Pickens reacts to offshore drilling plans

DALLAS, April 1 (UPI) -- Energy magnate T. Boone Pickens welcomed U.S. plans to expand offshore drilling but stressed domestic natural gas was needed to ease foreign dependency.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday the expansion of offshore development and exploration on the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico and support for development of leased areas of Alaska's North Slope to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign energy.

"I want to emphasize that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies on homegrown fuels and clean energy," Obama said.

Pickens said the Obama announcement was "an important step" to help the U.S. energy market decrease its reliance on foreign oil.

Pickens, who in 2008 lauded wind energy as a potential option to diversify the U.S. energy sector, has focused his energy on natural gas as energy prices collapsed in the wake of the global economic recession.

"No energy strategy can be effective unless it promotes the use of domestic natural gas as a transportation fuel alternative to foreign oil/diesel, and the focus has to be on America's eight million heavy duty vehicles," he added in his reaction to Obama.

Pickens in 2009 said abundant gas reserves in the United States made the country the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas."