mr. speaker , i thank the distinguished member of the committee on rules for yielding me this time . 
mr. speaker , i rise in very strong support of this rule and , of course , in strong support of the underlying bill , h.r. 3893 . 
i want to make a few comments first about the rule . 
we have made in order the democratic substitute . 
my understanding is that the democrat substitute is similar , if not identical , to the democrat alternative that was put in play in the committee on energy and commerce at our 16-hour markup last week . 
so point one is our friends on the minority side are going to get an opportunity to have their ideas on this issue addressed by the body and voted on ; so that would be a very good reason for everybody to vote on the rule . 
another good reason to vote for the rule is that the manager 's amendment that has been incorporated into the base text takes into account many of the issues that were debated in the committee on energy and commerce and many of the issues that were supported by our minority members of that committee last week , in particular the concerns about price gouging . 
the amendment that was adopted in committee on price gouging last week only referred to price gouging within a disaster area that had been declared by the president of the united states , and it only applied to gasoline and diesel fuel . 
the manager 's amendment incorporates many of the ideas that the gentleman from michigan ( mr. stupak ) xz4003910 and the gentlewoman from new mexico ( mrs. wilson ) xz4004342 on the majority side had in their alternative price gouging amendments . 
it would expand the authority of the president to allow a price gouging investigation outside of the disaster area . 
it would allow the ftc to prosecute price gouging outside the disaster area if they felt that there was price gouging . 
it also expands the jurisdiction of price gouging that would be under the control of the federal trade commission from gasoline and diesel fuel to home heating oil . 
and i know there are very legitimate concerns in the northeast and the midwest this winter about the price and availability of home heating oil . 
so those are the reasons that i think we should vote for the rule . 
when it comes time to vote for the bill , obviously we are going to have a very spirited debate , which is what this body is all about . 
as we have that debate , there are several facts that i think we should keep in mind . 
number one , since 1981 we have closed 176 refineries in this country . 
that means that we have in operation today 148 . 
we have closed over half of the refineries in the united states of america in the last 30 years . 
that might be acceptable if the demand for their products was going down ; but , in fact , the opposite is true . 
the demand for refined products in our nation is rising every year , somewhere between 1 percent to 3 percent a year . 
if we convert that to barrels per day , that is somewhere between 250 , 000 to 750 , 000 barrels a day . 
our nation uses 30 billion barrels of oil every year . 
our refinery capacity has simply not kept pace with our demand for the refined products . 
the consequences were clear for every american to see in the aftermath of katrina and rita when over half of our refineries shut down temporarily and about 25 percent of our oil and gas production shut down . 
in some parts of the country , the price of gasoline doubled and even tripled . 
even with most of those refineries back on line , there is still enough refinery capacity disabled that the prices remain somewhere between 30 to 50 cents a gallon higher than they were before the hurricane . 
so quite simply , mr. speaker , it is time to invest in our energy infrastructure , and one of the critical components of that is our refinery capacity . 
this bill would do that without putting direct federal dollars into it . 
it would do it by eliminating the red tape that we have to go through to get a refinery permitted . 
it would not eliminate or reduce any environmental law on the books today , but it would create an expedited process that a governor of a state that wished to build a new refinery or expand an existing one could utilize . 
the bill would also make it easier to build some new oil pipelines . 
we have not built a new oil pipeline in this country in over 40 years . 
again , the only two pipelines serving the midwest and the northeast , both of those were temporarily shut down because of katrina . 
this bill takes some steps to do that . 
the bill would also reduce the number of boutique fuels , which currently is over 40 , down to six . 
if the epa thinks that that is practical to do so , that would make these fuels more fungible , more efficient to refine , and less expensive for the taxpayers , motorists of our country , to have to purchase . 
it also has some incentives and some emphasis on carpooling . 
carpooling is not a real sexy high-tech issue ; but if we could get one out of every three americans to actually carpool on their way to and from work , we would save over 1 million barrels of oil per day , which , again , reducing the demand would reduce the cost of the gasoline . 
this is a good bill . 
it is a bill that both sides of the aisle can support . 
i would hope that we vote for the rule and then vote for the bill later this afternoon . 
i want to thank the distinguished committee on rules for bringing this rule to the floor , and i look forward to working with them on this issue and other issues in the future . 
mr. speaker , i rise in strong support of this rule . 
the house today takes an important step in recovering from hurricane katrina . 
with the gasoline for america 's security act , we will make our country less dependent upon imports of gasoline and address high gas prices . 
the bill increases u.s. fuel supply by encouraging new refineries and reducing the number of boutique fuels around the country . 
we promote conservation through carpooling . 
we also outlaw price gouging for gasoline . 
the bill before us today is the product of a markup in committee that started at 8 a.m . 
and ended after midnight . 
it follows countless hearings over the last several years on gasoline markets , refinery capacity , and clean air act issues . 
our nation is dangerously dependent upon tight refinery capacity and refined product imports . 
hurricane katrina hit in the wrong place at the wrong time , and american consumers are suffering . 
offshore crude oil production was shut down . 
refineries went down and are struggling to come on line . 
oil and gasoline pipelines were without power and could n't pump their product . 
we are paying the price at the pump and must take action . 
i keep hearing `` it does n't matter how much crude oil we import if we do n't build or expand refineries. '' katrina proved that right when refineries were damaged or unable to move their product . 
mr. speaker , our nation has not seen a new refinery built since 1976 . 
the bill today encourages companies to come forward with proposals to build refineries . 
many refiners have just given up because of an endless stream of red tape and the threat of nuisance litigation . 
the permitting process is overly cumbersome , and this bill fixes it . 
we want all states to be able to build refineries under an expedited permitting process . 
any governor can request that we cut through the red tape . 
the president can designate federal lands to be considered for a refinery , even a military base that is being closed . 
if a state needs to see a pipeline built to service a refinery , we let the governor request expedited permitting , too . 
the manager 's amendment before us today improves the bill further from the bill reported out of the energy and commerce committee . 
it extends the geographic reach of our price gouging provision and increases penalties for violations . 
the manager 's amendment also drops provisions that are very important policies but which i will save for another day . 
nothing should stand in the way of this bill passing . 
if you want to increase the supply of gasoline , you need to do two things : increase the supply of crude oil ; and increase refinery capacity . 
in the end , the issue before us is whether people who work for a living will get the gasoline they need to go to work , at a price they can afford to pay . 
some seem to believe that americans will float to work on a cloud of our good intentions . 
but they drive to work in cars and trucks that run gasoline . 
that could change some day , and i hope it does , but it will not change this day or this decade . 
we 've known about the problem in refinery capacity for 30 years , and done nothing . 
katrina and rita demonstrated that the do-nothing policy is dangerous . 
today we can start doing something about gasoline prices and gasoline supplies . 
the energy policy act of 2005 will help on crude oil prices , as will future legislation by the resources committee . 
we can increase refinery capacity today by voting `` yes '' on this rule and `` yes '' on the gas act . 
