Pelosi, Pickens and the Corruption of Green Energy

Ah so!

It seems T. Boone Pickens is not the disinterested environmental pioneer that his ads make him out to be. Michelle Malkin exposes the grand scale corruption that is behind Nancy Pelosi’s desire not to drill for more oil. It seems that she has stock in companies that create and run wind farms – T. Boone Pickens companies.

Michelle Malkin:

Though she seemingly backtracked on labeling drilling a "hoax" this week, Pelosi refuses to consider GOP energy proposals that don't include massive government subsidies for so-called eco-alternatives that have never panned out.

Which brings us to Madame Speaker's 2007 financial disclosure form. Schedule III lists "Assets and 'Unearned Income'" of between $100,001-$250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. -- Public Common Stock. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) is a natural gas provider founded by T. Boone Pickens. Yep, that T. Boone Pickens -- former oilman turned wind-power evangelist whose ads touting a national wind campaign are now as ubiquitous as Viagra promos.

It seems a another Pickens company, Mesa Power is becoming the biggest owner and operator of wind farms in the country.

Dallas-based Mesa Power LLP, a company created by energy executive T. Boone Pickens, has placed an order with GE to purchase 667 wind turbines capable of generating 1,000 MW. GE plans to deliver the 1.5 MW wind turbines in 2010 and 2011.

So those T. Boone Pickens "public service announcements" are anything but. They are ads for his company. And with the blatant connivance of Democrat Speaker Pelosi, he's reaching in your pocket and mine for subsidies for his projects. With literally billions of taxpayer dollars involved, this is corruption on a grand scale; making the government graft in the Mexican oil industry small in comparison.

This is "Teapot Dome" writ large.

More Malkin:

Naturally, the Pickens Big Wind plan is proudly endorsed by Do-Nothing Pelosi's friends at the obstructionist Sierra Club. Through another company, Mesa Power, Pickens has committed upward of $12 billion in wind farms on the Texas panhandle. CLNE and Mesa Power are separate entities, but what benefits one piece of the Pickens puzzle benefits them all. The wind venture, as Pickens himself acknowledges, depends on permanent federal subsidies.

Pickens is banking on 'em. And Pelosi is banking on him.

As reported on dontgomovement.com, Speaker Pelosi bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in Pickens' CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering:

"She, and other investors, stand to gain a substantial return on their investment if gasoline prices stay high, and municipal, state and even the Federal governments start using natural gas as their primary fuel source. If gasoline prices fall? Alternative fuels and the cost to convert fleets over to them become less and less attractive."

CLNE also happens to be the sponsor of Proposition 10, a ballot initiative in Pelosi's home state of California to dole out a combined $10 billion in state and federal funds for renewable energy incentives -- namely, natural gas and wind.

Follow the money. Or, to put it in economist's terms as energy analyst Kenneth Medlock III did in an interview with The Dallas Morning News about the Pickens multibillion dollar wind farm investment: "A lot of what he's trying to do is add value to a stranded asset he's obviously got millions of dollars on the line."

And so, potentially, does the Democratic Speaker of the House -- all the while wagging her finger at the financial motivation of others.

As the newspapers downsize staff to go along with their reduced readership we get the claim from the reporters and columnists such as Debra J. Saunders that the newspapers are needed to dig in and report the news. Well, it seems not so much.

The Edwards fiasco was positively shunned by the MSM.

And who can forget Dan Rather. Now that he's gone, we get the LA Times spreading misinformation.

And despite the millions that Pickens has poured into his ad campaign, I have yet to read a word about his financial interest in the wind industry in the MSM. So I would say that the blogosphere is doing as good a job in its infancy as the MSM is doing in its dotage.

UPDATE: from earth2tech

It appears that Pickens is losing money on his “Green Energy” businesses. That explains why he’s going on TV to try to get consumers to push congress to bail him out.

UPDATE 8/24/2008:

I keep getting comments from people who like the idea of getting electricity from wind. How about by-passing Pickens and doing it yourself? Here is a link to a Q&A regarding home wind power.

FAQs: What You Need to Understand About a Wind Turbine for Your Home

The first thing you should know is the price:

...the average non-all-electric home (that is, one that not only uses electricity but other energy sources such as gas or liquefied petroleum (LP) gas) in the U.S. consumes about 1,000 kWh of electricity per month, or about 12,000 kWh per year. Depending on your wind resource and the tower height required to get the wind turbine above the trees, a wind system sized to generate this amount of electricity could easily cost $60,000 to $80,000 installed.
...

Then of course there's the question of getting your neighbors to go along with a really tall tower in their neighborhood.