Earth Equity News

John Kerry and Swift Boat Backer Meet. By Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico, March 3, 2010. "Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), looking for help where he can find it to pass his top legislative priority, has extended an olive branch of sorts to the man who bears as much responsibility as anyone for his greatest political defeat. In an effort to build support for the climate change legislation he's crafting with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kerry last month met quietly in his Washington office with the two lawmakers and T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman behind the Swift Boat attack ads that helped sink Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. The previously unreported session, which Kerry initiated, did not yield any concrete plans, but did find areas of agreement between the two former adversaries on the need for alternative energy sources, POLITICO has learned. And the session just might have set the ball rolling for Pickens to spend millions of dollars supporting a potentially career defining bill sponsored by a former archenemy. Pickens, who has contributed more than $6.6 million to Republican candidates and committees since the 1980s, has reinvented himself in recent years as a leading champion of clean energy. He has spent some $62 million and counting on television ads urging Congress to encourage development of wind and natural gas, in which he has business interests."