A recent message from Russ Carnahan

Today, I received this email from the Missouri Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan and it's looking like he's totally backing the Picken's Plan. Way to go Russ!

Dear MR Stulce:

Thank you for contacting me in regard to America's energy needs. I appreciate hearing from you and I welcome the chance to respond to you.

In order to address this energy crisis, we need to fundamentally change the way America powers itself. While the United States has almost 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, we use 24 percent of the world's oil. We have more oil wells than any other country on Earth. And no matter how many more we drill, we will never again pump as much as we did during the1970s. Even self-described oilman, T. Boone Pickens said, "This is one emergency we can't drill our way out of." I agree with this statement, and believe that we must address the root of the problem - America's addiction to oil.

As you are aware, Pickens has developed a plan calling for the replacement of 20% of our energy requirements, currently supplied by foreign oil, with wind energy. Using wind energy also frees up our vast stores of natural gas which can then be used to power our cars with significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions and allows us more time to develop new cleaner energy sources. His plan is consistent with the plans supported by the Democratic Congress - break the grip of foreign oil while developing our own vast natural renewable and clean energy resources. Developing our own energy resources keeps our money and our jobs here and makes America more secure.

Please be assured that since coming to Congress, I have been working hard for all of my constituents to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, bring down record gas prices, and launch a cleaner, smarter energy future for America that lowers energy costs while creating hundreds of thousands of good paying green jobs and securing America's future.

Please know that I will continue to support and encourage legislation that will achieve these goals. Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future on this or any other issue of concern.

Call To Action - Join the Pickens Plan

The more and more I read information about The Pickens Plan, the more I think it is a really good idea. At this point, T. Boone Pickens is one of a very few, highly publicized individuals who are actually actively promoting ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. He takes a completely neutral stand on politics, as far as I can tell, in his approach to promoting his plan.

If you think about it, at this point are there any better alternatives? Not really. In the current state of economics in America, his plan would benefit immensely.

Please, take a moment of your time and navigate over to http://www.pickensplan.com, click on the heading "ThePledge" and then click on the link "Click here to email Congress now". The form will auto-populate, based on your registration information, your Congressional representatives contact information and will generate a letter to them. All you have to do is take a minute of your time. After you've completed ThePledge, please forward it to as many people as you can. The more registered pledgers that he has, the louder we speak and the easier it will be for Congress to "hear" our cry!

Thanks for your consideration and effort.

--Ken

My suggestion to T. Boone Pickens

After watching tonight's presidential debates, I decided to head over to The Picken's Plan to see what everyone was discussing in his post-debate discussion. After reading through the various discussion points, I decided to email T. Boone with a suggestion.

Hi T. Boone,

I think your ideas are great and are definitely the direction that our country needs to go. In regards to wind energy, I see that your plans seem to suggest wind farms, which require vast amount of land. With that in mind, I have seen information about plans where small wind turbines can be installed on the undersides of overpasses within the urban populations. Think about it, as many vehicles that pass under overpasses, at usually a high rate of speed, this would collect huge amounts of kinetic wind energy. If all major cities installed these forms of renewable energy devices, they could be almost self sustaining, or at least largely self-supported, in regards to an energy surplus. I discuss some of these ideas on my blog at "http://altenergypolitics.blogspot.com".

Also, a plan to gather the recyclable materials from our country's ever growing landfills could hypothetically produce, from all 50 states, a commodities surplus of $14 trillion. Please see the study that I posted on my blog from Missouri landfills alone, which could reap $280 million in just one year. Multiply that figure by all 50 states and we could easily support the alternative/renewable energy development plans.

Thanks in advance for your time in considering my suggestions.

--Ken