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Opinion: A Boone for California?

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What do you get the Texas oilman who has everything? Why, a $5 billion ballot measure, of course.

Perhaps that’s unfair. Knowing that it’s better to give than to receive, T. Boone Pickens has given to California Proposition 10, a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot that would authorize the sale of $5 billion in bonds to provide rebates to buyers of hybrids and other alternative-fuel cars. I mean, he spent $3.25 million of his own money just to get this clean-energy measure on the ballot. He’s now on a nationwide campaign to get Americans to give up their gasoline habit and to get their government to invest in alternative energy. You may have seen his TV commercials, or his Pickens Plan website.

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But back to Proposition 10, and what to do with all that bond money. Hey, how about handing out rebates to cities and counties to buy fleets of -- oh, I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here -- natural-gas vehicles? I mean, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has a huge network of natural gas fuel stations around the country, so there’s already a refueling infrastructure in place. Gee, I wonder who owns Clean Energy Fuels. Let’s look that up…. Why, look here! It’s owned by T. Boone Pickens! What a coincidence!

The Contra Costa Times’ Steve Harmon has the story. He reports on critics angry over Pickens’ ‘brazen attempt to get Californians to foot the bill’ for a measure that will cost them and their descendants $9.8 billion dollars, including interest, over the next 30 years. Harmon also notes that Proposition 10’s campaign manager, Marty Wilson, was* Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief fundraiser. Another amazing coincidence.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Pickens has been in the ballot measure biz before? As The Times’ David Zahniser detailed in this Feb. 1 story, Pickens threw in $150,000 to help Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pass his successful ballot measure to broaden (and shrink) the city telephone tax. At the same time, Clean Energy Fuels was backing Villaraigosa’s plan to convert all trucks at the Port of Los Angeles to natural gas.

So is it all a horrible idea? Californians may be OK with paying to get more alternative energy vehicles off the road and more poison and carbon out of the air. The Times’ David Lazarus picked apart the Pickens Plan in a column earlier this month, and although Proposition 10 is not discussed, Lazarus correctly points out that what’s good for America does not become suddenly bad merely because a rich guy might profit from it.

But people already are back-ordering Priuses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a line forming for the Chevy Volt longer than the one I waited in for Zeppelin tickets outside the Ticketron at the Boyle Heights Sears in 1977. Do taxpayers really have to underwrite alt-vehicle sales?

A mighty tip of the hat to Joe Mathews and his Blockbuster Democracy blog – an indispensable resource for those who follow the world of ballot measures.

*Marty Wilson was Schwarzenegger’s chief fundraiser until about a year ago.

*Photo: Chip Somodevilla /Getty Images

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