T. Boone Pickens preaches gospel of natural gas in West Chester

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens says President Barack Obama is not moving fast enough to wean the U-S off foreign oil. Pickens visited West Chester University Friday to promote his energy plan. As gasoline prices rise, Pickens says the U-S needs to develop domestic natural gas.

Filling up at a natural gas pump now costs about $2 dollars a gallon. Oil man T. Boone Pickens says President Obama should do more to turn gas-guzzling trucks and cars into vehicles powered by natural gas.

“How you coming on the deal to get off the mid-east oil pal? Because we gone up since he became President,” said Pickens. “He’s not the only one–Republicans the same way. Well, that’s gotta stop, we have a plan to stop it we do have the natural gas.”

Pickens’ plan pushes both wind and natural gas as “bridge” fuels–giving the US enough time to develop large-scale renewable energy sources.  He says developing Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves is key.

Critics question the environmental benefits of drilling for natural gas because the drilling process, has contaminated residential water supplies.

Pickens says he’s never seen any water supplies damaged by natural gas drilling.

“I don’t know, I havent seen that,” he said. “The wells I’ve been associated with we knew where the fresh water was, we cased it off. Drilled the well, cased the well, and fracked it. Never had any problem with methane in the water well.”

Pennsylvania environmental regulators recently fined a natural gas driller about $1 million dollars for contaminating residential water wells with methane.