLNE. CLNE apparently is funding a proposal in California? ..ahh the shenanigans begin!

While her “substantial” investment might be a fraction of her total investment package, one wonders about the total investment package when $137 Million assets of the company total find a $5 BILLION dollar emerging California market for natural gas if a particular proposal goes through. The multiplier effect can really make a difference.

And here's the point for people who don't "get it."

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (Clean Energy) is a provider of natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicle fleets in the United States and Canada. The Company offers a solution to enable customers to run their fleets on natural gas. It designs, builds, finances and operates fueling stations, and supplies customers with compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Company also helps them acquire and finance natural gas vehicles, and obtain local, state and federal clean air rebates and incentives. The Company serves fleet vehicle operators in a variety of markets, including public transit, refuse hauling, airports, taxis, seaports, and regional trucking. It generates revenues primarily by selling CNG and LNG, and to an extent by building, operating and maintaining CNG and LNG fueling stations.

Now of course, if Gasoline is cheap….

...this whole project fails. That's where Nancy Pelosi, the environmentalists and the Democrats join in and block oil development and mandate "alternative fuels."

From the Dallas Morning News:
T. Boone Pickens' motives in energy plan questioned

While the Texas oil and gas executive has downplayed his self-interest – he's made enough money, he says – a company that he founded has engineered a California ballot initiative to put $5 billion toward renewable-energy incentives, much of which would benefit the firm, known as Clean Energy, by subsidizing the purchase of vehicles powered by natural gas.

And without a government mandate and high gasoline prices that investment goes up in smoke.

Energy analysts have questioned Mr. Pickens' vision and say he's offered few supporting details. According to the Pickens model, wind power would replace natural gas in power generation, freeing up natural gas – produced abundantly in the U.S. and Canada – for transportation.

Mr. Pickens has invested more than $2 billion in turbines for a wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. But without new transmission – paid for by utility customers – the power can't be moved to population centers where it's needed.

"A lot of what he's trying to do is add value to a stranded asset," said Kenneth B. Medlock III, an energy fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. "It's a misnomer to say he's doing this with the country's best interests at heart, because he's obviously got millions of dollars on the line."