mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i might consume . 
might i just say for the edification of my good friend , the gentleman from arizona ( mr. flake ) xz4001340 , that when you take those two cans of coke that you are talking about , just tell me whether the diet coke is cheaper than the other one that has sugar in it . 
i do not think so . 
you are not saving any money that way . 
that is not going to work . 
but i would be happy some other time perhaps to have a full blown discussion about this at another point . 
chairman dreier , ranking member slaughter and the members of the committee on rules . 
i offer this amendment to h.r. 6 with the hope of reducing our nation 's reliance on oil and advancing our efforts in hawaii to become more energy self-sufficient . 
this is philosophically consistent with other provisions of h.r. 6 encouraging energy production . 
my amendment authorizes a 3-year demonstration program for the production of ethanol from sugar cane in hawaii . 
specifically , $ 8.0 million would fund a $ 1.00 per gallon payment to refiners and 8.0 million gallons of ethanol fuel . 
this pilot program would parallel the existing corn program to show that the process can be applicable to cane sugar and can be replicated on a larger scale . 
nationally , the sugar cane industry is currently formulating a program to process 700 , 000 tons of cane sugar into ethanol . 
with a large domestic surplus of sugar , and the possibility of additional imported sugar being allowed into the domestic market through free trade agreements , a program of such size would stabilize domestic markets and produce a significant volume of ethanol . 
this pilot project will provide invaluable insight on problems that may arise with a national program . 
the state of hawaii has passed a law that goes into effect on april 1 , 2006 , mandating a 10 percent ethanol blend for gasoline consumption in the state . 
oil refineries are building ethanol storage and blending facilities in anticipation of meeting the requirement . 
locally produced ethanol would be less expensive than importing the estimated 45 million gallons of ethanol needed to fulfill the 10 percent requirement . 
because of the relatively low domestic price of sugar , hawaii producers for some time been considering and now planning ethanol production from the cane sugar that would otherwise have gone into the domestic sugar market . 
the state of hawaii is prepared to take advantage of this within months . 
however , this amendment is also supported by the other sugar cane growers who would like to identify any problems that might result from the large scale production of sugar cane ethanol . 
this amendment was developed after the house energy and commerce committee completed its markup but the amendment has been signed off by the majority side of the energy committee . 
i urge my colleagues to allow floor debate on this demonstration project and rule this amendment in order . 
thank you very mush for your consideration . 
mr. chairman , i yield my remaining time to the gentleman from hawaii ( mr. case ) xz4000690 . 
