Texas oil tycoon and renewable energy proponent T. Boone Pickens suggested Sunday that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s anti-fossil fuel message would essentially shut down the world.
“I’m amused when I hear last night Hillary Clinton says we are going to get rid of coal. We’re going to get rid of all fossil fuels,” Pickens said in an interview on Sunday. The Texas billionaire was likely referring to comments the former secretary of state made in March suggesting her policies would put coal mines “out of business.”
Pickens went on to tell radio host John Catsimatidis that the former secretary of state has absolutely no alternative to fossil fuels, adding she simply blasts away at the coal and oil industry to gather support among environmentalists.
“You want to stop the music at that point and say, ‘Look, what are you going to replace it with?’ She has no idea.”
He concluded the interview with a warning: “You get rid of fossil fuels, and you’ll stop the world.”
Clinton later walked back the anti-coal comments she made in March, calling it a “misstatement” during her coal country campaign ahead of Kentucky’s May 17 Democratic primary election. The former first lady is making her way through coal states West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio to pitch her green energy plan.
“What I said was totally out of context from what I meant,” Clinton said at a group discussion, as angry protesters and former coal miners gathered outside. “It was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs.”
The Texas billionaire is a proponent of natural gas, as well as other forms of renewable energy, such as wind power.
Pickens said in 2015 that he anticipates that companies relying on energy will ultimately make the switch to clean energy, citing companies like UPS, Wal-Mart, and FedEx as companies likely to make a complete switch to renewable energy.
“I’m saying that they are going to switch to natural gas. I think BNSF will. I think they’re all going to go to it, because it’s cheaper and it’s cleaner,” Pickens told “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer in 2015.
The oil magnate has a history of groveling to the government for green subsidies and billions of dollars of taxpayer money to get his natural gas and wind energy plans off the ground.
“This is all the help I want. I want a billion dollars a year for five years and then kill it,” Pickens said during a 2011 energy confab in Washington, D.C., describing the amount of public money he’ll need through tax credits to get his plan off the ground. “Five billion dollars.”
“Just give me the money to get it started,” he said at the Tuesday luncheon. “Give us the direction, Mr. President and we’ll go in that direction because we are patriotic and we’re not stupid.”
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