T. Boone Pickens, honorary Nevadan

If one element has been sorely missing from America's angst over $4.40 a gallon gas and the broader debate over the nation's energy future, it's a summit. Finally, that glaring omission will be rectified, as the Great and Powerful Harry Reid has announced that Las Vegas will host something called the National Clean Energy Summit at UNLV August 19.

And now here are some words that were put into the Great and Powerful Harry's mouth by the "Let's Get Harry Some Innocuously Positive Headlines Division" of his media message development center:

"I am hopeful that this event will result in some consensus ideas and principles that participants can carry to the parties’ political conventions and on into the next Administration.”

Dang. Obama was in town just the other day speaking in a rather detailed and yet comprehensive manner about, as Harry might say, the "ideas and principles" guiding his clean energy policy. Just imagine how much better Obama's proposals would be once he and his several hundred policy advisers have digested the magnificent consensus that will emerge from Harry's Supercalifragilistic Energy Summit.

Okeydokey, perhaps the snark should be dialed back a tad -- especially since Harry's diagnosis that "coal makes us sick" and "oil makes us sick" is so popular on the YouTubes (via Sun). Besides, the more promotion of sane energy policy the better, and certainly no harm could come from the Reid/UNLV/Center for American Progress confab. By the way, people who are scheduled to attend include but (presumably) are not limited to: Bill Clinton, who hopefully will have resumed his former status as an ex-president by then, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, and Wall Street darling and Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

Notably absent, obviously, is Al Gore.

Conversely, conspicuously invited is "businessman T. Boone Pickens, who is committing to build the largest wind farm in America."

Oh for cute. After decades of making jillions in the oil industry, Pickens is building a big wind farm in Texas. Not only does it stand to earn him a buck or two. He also gets to greenwash his reputation.

To be fair, the oilman and erstwhile corporate raider's enthusiasm for wind power isn't the only thing he has in common with Nevada. It's not even the most important thing. Before he concluded that wind power could be profitable, Pickens realized that if he mined the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the Texas panhandle in a water privatization scheme and then piped the water to Dallas and San Antonio, he could make a huge profit (especially if the wind farm transmission line and the water pipeline share the same easement corridor).

As it says right there on the "A suprising environmentalist" page of "T. Boone Pickens. His Life ... His Legacy" ... his website:

The water is high quality, it is not needed for local irrigation because the land it rests under is unsuitable for farming, and studies support that supplies can support a prudent plan of drawing off water from the aquifer.

See? Mining aquifers is profitable and environmentally harmless. Southern Nevada Water Authority Czarina Pat Mulroy couldn't have said it better herself. Nor, for that matter, could Harry Reid, who has done so very, very much to facilitate Southern Nevada's very own aquifer mining schemes -- all part of official Nevada's long and storied commitment to the care and feeding of the corporate growth industry.

Meantime, Harry's Supersonic Summit is yet another event that was organized without consulting the Gleaner. Otherwise, Amory Lovins would be keynoting.

(Disclosure: Several years ago while employed with some simply wonderful people at a place called Public Citizen, your lowly Gleaner was paid to advocate against water privatization schemes generally and, if memory serves, did a nominal amount of work in opposition to the Pickens scheme specifically.)

Comments

[KidFromVegas]

Disingenuous, no?

[Launce]

Sigh. I am inviting wingnut attacks by quietly suggesting that development of clean alternative energy does not, in fact, demand water mining, defoliation and economic destruction of rural Nevada. I might even whisper that the two ends might be mutually antagonistic.
But I'm on the record here, so send in the flying monkeys!