i thank the gentleman from idaho ( mr. otter ) xz4003050 for his comments . 
i will get to some more of that subject matter of education as i go through this . 
i appreciate your patience with me tonight and indulgence . 
i would like to first speak to the broad picture of energy across this country . 
there is this entire pie of energy here and different components and slices of this pie . 
energy , first of all , is a component in everything that we buy . 
if there is any one item that adds to inflation in all the products that we purchase in this country , it is energy because it takes energy to produce anything , it takes energy to deliver anything , and it takes energy to go pick it up and buy it . 
so whenever we move , we are burning energy , and that is a part of the cost of everything we are . 
if we do not have an effective energy policy , we are paying more for all goods and services in this country than is necessary and that means it makes us less competitive in the rest of the world . 
that is the big picture as to why energy is so important . 
some of the components of this energy are crude oil . 
we know how much energy we bring in across from the middle east and venezuela and other parts of the world that is imported into the united states . 
the crude oil cost includes also the military investment over there and the unrest and everyone , as was said earlier , the gentleman from texas stated about every country must have their energy . 
whatever it takes , we must have our energy . 
but we sit in this country on a significant supply of domestic crude oil . 
this bill puts in place the motion to construct the refineries that we need so that we can bring the crude oil in and get it refined . 
it also allows for us to go up to anwr and do our drilling up there to bring that crude oil down to the lower 48 . 
i also have been up to anwr to take a look at that . 
as i asked the people up there around the kaktovik area , they said , yes , we have to go hunt the caribou during a certain time of the year but really the resident caribou in the drilling area are only in there from mid-may until the end of june . 
they come in to calve and then they leave about the end of june . 
that is the time when the permafrost thaws down to about a foot or 18 inches . 
nothing is going to move during that period of time except the caribou and when those young calves get old enough to walk back , they go back over to canada out of the area , so nothing would be going on in that region when the caribou were there . 
it is kind of a caribou maternity ward in that part of alaska . 
we need that domestic crude oil and any nation that is looking to its long-term best interests will be producing its own energy . 
the concern about someday running out of crude oil , why would you keep it in the bank forever when we have other opportunities for different energy supplies that will be developed as science and technology catches up ? 
we need to go there , get that crude oil , get it drilled , and bring it down the alaska pipeline . 
by the way , the alaska pipeline , if the north slope oil runs out , and it looks like it is heading in that direction , that pipeline has to stay full almost all the time or it starts to erode inside the pipe , it turns to rust and it may not be able to be put back up on line . 
so it is important that we keep the alaska pipeline up and going . 
that is a huge and valuable resource that began construction there in about 1972 . 
it has been there a long time , it has served very , very well , and it can do a lot more . 
in that same region is all of the natural gas that is already developed that we do not have a good way to deliver it to the lower 48 , that is the pipeline . 
yes , there are some things to work out within the state of alaska . 
i hope that gets done . 
we have done , i think , what we can do here , at least for now , but we need that natural gas , we need it into the corn belt , we need it for a lot of the reasons that the gentleman from colorado said , and i am glad he is in here talking about corn and ethanol with regard to energy . 
in the part of the country where i come from , we have constructed ethanol production to the extent that within the next 2 years , we will be able to say that we have built all of the ethanol production , all the plants that we have the corn to supply in the fifth district in iowa , the western third of iowa . 
we have started construction now on biodiesel plants , we have two plants up and running now , we are breaking ground on a third plant that happens to be about 9 miles from where i live as the crow flies on biodiesel . 
biodiesel is coming along in the same shoes as ethanol , only a lot faster , because they have learned from the people that blazed the trail in ethanol . 
we are going to have , i believe , within the next 5 to 6 years , all of the biodiesel production that we will have , the soybeans and the other bioproducts to supply . 
that has made already this district that i represent an energy export center with the ethanol production being up to almost all we can provide and the biodiesel , we have started on it very well . 
we have tremendous wind energy that has been put in place there in the last 4 to 5 years . 
i will say 6 to 7 years ago , we had almost no energy production , we were an energy consumption region , and today we are an energy export center . 
it has changed that much . 
it has helped a lot with our energy independence and to become less dependent on foreign energy supplies of all kinds . 
but we are faced with this need for nitrogen fertilizer and almost all of our nitrogen fertilizer is made directly from natural gas , directly from natural gas . 
ninety percent of the cost of that fertilizer is the cost of purchasing the gas to produce the nitrogen from it . 
so we sit in this country without being able to get the pipeline down from alaska where the gas is , it is already developed , and that is a process that if all goes well could maybe get done in 6 years . 
it may take 9 or 10 years to get there . 
yet that needs to happen and it needs to happen quickly . 
but within the lower 48 states , earlier we saw the map of the layout of the natural gas , along the east coast , the west coast and the outer shelf around florida and in the central part of the united states . 
one of these esteemed gentlemen has made the statement on this floor , and i am going to repeat it , and i believe it , and that is that we have enough known natural gas reserves underneath non-national park public lands in the united states of america to heat every home in america for the next 150 years . 
that is almost a renewable energy resource when you look at that kind of a quantity . 
yet natural gas is three times the price as it was just 5 and 6 years ago . 
our natural gas that produces our fertilizer has done the same thing to our fertilizer prices . 
people in the corn belt pay going into the ground with their fertilizer and then when they take that grain off the field in the fall , they have to dry the grain and most times what do they dry it with ? 
natural gas . 
so we are more susceptible to high natural gas prices than maybe any place else in the country and we have watched because of that the fertilizer production go offshore to places like venezuela and russia . 
i remember what happened with the oil cartel in the late seventies when they shut down the oil delivery to the united states and the prices went up . 
we could be in that same situation with venezuela and russia if we let them take on any more of the fertilizer production . 
we need it here . 
we have got the gas here . 
we need to develop the gas . 
when we develop the gas , we will be able to keep our fertilizer plants . 
but if we do not , we will not be able to keep those plants which means we lose that fertilizer production and makes us dependent on those countries that i named . 
that is really critical . 
we mentioned the solar energy as a component and that is going on in some of the parts of the country . 
hydroelectric has been built and constructed . 
one of the other things i am concerned about is we have not built a nuclear plant in this country in a generation . 
the engineering technology that it takes to do that is leaving us year by year . 
that is another piece that has got to move along . 
we have got hydrogen around the corner and hydrogen may be the answer to much of this , but if we put all these pieces together , wind and ethanol and biodiesel and natural gas and crude oil , hydroelectric , the whole list , we have got the picture of the pieces that make us less dependent on foreign oil . 
that is the picture , that is the energy bill , and that is why i support it . 
