Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are returning to Washington this week, getting ready for the next session that will get into high gear after the President’s State of the Union Speech on Tuesday night. Iowa Congressman Steve King says he wants to focus on finding more energy for the U.S.

King says “We’re sending the wealth of America to people that are unfriendly to us, to purchase our energy.” He says we’re buying fertilizer from Venezuela, which has plenty of natural gas, and pointed to a shipment of lower-than-market-cost home heating oil sent to nonprofits in Boston and New York for low-income residents by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez back in November.

King says we’re losing our fertilizer production in America and have 38-Trillion cubic feet of natural gas untapped on the North Slope of Alaska ready to be transported to the lower 48 states. King says while the Alaska gas fields are big, there are larger gas stores that could be tapped. Alaska’s 38-Trillion, he says, pales in comparison to 406-Trillion cubic feet of natural gas that’s on the outer continental shelf off the shore of Florida. But he says oil companies can’t even drill for it 199 miles offshore “because those Floridians have better eyesight than anybody else in America and they might see that derrick there and it could spoil the beauty of their beach.” King says he will push for legislation that would open up more areas for gas and oil exploration.