Self-made billionaire T. Boone Pickens always could get an audience with federal lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

They liked his deep pockets, he said.

But it wasn't until the past year, when he's garnered the support of 1.6 million citizen members of his New Energy Army, that those lawmakers started listening to him, he said.

"I never got a damn thing done there in 30 years when I was just a rich guy from Texas," the 81-year-old keynote speaker told the crowd of about 2,500 Wednesday night at The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry's 137th annual dinner at the Lancaster County Convention Center.

"But this rich guy from Texas is a hell of a lot more powerful with a million people behind him than he ever was before."

A former oil tycoon, Pickens is founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, which handles more than $4 billion in energy-oriented investment funds.

Last year, Pickens gained national notoriety when he launched The Pickens Plan, which promotes clean energy, such as wind and solar power generation, and pushes the use of natural gas as an alternative to gasoline and diesel for transportation.

Since he launched the plan — using $60 million of his own money to publicize it — nearly 1.6 million people have signed up at www.pickensplan.com, Pickens said, to support the initiatives as members of the New Energy Army.

Two months ago, his appearance at the county's largest gathering of business men and women was in jeopardy.

The annual dinner originally was scheduled for May 26, but construction delays at the $174 million hotel/convention center on Penn Square put off the opening of the facility until June 19.

Tom Baldrige, president of the chamber, thanked Pickens Wednesday "for being flexible with his schedule" and agreeing to speak at the rescheduled dinner.

Wearing a sharp tuxedo and sitting on a lone chair under a spotlight, Pickens spent 20 minutes painting a picture of the dire straits the United States is in due to its heavy dependence on foreign oil.

VIDEO: Pickens speaks at chamber dinner

"We import 70 percent of the oil we use in this country, and more than half of that comes from countries that hate us," he said. "If we keep going the way we are now, in 10 years, you'll be paying $300 for a barrel of oil.

"We are sitting ducks."

The price of a barrel of oil spiked at around $150 last summer and as a result gas prices climbed above $4 per gallon at the pump.

Pickens then spent 10 minutes telling the crowd how boosting production and use of natural gas here can help the nation avoid financial ruin.

A study came out recently, Pickens said, that claims the United States has more natural gas than any other country in the world.

"We are big," he said. "We are getting ready to escape from a horrible, horrible trap we put ourselves into, because our own technology has developed a method to get the gas out of the ground."

And as natural gas plays a bigger role in transportation, Pickens said, Pennsylvania will be comparable to California during the gold rush of the 1840s.

"You are probably going to have the largest gas field in the United States — the Marcellus," he said.

The Marcellus Shale lies under much of Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia.

Geologists have long known the shale holds a wealth of natural gas, but only in recent years has the technology been developed to tap into this deep-seated reservoir.

"My advice to you is to take it, bless it, love it, make everything you can off it," Pickens said of Pennsylvania's Marcellus gas reserves.

The key that will open the door to the rush for natural gas in the United States, according to Pickens, is passage of the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2009, also known as U.S. House Resolution 1835, which is currently under consideration in Washington.

If H.R. 1835 becomes law in its current form, Pickens said, federal incentives will be provided to encourage drilling for natural gas and for the manufacturing and purchasing of vehicles that run on natural gas.

"Natural gas will buy you about 20 or 30 years," he said. "By then, I think you will have the battery technology needed to run an 18-wheeler."

While this fuel revolution is under way, Pickens said the nation also needs to ramp up its efforts to generate more electricity using wind and the sun as part of a 50-year energy plan that emphasizes renewable resources.

"We have never had an energy plan before," he said. "We have never had a plan that looked out 50 years, but that is about to change."

E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com