Update on the Boondoggle Bandwagon

The controversy over the T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill, H. R. 1380, continued to grow this week. Three more Republicans joined Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) in getting off the Boonedoggle Bandwagon and withdrew as co-sponsors.  They are Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), and Tim Griffin (R-Ark.).  The complete list of 187 co-sponsors can be found here.

A joint letter organized by Heritage Action for America and signed by seventeen conservative organizations opposing the bill was sent to the Hill. Pickens himself published an op-ed co-authored by flack-for-hire Denise Bode in Politico that was full of his usual blend of self regard, bluster, and misinformation.  Pickens and Bode claimed in the op-ed that the House Republican Study Committee has endorsed his bill.  It has not, and Politico quickly corrected Pickens.  They also claimed that wind power is now cheaper than new coal-fired power.

Pickens continues to claim that he is not in this for the money, but only to reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil.  See my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis’s blog on GlobalWarming.org detailing Pickens’s BP Capital Management’s investments in a wide range of companies that would benefit by enactment of the Pickens-Your-Pocket Plan.