mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time . 
i rise to support the rule and the underlying bill . 
as everyone knows , high energy costs are the greatest drag that we currently have on our economy and actually on world economy ; and every year we delay passing this legislation , we become more dependent on foreign oil . 
i would like to mention very quickly a small part of the energy bill which has to do with ethanol and biodiesel . 
the bill mandates 5 billion gallons of ethanol production by 2012 . 
interestingly enough , here this year , in 2005 , we will produce 4.5 billion , so we are almost there . 
next year , 2006 , we will produce well over 5 billion which will be 7 years before the end date of 2012 . 
so we have great capacity to do even better . 
ethanol today is produced in 20 different states , and i predict that within a few years , using biomass , all 50 states in the union will produce some form of ethanol . 
today the average price of a gallon of gasoline is reduced by 29 cents by the ethanol production that we now have . 
the average price around the country is about $ 2.20 . 
without ethanol today , it would be roughly $ 2.50 . 
ethanol increases the price of corn by between 25 and 50 cents a bushel . 
what is so big about that ? 
the important thing is , it reduces the cost of the farm bill because as prices of corn go up , we have fewer farm payments . 
so over the next 10 years ethanol production will reduce the cost of the farm bill by roughly $ 6 billion . 
it reduces the trade deficit by $ 64 billion over the next 8 years . 
it creates 243 , 000 jobs and adds $ 200 billion to gdp over the next 8 years . 
so it reduces our dependence on foreign oil . 
we think this is critical and has great potential . 
at the present time , brazil mandates 23 percent of their fuel supply be from ethanol . 
we certainly could hit 7 or 8 percent in this country . 
mr. speaker , i support the rule . 
