Pickens' Natural Gas Push Rolls Into DC

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens tooled on over to Ben's Chili Bowl on Wednesday in his brightly-painted Honda GX Civic. He owns the car because it's the only model sold in the U.S. that burns compressed natural gas as a fuel.

"It costs me about a dollar a gallon to fuel that car," Pickens told reporters.

Pickens was in town to lend support to legislation that would extend or expand tax breaks for the purchase or manufacture of natural gas vehicles. CNG vehicles are far less polluting that traditional gas or diesel burning cars, trucks, and buses.

New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez is sponsoring the bill (S.B. 1408), with support from Majority Leader Harry Reid and Utah Republican Orrin Hatch. Menendez says there's plenty of natural gas in U.S. territory.

"Because of new extraction techniques," Menendez explained to a crowded news conference, "We now have 35 percent more accessible natural gas than we did two years ago."

For the last year, energy billionaire Pickens has also been a strong advocate for wind energy, although falling oil and natural gas prices have significantly undercut Pickens' efforts to establish big wind-power projects in California and Texas.