madam chairman , i thank the chairman for yielding time . 
i very much appreciate his service on the bill that he has produced , and i support this bill , and i appreciate his efforts and the efforts of the gentleman from washington ( mr. dicks ) xz4001090 , the ranking member , and the staff on the committee . 
however , there is a part of this bill that the country needs to be aware about . 
all across america we are confronted with skyrocketing energy prices , whether at the gasoline pump or our utilities at home or the manufacturing sector or the feedstock to produce fertilizer ( which , therefore , affects agriculture ) . 
what is the connection between that and this bill ? 
this bill has language in it that perpetuates more than 30 years of misguided policy . 
it has provisions that continue a ban on drilling in most of the outercontinental shelf , offshore drilling that could be occurring in the united states of america . 
and 60 percent of america 's oil reserves are in that outercontinental shelf . 
forty percent of our natural gas reserves are in that outercontinental shelf . 
yet , for more than 30 years this congress , each year , has perpetuated a ban on drilling in most of those areas . 
what is the consequence of that ? 
it is the high prices . 
the consequence is the high prices we are experiencing . 
the result is that each year america is spending $ 179 billion to buy foreign oil and bring it to the united states of america . 
rounded off , it is $ 180 billion , that we could be using to produce energy safely , in an environmentally friendly and clean fashion here in the united states . 
but because of language that this congress has put into this bill for over 30 years , we are not doing that . 
right now , almost 60 percent of the oil and gas that we consume in the united states is imported . 
we need to fix that . 
we will have several amendments to address this that are offered on this bill . 
we will probably hear from people saying , oh , my goodness , we can not do that ; we have got to protect the environment . 
but we can do it by protecting the environment . 
the offshore drilling that does occur right now in the united states produces a fourth of the oil and gas that we have in the u.s. what is their environmental record ? 
the amount of oil that is spilled is \1/1 , 000\ of 1 percent . 
that is all -- because we have made so many advances in environmentally friendly methods to handle this drilling . 
that means we are using methods that are 99.999 percent safe and friendly to the environment . 
we need to revisit those provisions that limit offshore drilling , and i hope we will do that today . 
