madam chairman , i thank the chairman for yielding this time to have an opportunity to address an issue that is so important to this country , and that issue is the energy that drives this economy .  we all know that everything that we purchase in this country has got an energy cost component in it ; and so when we address the energy issues , we know that when we can provide more supply of energy , whether it comes from someplace else on the globe , whether it comes from the northern hemisphere , whether it comes from the united states , whether it is renewable energy or whether it is a consumable energy , that is at least in theory not renewed , all of those things add to the overall size of the energy pie .  it is our responsibility here in this congress to be able to expand the size of that pie so we have more energy available to the consumers ; and we know that due to the law of supply and demand , the more supply there is , of course the less relative demand there will be .  the relative costs of energy will either be slowed in their increase or actually diminished in some cases , and we can see reductions in the price of energy .  it is critical to me , in the part of the state i come from .  we are very vulnerable to energy .  we use gas and diesel fuel for the production of agriculture , for example , and we also produce ethanol and biodiesel .  so we are a renewable energy export center , as well as a consumer of energy .  i have watched this policy here in the united states , and we tend to take sides a little bit .  that taking sides falls into a few categories : energy consumers who want all the energy they can get , as cheap as they can get it ; and environmentalist interests that want to be able to preserve the pristine areas of america at whatever cost to the economy .  i would take the stand that natural gas in this country , for example , we have a huge domestic supply of natural gas in the north american continent underneath nonnational park public lands .  we have a tremendous supply of natural gas offshore in the outer continental shelf , gulf of mexico , and a lot of that is , as we stand here , off limits to producers .  that has driven up the cost of natural gas in my district and all across this country and put an additional price on virtually everything that we sell and purchase .  