mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
briefly , before i yield time to the gentleman from new hampshire ( mr. bass ) xz4000190 , just to make one major point , we were not aware that this amendment might come up today . 
we were not even told it could until we walked on the floor and saw the gentlewoman from california ( mrs. capps ) xz4000620 . 
that is point number one . 
point number two , when we huddled at the leadership level to decide what to do about this , i was given several parliamentary options to try to defeat any kind of an effort to have a substantive debate , and i chose not to do that . 
i made the decision that if the gentlewoman from california ( mrs. capps ) xz4000620 and her allies were smart enough to figure out a way to use the house rules to get her vote up , she ought to be given that chance to do it . 
and i had several opportunities to gimmick the rules up and do complicated parliamentary procedure that would have obfuscated the issue . 
so i do not want to come onto this floor and be told that somehow i have tried to be unfair or prevent an honest debate . 
i will be honest , i would rather not have this debate right now . 
but we are going to have it , and let us have a substantive debate . 
i am fine on that . 
the second point i want to make is , i am not going to disparage what the gentleman from california ( mr. waxman ) xz4004250 just said , but when we were debating these amendments back in the early 1990s , we had numerous instances where he went on record saying that mbte was something that should be included as an oxygenate . 
he even offered an amendment in committee to increase the oxygenate requirement to 3 percent . 
if i am correct , then i will let him look at the statements and tell me that they are incorrect . 
i am for a fair and open debate . 
