mr. speaker , i appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time . 
i want to talk about a very important issue that should appeal to all republicans and democrats in this house , and that is gas prices . 
one provision that is included in this bill , the boutique fuel reduction act , is very , very important to reducing the price spikes that we are experiencing . 
let me just explain . 
this map right here of america looks like a piece of modern art . 
it shows you all of the different fuels we have running around america . 
because of the clean air act , a very good law , we never thought about having a federal fuel system , so today we have 18 different base blends of gasoline ; throw the different octanes in there , we have 45 different fuels . 
so we have a full distribution system , national in scope ; we have pipelines and refineries that are meant to put one fuel out there for america that was built in the 1950s , 1960s , and 1970s , which was the last time that it was upgraded . 
now , when we go from winter blend to summer blend gasoline , we throw all of these different blends into the system . 
what that does for all of our consumers , our constituents , is it makes those boutique fuels short in supply and therefore high in price . 
it makes the system which is running at full capacity very vulnerable to price spikes if there is any hiccup in supply . 
this map of 45 different blends is a result . 
the current ozone nonattainment areas , the blue areas on this map , 217 counties . 
but now with the new 8-hour ozone rule which has been released last year , takes effect in 2 years , 474 counties in america will now be out of attainment with respect to the ozone rule . 
that is the red counties . 
that means we go from 217 counties to 474 counties that will have to select new blends of gasoline . 
what this bill does is it says let us get some common sense to this system . 
let us have the department of energy and the epa figure out a federal fuel system so we can maintain our clean air standards , but standardize our fuel blends so we can stabilize our supply of gasoline and therefore stabilize our price of gasoline . 
if there is a problem in supply overnight , an immediate problem like we had in arizona last year , wisconsin on a couple of times with a pipeline break or a refinery fire , the epa has waiver authority on a 20-day basis to fix that . 
the second thing we do is we cap the amount of fuel blends so the problem does not get any worse now that we are running to the 8-hour rules . 
we can have clean air and cheap gas at the same time , mr. speaker . 
that is what this bill does . 
i urge adoption of this rule and this bill . 
