Pickens: Obama's 'Kill Pipelines' View Dangerous for Energy Security

Legendary energy investor T. Boone Pickens, CEO of BP Capital, says President Barack Obama's opposition to the Keystone pipeline and his stance on the Trans-Alaska pipeline are deeply flawed.

The strategy amounts to "kill the pipelines," he writes on Forbes.com.

"Should the president make this view a reality, America’s energy security will be dangerously undermined, and the prospects of a prolonged downturn in gasoline prices that benefit consumers to the tune of $720 per year will be in serious jeopardy."

Regular gasoline prices have dropped by one-third over the past year to $2.21 a gallon.You're undoubtedly aware of Keystone, but what about Alaska?

"President Obama’s recent proposal to extend wilderness status to 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge threatens the viability of America’s biggest oil pipeline: the Trans-Alaska pipeline," Pickens says.

And it's not just pipeline policy, he argues.

"A host of jumbled, environmentalist-placating energy policies are being packaged as a clever PR attempt to credit the president with America’s energy revival," Pickens writes. "I’m not buying it, and neither should you. We need a comprehensive national energy strategy, not piecemeal proposals that impede the quest for energy security."

Like Pickens, Tom Hutchinson, senior editor of the Newsmax newsletter "The High Income Factor," believes that oil's rebound from five-and-a-half-year lows will continue in coming months.

"It's pretty much agreed by everyone who follows it: oil prices should trend higher over the course of the year," Hutchinson, a Newsmax Financial Braintrust (FBT) member, told the "America's Forum" show on Newsmax TV.

"They might go lower still before then, they might hover around this level for a while. But remember, when oil prices go down as much as they have — and they went down as much as 60 percent from the summer highs — production stops."

Producers close unprofitable wells, Hutchinson explained. "Some of the production is shut down. At the same time, with lower prices, there tends to be more demand for oil. Lower prices are met with less supply and more demand, which drives it back up."