Subsidy smack-down: T. Boone 'The Gasser' Pickens v. Charles 'The Oiler' Koch

Big Dogs of the Oil Patch Tangle Over Gas Subsidies

By JEFFREY BALL
Wall Street Journal

Investor T. Boone Pickens has a vision of American highways in which trucks are powered by natural gas—and nudged along by government subsidies. Charles Koch, one of the richest men in the country, is gunning hard to block taxpayer money from boosting his fellow billionaire's dream.

The oil-patch titans are brawling over a congressional bill that would provide tax breaks to trucking companies for 18-wheelers that run on natural gas instead of oil.

Mr. Pickens, a limelight-loving, veteran energy investor who owns part of a company that installs natural-gas fueling stations, has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting an energy plan he says would help shift the U.S. off imported oil. Mr. Koch, an intensely private but prominent donor to conservative causes, opposes the bill. His family conglomerate, Koch Industries Inc., refines oil into motor fuel, including diesel for trucks, and uses natural gas to make chemicals. He says the bill would unfairly enrich the gas industry.

(More here.)