http://www.nowpublic.com/world/pelosi-and-pickens-picking-taxpayers-pockets
This is an editorial and for another look at this, in fact the person to cover it here at Now Public, head over to politisite's
Why no Drilling? Nancy Pelosi in Bed with T. Boone Pickens.
I started covering this on May 19 of this year with
T. Boone Pickens - Environmentalist Suckling at Big Government's Teet. Everything that has happened since then has only made me more sure of myself in this instance. T. Boone Pickens is using the power of the government to make his (and Pelosi's) investments better.
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TV commercials touting a new clean energy strategy and an environmental ballot measure in California have one thing in common: If they succeed, they'll make
investors "“ from "big oil" to the U.S. Capitol "“ a lot of money.
The ads champion Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens' "Pickens Plan" to move the U.S. from foreign oil dependence to domestically produced wind power and
natural gas fuel for automobiles. The plan is touted as a cleaner, more eco-friendly alternative to our current reliance on coal power and gasoline.
The ballot initiative is California's Proposition 10, known as the California
Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act, which would spend $5 billion in California bond money "“ $10 billion by the time the interest is paid, according to the L.A. Times "“ to promote natural gas as an cleaner alternative for automobile and truck fuel.
Not surprisingly, the nation's largest provider of natural gas for transportation, Clean Energy Fuels Corporation, or CLNE, has a great deal to gain from the adoption of Pickens' fuel strategy and the passage of Proposition 10. In fact, according to the California Secretary of State website, CLNE has contributed $3,247,250 to supporting Proposition 10's passage.
CLNE, however, was formerly known as Pickens Fuel after its primary investor, T. Boone Pickens.
While Pickens touts a plan in the name of environmentalism that will also line his company's pockets, a
#dontgo investigation has revealed that another environmental champion and backer of Proposition 10 has also invested in CLNE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
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Source:
worldnetdaily.com via
BigT
[/align][/align]This is despicable. On the one hand we have a businessman doing what businessmen do - make sure that their company makes as much money as possible; by playing with the government. On the other hand we have one of the democrat's most important leaders, a woman who was supposed to usher in a new way for America when her party took over congress, who is financially benefiting from the government's intervention with the free market.
Here's what Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Pickens have to gain:
[blockquote]
Pelosi could have purchased around 20,000 shares at $3.86, or $50,000 to $100,000 worth, which are now worth 300% more than their original value.
Nancy Pelosi says that she is trying to save the planet and prevent global warming, but the reality is that, according to disclosure statements, in May 2007 she invested in T. Boone Picken"™s clean energy fuels corp., CLNE, which is the sole sponsor of a proposal in California to funnel $5 billion in state funds and $5 billion in Federal funs to this corporation which will indirectly help them create a giant wind farm in the Texas panhandle.
An overlooked story in
November of 2007 shows that the T. Boone Pickens plan involves the private control of water, which Pickens wants to be able to sell to big cities via giant water pipelines which will be built on land seized under eminent domain.
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Source:
dontgomovement.com via
BigT
[/align][/align]So Pelosi and Pickens are going to make a bundle off of this if the people will go along. Hell, folks, this is a lot bigger than I thought it was. I just thought it was about wind farms and the Texas panhandle. It's not. It's about fundamentally altering our nation's energy policy around the investment portfolio of a few people.
It's not just about wind or water or even plain old energy anymore. It is about using the government to boost a few people's (Pickens and Pelosi) investments.
[blockquote]
ickens has not been able to find enough investors to pay for a
$110 Billion bond he wants his new "śwater authority"ť to issue, SOhe isnow trying to
piggy-back the windmill farm plan on to the water infrastructure development plan"¦so he canuse the money obtained fromthe wind farms (some of which will be state and federal funds, i.e. taxpayer dollars) to pay for the water system infrastructure.
Clear as mud? He"™s using his water district scheme to seize land and his windmill scheme to fund his water scheme. Andyou as a taxpayer aregoing to help pay for it! Aren"™t you excited?!
And again, Pickensalso has the financial and moral support of Nancy "śI"™m Trying toSave the World"ť Pelosi who purchased a large chunk of stock in CLNE on May 25, 2007 in the initial IPO.
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Source:
elizabethcrum.blogivists.com via
BigT
[/align][/align]As of closing time on August 13, 2008 CLNE is at 14.70 per share. This gives the company a market capitalization (which is the theoretical value of the company - to compute multiply shares outstanding by share price) of 651.17 million. Here's a description of the company from Yahoo! Finance:
[blockquote]Clean Energy Fuels Corp. provides natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicle fleets in the United States and Canada. It designs, builds, finances, and operates fueling stations and supplies compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. The company serves approximately 275 fleet customers operating 14,000 natural gas vehicles in public transit, refuse hauling, airports, taxis, seaports, and regional trucking markets. As of December 31, 2007, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. owned and operated 170 natural gas fueling stations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Washington, Georgia, Wyoming, and Canada. The company was incorporated in 2001 and is based in Seal Beach, California.[/blockquote][/align]
Source:
finance.yahoo.com via
BigT
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Just looking at some of CLNE's statistics I can see that it is by no means a strong company in its industry. CLNE has negative operating margins, negative net income, negative earnings per share and based on the sales it does have is given a higher valuation than both BP and Exon Mobile [
SOURCE]. It just isn't worth what it's worth unless Pickens and Pelosi get their way and the company gets a huge boost through government handouts and intervention through emminent domain.
Does this make anyone else sick? Fear of global warming and buying oil from the Middle East is being used to
steal money from Americans. If Pelosi and Pickens get their way they will end up getting billions of dollars through government bonds and billions more through tax credits and the free use of emminent domain to enrich their investments.
The government is just too damn powerful. There's no way the government should have the ability to procure loans and land for businesses. Knowing that this is the situation Nancy Pelosi and T. Boone Pickens are exploiting it to the hilt. They're playing on our fears to make themselves richer.
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Nancy Pelosi and T. Boone Pickens
