mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time . 
i would support the amendment . 
as an oil and gas service company , we did not actually own oil and gas wells , but we owned a company that repaired the wells . 
my wife and i faced the problem daily of where to find employees and how to retain those employees . 
in the 1999-2000 period , the price of oil fell to $ 6 for new mexico type of oil . 
revenues in service companies like ours fell to 20 percent of the original values . 
although my wife and i were able to keep every employee for the duration of that period of time , about 11 months , many , many of the firms laid off 68 to 70 percent of their employees and gave pay cuts in the industry . 
that is the sort of cyclical thing that we face in the oil and gas industry , and now that the price has come back up , literally there are no workers to be had because they do not wanted to come back to a cyclical industry . 
we face limitations on production based on the lack of availability of labor . 
so i think that this important study should be done to find out where we can get labor , where we can get solutions to simply keep our oil fields working . 
the viability of our oil fields really is going to determine the price of natural gas and petroleum in this economy . 
i think the gentleman 's amendment is well placed , and again , i would heartily endorse it and request members to vote for it . 
