Jack Kingston: “I come from agriculture country in southeast Georgia, and it is always remarkable to me that 2 percent of our population…”

“I come from agriculture country in southeast Georgia, and it is always remarkable to me that 2 percent of our population feeds not just 100 percent of the American population but a great deal of people all around the world. In fact, one thing that is even more interesting is that our ag production outpaces our ag consumption. We have more food than we can eat because our farm supply is so strong. Very vital of course to have food, but it is also vital in our society to have energy and fuel for our cars. Yet the world demand and the world supply are almost even. And the gentleman knows from the gulf coast what havoc Katrina played not only on the 90,000 square miles of the gulf coast, but when it comes to energy and gasoline supply, indeed all of America. In fact there was a world disruption because of that. In the United States, we consume over 20 million barrels of crude oil a day, nearly 25 percent of the consumption for the entire globe; and yet the United States only has about 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Worse than that, we import from countries about 60 percent, and these countries are not always our friends. A lot of it comes from the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait. We have got some from South America, Venezuela. We all remember last week what Hugo Chavez of Venezuela did to the President when he was down there to give him a warm welcome.…”