The T. Boone Pickens wind plan seems more about natural gas. This indeed may be a decent alternative energy option but why is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi personally investing in these companies and considering taxpayer money to subsidize this plan, while refusing to allow a vote on offshore drilling as an additional energy option?

See the opposing viewpoint and interview with House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner

T. Boone Pickens runs CLNE, this is the company the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has invested in, and apparently, the push is natural gas, which is the focus of the $5 billion in California tax money and $5 billion in federal money they are seeking to fund the project.

Pelosi should be asked about a direct investment into Quest Energy Partners between $250,000-$500,000 on November 8th of 2007 (http://qelp.publishpath.com) when asked why she will not allow an up or down vote on oil drilling as part of the multi-faceted energy bill being considered by the American people. Is this all about protecting the environment at all costs or is refusing the American people a vote about something else?

What is the matter with Pickens money alone to raise the additional funds from private equity investors to fund this plan? Does such a plan require taxpayer investment? Raging Debate examines some quick backdrop of events that brought this discussion up for debate and some backdrop on the Pickens plan.

The Pickens Plan is based in the idea of using wind power to free up natural gas to which he can convert to fuel for transportation, with a tank and converter installed into a vehicle. Questions are created when taxpayer money is on the line, such as how much total infrastructure the full implementation of the plan will cost and how much oil/gasoline demand would be offset using this method. But the concept does seem interesting.

Pickens also owns Mesa Water, the company that is gobbling up large amounts of water in Texas and Mesa Power, a company subsidizing part of the wind power plan. For all intensive purposes, this bigger picture of the Pickens plan should simply be named 'The Natural Gas Plan'. The tie in with the water-grab and recent mainstream news media articles that tout that the nation may soon be having a "water shortage" problem perhaps demonstrates an additional debate the American people may wish to consider at a later time. For now however, the story takes a bizarre and disturbing twist for what Americans have guessed at for a long time. Washington, it appears, is attempting to legislate into it's own pocket.

First off, why won't the Speaker of the House permit an up-or-down vote on oil drilling? It is fairly well known both major political parties are considering all other alternative energy plans such as clean coal, hydrogen, electric vehicles, biodiesel and nuclear power. The vote on oil drilling was blocked by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi on August 1st. Instead of allowing an up-or-down vote on oil drilling, the Democratic controlled House voted immediately for a 5 week recess (and won the vote) instead, with almost every Democrat for the recess and almost every Republican against. When roughly two dozen Republican legislators remained behind at the House to protest the obvious un-democratic process of NOT allowing a vote on oil drilling, the Speaker of the House then ordered the lights shut off in the main chamber of the House of Representatives. C-Span refused to cover the protest inside the chamber, saying that the Speaker of the House has the legal right to cover or not cover House events.

Other Republican Congressman that were boarding planes and leaving Washington returned immediately to the House to join the protest, about 30. Americans visiting the House of Representatives on tours came into the main chamber such as the Boy Scouts and sat in chairs normally reserved for legislators. The D.C. Capitol Police cleared the main chamber around 4:00 on August 1st. The protest by Republican's continues even as this article is written. Much of the press considers this a publicity stunt. We leave this viewpoint up to our readership for debate.

Has the American public at large been fooled to believe it is all President Bush's fault as an 'oil guy' for the run-up in oil and gasoline? Or, were we all dreaming that President Bush publically stated he would lift the Executive ban on oil drilling on July 14th? It requires two parties to lift the ban. The Executive Branch (President) and Legislative Branch (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic majority Congress). At this point, perhaps the bigger question should be if the American people's Representatives have the right to NOT allow a vote on issues as important as sky-high gasoline and home heating energy prices.

The investors in this apparent coordinated strategy between big business oil man T. Boone Pickens (now reformed as a natural gas man) and the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi should be fully explored and and if deemed true is called 'market manipulation'. The Founding Fathers often projected this would occur in our nation and had repeatedly seen such affairs in Europe. This is not the time in America at the brink of economic calamity to be considering how best to legislate into one's pocketbook.

A vote to renew the moratorium banning oil drilling must be made in Congress by September 30th. Keen eyes will be eager to see if an up or down vote on renewing the ban and which Representative by both major political parties, weigh-in on an individual and party basis. Is this market manipulation by the controlling members of the House of Representatives or all mere coincidence?

It's time to debate and decide.