This might be music of sorts to Boone Pickens' ears: The oil billionaire, who for the past couple of years has been working on a plan to end dependence on foreign sources of energy, last week was adding a lesser-known ingredient to his highly publicized, and mildly surprising, push for wind energy.

In phone calls to newspapers here and there, Pickens said we could knock a dent in the "enemy" he identifies as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, by converting our country's trucking fleet to natural gas.

He's lobbying for a "nat gas" bill loaded with incentives for putting in gas-burning engines when the diesels propelling those 18-wheelers wear out.

Pickens, who has plenty of money tied up in the commodity he's peddling, has a notion of adding natural-gas bays to today's truck stops. Eventually, he figures, they'd save truckers vast numbers of dollars — and at the same time wean us from the sheiks and tinpot dictators from whom we buy so much oil.

Editorially, we're not so worried about where oil comes from — in fact, a case could be made for using up other countries' supplies of the finite stuff first. What's really needed is independence from anyone's oil — for environmental as well as economic reasons. Spare us the jingoism, which, as New Mexico's ex-Sen. Pete Domenici used to spout it, was a cover for opening up America to more drilling — and damn the environmental effects.

Sure, most of our oil imports come from countries whose regimes aren't our friends — and who, in some cases, use money from America to support terrorism. But oil being the fungible stuff it is, the shipment we buy from Saudi Arabia might wind up coming from the North Sea. The greater reason for self-sufficiency has to do with balance of payments and domestic jobs.

So as our nation holds its breath over the beginning to the end of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we and Mr. Pickens might find encouragement from what Domenici's Senate successor announced on Thursday: Tom Udall, along with fellow Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tom Carper of Delaware and Michael Bennet of Colorado, introduced the Oil Independence for a Stronger America Act.

Unlike other high-sounding bills, so many of which mean just the opposite of their titles, this one has a goal laudable enough for both parties to approve: independence from overseas oil within 20 years — and specific ways to win it.

Since transportation amounts to 70 percent of our oil consumption, this bill pushes engine efficiency and alternative energy sources. Pickens, with his proposal to convert big rigs, appears to be in harmony with Udall and Co.

While they're about it, the senators should consider converting our country's diesel locomotives to electricity — the more wind- and solar-generated, the better. Meanwhile, they're likely to join President Barack Obama in support of faster development of electric automobiles.

More for confronting oil dependence than for making a big deal about where we get it, we salute Sen. Udall and his colleagues on this nicely timed initiative.