madam speaker , what a day we have had here in the house . 
we have talked about energy policy . 
and having an energy bill come to the floor of this house is something that we have waited for for quite a period of time . 
i want to congratulate the gentleman from texas ( mr. barton ) xz4000180 and our colleagues on the committee on energy and commerce . 
as we have had this occur today , it has been quite an effort . 
our energy committee , last week we talked about it earlier in the week and we talked about it the past week . 
we had about a third of the democrats in the house join us in voting that bill out of committee last week . 
they did it because it is a good bill . 
and they did it because it is time for us to have an energy bill , and it is the right step in the right way at this point in time . 
i know that we have some across the aisle , many who are going to follow the liberal leadership there and walk in lockstep with the gentlewoman from california ( ms. pelosi ) xz4003140 , but i think we are going to see more of the house democrats join us to make this energy bill a reality for the american people . 
i would like to remind my colleagues that over the last few weeks we have seen quite a bit of bipartisan support on some of our legislation . 
we had 122 democrats vote with us on the continuity of government bill , 50 democrats voted with us on the class action bill , 73 democrats voted with the republicans on bankruptcy reform , and 42 supported our repeal of the death tax and the real i.d . 
act . 
so we look forward tomorrow to having our democrat colleagues from across the aisle join us as we move forward on our nation 's energy policy . 
we have several members who have joined us tonight to talk about energy and to talk about energy policy . 
one of those is the gentleman from texas ( mr. hall ) xz4001650 , and i would like to yield some time to the gentleman to talk with us about the energy bill . 
i also want to thank the gentleman for the wonderful leadership that he has shown on this bill . 
at this point , i yield to the gentleman from texas ( mr. hall ) xz4001650 . 
