[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S687-S721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we have a unanimous-consent agreement I 
believe we are ready to enter. It is a very important effort to 
complete this legislation.
  After consultation with the Democratic leadership, Mr. President, I 
ask unanimous consent that there now be 90 minutes on the conference 
report to be equally divided in the usual form, and following the 
conclusion or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to the 
adoption of the conference report without any intervening action or 
debate.
  Mr. FORD. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I ask that my 
friend allow the ranking Member to have equal time for what the 
chairman has had, say 5 minutes, and add that to that.
  Mr. LOTT. I amend my unanimous-consent request to that effect.
  Mr. FORD. I thank my friend.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I thank my colleagues and my colleague from Kentucky.
  So, Mr. President, this bill is an industrial restructuring. It will 
be like the Oklahoma land rush because many investors have not had a 
road map as to what to do. It will mean we will be more competitive 
internationally, and it will mean many of our companies can form 
alliances internationally.
  Some have said, well, will this just allow one or two companies to 
take everything over? No, it will not. I think it will prove to be the 
age of the small, nimble business. I believe that we will see small 
businesses emerging. We have seen AT&T break up into three companies. I 
think that is going to happen more and more.
  This bill does not affect our antitrust laws. The antitrust laws stay 
in place. But this bill will encourage small, nimble companies and 
entrepreneurs to enter the telecommunications area.
  It will also bring us to a point where many of our companies that 
have not been able to get into other areas can do so. For example, the 
public utilities will be able to get into telecommunications.
  What does this mean to the average consumer? I have already mentioned 
I think it will mean lower prices through competition. It also will 
mean many new devices for senior citizens who might be living alone and 
want to summon emergency help with some of the wireless technologies 
that will be available. They can stay in their own homes longer with 
the security of mind of being able to call for help by pushing a 
button.
  For the home, I believe we will see the computer and TV and telephone 
blended into one source of education, news, and entertainment. For the 
small town hospital, it will mean telemedicine, new devices and 
investment, where a large hospital can partner with a small hospital in 
research.
  For the small business located in a smaller town, it will mean that a 
small businessman there will be on an equal footing with a bigger 
businessman in an urban center in terms of access to research and the 
ability to partner.
  As a member of the Finance Committee, I have asked my staff to help 
find ways that when big universities get a research grant for cancer 
research, for example, that they use telecommunications to partner with 
a small university. That will make the research more accurate at lower 
cost.
  So there are a number of benefits to consumers, farmers, small 
business people, and universities. There are many new devices that will 
come online that we have not even heard of yet. This bill will be like 
the Oklahoma land rush in terms of investment, inventions and 
development. We have just begun imagining what the telecommunications 
revolution will be like.
  This will be the starting gun. We have kept our companies in bondage. 
Those companies will break free and there will be a whole group of new 
small entrepreneurs coming forth to participate in the 
telecommunications revolution.
  Another area that it will help our country is jobs. This is the 
biggest jobs bill ever to pass this Congress. It will result in a 
creation of thousands of jobs, good jobs, good-paying jobs across our 
country.
  We read about layoffs every day, but they are frequently in 
industries that have grown obsolete. This bill will allow an unleashing 
of new high-technology jobs in the information age. And it is very 
important.
  This bill is a jobs bill without spending any Federal money. It will 
go down in history as the largest jobs bill in American history.
  So, Mr. President, I shall, to save time, because I know some of my 
colleagues wish to speak--I want to pay tribute to both the Republicans 
and Democrats who have worked on this bipartisan bill, to my colleague, 
Senator Hollings, to my colleague, Senator Daschle, who is on the 
floor, and many others on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and 
Democrats.
  This is a bipartisan bill. It has been all the way through the 
Senate. First of all, this bill has been simmering for many years. We 
have worked on it first in the Senate and then in the House. There were 
bipartisan staff meetings.
  We have brought the White House into the conference discussions. I 
spoke with President Clinton and Vice President Gore on a number of 
occasions throughout this process. I thank them for their 
participation. Mr. Simon of Vice President Gore's staff was a guest 
speaker at the conference staff's first meeting. We invited him so we 
could bring this together on a bipartisan basis.
  This bill is not one that could be partisan. I think it is one of the 
most bipartisan pieces of legislation in the Congress. Mr. President, I 
shall have additional remarks as time goes on. I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, today the Senate considers the 
conference agreement to S. 652, the Telecommunications Act of 1996. 
This bill is intended to promote competition in every sector of the 
communications industry, including the broadcast, cable, wireless, long 
distance, local telephone, manufacturing, pay telephone, electronic 
publishing, cable equipment, and direct broadcast satellite industries. 
This legislation has the support of the Clinton administration and 
almost every sector of the communications industry. I urge my 
colleagues to pass this comprehensive legislation.
  Mr. President, this conference agreement comes before the Senate for 
final passage after years of debate. In 1991, I authored legislation to 
allow the Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOC's] into 
manufacturing. That bill passed the Senate by almost \3/4\ of the 
Senate, but the House could not pass it. Several other bills were 
offered, but at each stage, one industry blocked the other. As a 
result, communications policy has been set by the courts, not by 
Congress and not by the Federal Communications Commission [FCC], the 
expert agency.
  In 1994, I introduced S. 1822, the Communications Act of 1994, which 
contained the most comprehensive revision of the communications law 
since 1934. In that year, the committee held 31 hours of testimony in 
11 days of hearings from 86 witnesses. Though that bill was reported by 
the Commerce Committee by a vote of 18 to 2, there was not enough time 
in the 103d Congress to complete our work.
  Senator Pressler and I decided earlier this year to pick up where we 
left off in the last Congress. We jointly introduced S. 652 early in 
1995 and succeeded in passing the bill out of the Commerce Committee by 
a vote of 17-2 on March 23 of last year. The bill passed the Senate in 
June by an overwhelming vote of 81-18. After the House passed its 
version of the legislation in August, the two Houses entered into the 
difficult task of reconciling the two bills over several months through 
the fall and winter.
  I am pleased that the conferees have succeeded in reconciling these 
bills. I 

[[Page S688]]
believe that the conference report that is brought before the Senate 
today is a fair and balanced compromise between the bills passed by the 
two Houses. It retains many of the concepts contained in my legislation 
from the 103d Congress. For instance, it promotes competition, it 
retains strong protections for universal service and rural telephone 
companies, it promotes consumer privacy, and it allows the RBOC's into 
long distance and manufacturing under certain safeguards.
  At the same time, this legislation contains many more deregulatory 
provisions than were contained in my legislation from last year. It 
allows greater media concentration than I would have preferred. It 
deregulates cable on a date certain, rather than upon a determination 
that there is actual competition. Nevertheless, I believe that this 
legislation on the whole presents a balanced package that deserves the 
support of every Member of this body.
  The basic thrust of the bill is clear: competition is the best 
regulator of the marketplace. Until that competition exists, monopoly 
providers of services must not be able to exploit their monopoly power 
to the consumer's disadvantage. Timing is everything. 
Telecommunications services should be deregulated after, not before, 
markets become competitive.
  Competition is spurred by the bill's provisions specifying the 
criteria for entry into various markets. For example, on a broad scale, 
cable companies soon will provide telephone service, and telephone 
companies will offer video services. Consumers will soon be able to 
purchase local telephone service from several competitors, and vice 
versa. Electric utility companies will offer telecommunications 
services. The RBOC's will engage in manufacturing activities. All these 
participants will foster competition to each other and create jobs 
along the way.
  We should not attempt to micromanage the marketplace; rather, we must 
set the rules in a way that neutralizes any party's inherent market 
power, so that robust and fair competition can ensue. This is Congress' 
responsibility, and so the bill transfers jurisdiction over the 
modification of final judgment [MFJ] from the courts to the FCC. Judge 
Greene, who has been overseeing the MFJ, has been doing yeoman's work 
in attempting to ensure that monopolies do not abuse their market 
power. But it is time for Congress to reassert its responsibilities in 
this area, and this conference agreement does just that.

  Mr. President, let me address some of the specific areas of important 
in the bill.


                           Universal Service

  The need to protect and advance universal service is one of the 
fundamental concerns of the conferees in drafting this conference 
agreement. Universal service must be guaranteed; the world's best 
telephone system must continue to grow and develop, and we must attempt 
to ensure the widest availability of telephone service.
  The conference agreement retains the provision in the Senate bill 
that requires all telecommunications carriers to contribute to 
universal service. A Federal-State joint board will define universal 
service, and this definition will evolve over time as technologies 
change so that consumers have access to the best possible services. 
Special provisions in the legislation address universal service in 
rural areas to guarantee that harm to universal service is avoided 
there.


                     RBOC Entry into Long Distance

  One of the most contentious issues in this whole discussion has been 
when, or if, the RBOC's should be allowed to enter the long-distance 
market. I share the concern of many consumers that the RBOC's should 
not be permitted to enter the long-distance market while they retain a 
monopoly over local telephone service. For this reason, I strongly 
opposed the idea that the RBOC's should be permitted to enter the long-
distance market on a date certain, whether they face competition or 
not. I am pleased that the conference agreement recognizes that the 
RBOC's must open their networks to competition prior to their entry 
into long distance.


                        Cable Rate Deregulation

  The 1992 Cable Act was a great success. The rate regulation 
provisions of that legislation have saved consumers about $3 billion a 
year. The 1992 law also stimulated competition for cable service by 
wireless cable providers and direct broadcast satellite [DBS]. For 
these reason, I have agreed to go along with the provisions in the 
final conference agreement what would deregulate the upper tiers of 
cable service on March 31, 1999. By that time, we expect that 
competition from DBS and wireless cable, and perhaps from the telephone 
companies, will provide enough restraint on further cable rate 
increases. I believe that this is a fair compromise that serves the 
interests of consumers and the cable industry.


                            Broadcast Issues

  The conference agreement changes some of the current rules and 
statutory provisions concerning media concentration. I share the 
concerns of the Clinton administration and others that excessive media 
concentration could harm the diversity of voices in the communications 
marketplace. At the same time, that marketplace has undergone several 
changes since many of these rules were first adopted in the 1970's. As 
a result, I have agreed to some changes in the ownership rules to allow 
the broadcast and cable industries to compete on more equal footing.


                        importance of must-carry

  I would like to add one more point concerning the importance of must-
carry. Broadcast stations are important sources of local news, public 
affairs programming and other local broadcast services. This category 
of service will be an important part of the public interest 
determination to be made by the Commission when deciding whether a 
broadcast renewal application shall be granted by the Commission. To 
prevent local television broadcast signals from being subject to 
noncarriage or repositioning by cable television systems and those 
providing cable services, we must recognize and reaffirm the importance 
of mandatory carriage of local commercial television stations, as 
implemented by Commission rules and regulations.


                               conclusion

  This comprehensive bill strikes a balance between competition and 
regulation. New markets will be opened, competitors will begin to offer 
services, and consumers will be better served by having choices among 
providers of services. I urge my colleagues to adopt this bill. I 
myself would go further in several areas covered by the legislation, 
and not as far in other areas. But I have seen that, unless we adopt a 
comprehensive approach to legislation, any one sector of the 
telecommunications industry can stop this bill and checkmate the 
others. Telecommunications reform is too important to let this 
opportunity go by. This conference agreement is an equitable approach 
to most of the areas covered by the bill, and I urge my colleagues to 
support it.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a ``Resolved Issues'' 
table be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Telecommunications Bill Resolved Issues

       1. Long Distance.
       a. FCC decides whether to allow a Regional Bell Operating 
     Company to provide long distance under the following 
     conditions:
       i. FCC gives substantial weight to the DOJ;
       ii. RBOC application must be in the public interest;
       iii. RBOC must face a facilities-based competitor or must 
     have received approval from the State that it has met the 
     unbundling requirements;
       iv. RBOC must have opened and unbundled its network using a 
     specific checklist;
       v. RBOC must apply on a state-by-state basis;
       vi. RBOC must use a separate subsidiary for long distance;
       b. RBOCs can provide long distance outside their region 
     immediately upon enactment;
       c. RBOCs can provide incidental long distance (i.e. long 
     distance related to cellular, information services cable 
     services, cable services) immediately after enactment;
       d. the RBOC can jointly market local and long distance 
     service immediately after enactment;
       2. Media Ownership:
       a. nationwide reach raised from 25% to 35%--no waivers
       b. duopoly rule--FCC will study whether to change duopoly 
     rule. Current rule prohibits ownership of two TV stations in 
     the same market. If it changes the rule, there should be a 
     higher standard on V-V combinations than U-U or U-V 
     combinations
       c. Local Radio--raise the limits on the number of stations 
     one person can own as follows: 
     
[[Page S689]]


                     NUMBER OF STATIONS IN A MARKET                     
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                      Current limit        New limit    
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1-14..............................                  3                  5
15-29.............................                  4                  6
30-44.............................                  4                  7
45 or more........................                  4                  8
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       This also includes raising the current 49% limit on small 
     markets (1-14 stations) to 50%.
       d. Cable-Broadcast: remove statutory ban, direct the FCC to 
     review its rule that has the same effect without prejudice.
       e. Dual Network: allow someone to own a second network if 
     it is starting a new network
       f. One-to-a-market: allow someone to own one TV, one AM 
     radio, and one FM radio in the top 50 markets (current rule 
     allows common ownership in top 25 markets). Allow existing 
     waiver process to continue.
       g. Network-cable: allow networks to buy cable systems 
     subject to FCC safeguards.
       h. Cable-MMDS: allow cable operator that face effective 
     competition to buy an MMDS system in the same market; but a 
     cable system that retains its monopoly cannot buy an MMDS 
     system in the same market.
       3. Cable-telephone: allow telephone companies to provide 
     cable service in their regions.
       4. Cable-telephone buyouts: allow a telephone company and 
     cable company to buy each other in markets below 50,000 and 
     outside an urbanized area.
       5. Cable rates: deregulate small cable companies of fifty 
     thousand or less immediately; deregulate upper tier rates as 
     of March 31, 1999; no change to the regulation of the basic 
     tier.
       6. Universal Service: universal telephone service shall 
     evolve over time, and the rates should be affordable. An FCC-
     State Joint Board will recommend changes to the current 
     system to insure that all providers contribute.
       7. Rural Telephone Company Protections: States may protect 
     rural telephone companies from competition; only essential 
     carriers will be eligible to receive universal service 
     support.
       8. Snowe-Rockefeller: give schools and hospitals discounted 
     rates for telephone services.
       9. V-chip: require TV sets to include a chip to screen out 
     programs; encourage broadcasters to develop rating codes for 
     violent programs.
       10. Foreign Ownership: provisions taken out. No agreement 
     was reached on how to enforce the reciprocity approach.
       11. Cyberporn: require operators of computer networks to 
     screen out indecent material for children; carriers of 
     indecent information will not be liable for the content of 
     information generated by others; expedited judicial 
     review.
       12. Set-top Box: allows consumers to purchase the cable 
     set-top box on a retail basis from stores; cable companies 
     will no longer have a monopoly over set-top boxes.
       13. DBS Taxation: Cities are preempted from taxing the 
     services provided by Direct Broadcast Satellite.
       14. Pole Attachments: Cable companies may continue to pay 
     the same rate as long as they provide only cable service; 
     once cable companies start to provide telephone service, a 
     higher rate will phase in over 10 years.
       15. Electronic Publishing: The RBOCs must use a separate 
     subsidiary when they provide electronic publishing in their 
     regions. Electronic publishing includes generating stock 
     information, sports scores, newspaper stories, and other 
     databases of information.
       16. Manufacturing: The RBOCs are allowed into manufacturing 
     after they are permitted into long distance in any one State 
     in their region. The RBOC must use a separate affiliate.
       17. Privacy Information: All telecommunications companies 
     must protest the privacy of customer information.
       18. Anti-redlining: amends Section 1 of the Communications 
     Act to prohibit discrimination based upon race, national 
     origin, religion, sex; applies to broadcasters, common 
     carriers and cable.
       19. Disabilities: ensures access by disabled persons to 
     telecommunications equipment and services, if readily 
     achievable.
       20. Pricing Flexibility: provisions taken out. The 
     provisions in both bills would have told the States to adopt 
     price cap regulation with consumer safeguards. Companies and 
     consumers are better off leaving these issues to the States.
       Specturm Flexibility: allows broadcasters to provide 
     ancillary and supplementary services once they deploy HDTV.
       22. Preemption of state and local entry barriers: allows 
     competition for local telephone service.
       23. Infrastructure Sharing: allows small telephone 
     companies to share the infrastructure provided by the RBOCS; 
     parties may negotiate the rates for such sharing.
       24. Payphones: prohibit the RBOCs from cross-subsidizing 
     their payphone business.
       25. Broadcast License Renewal: extends radio license terms 
     from 7 years to 8 years; extends television license terms 
     from 5 years to 8 years.
       26. Anti-slamming: requires long distance companies to be 
     liable for charges if they switch a customer to its long 
     distance service unlawfully.
       27. Regulatory Forbearance: allows the FCC to forbear from 
     applying any provision of the Act in the public interest.
       28. Educational Technology Corporation: Sen. Moseley-Braun 
     sponsored this provision to allow this corporation to receive 
     federal funds to provide technologies to schools.
       29. Telecommunications Development Fund: makes funds 
     available for small telecommunications businesses; sponsored 
     by Rep. Towns.


                       alarm monitoring industry

  Mr. HARKINS. Mr. President, I want to begin by making a comment to 
the Senator from South Dakota, the distinguished chairman of the 
Commerce Committee, and chairman of the Senate-House conference which 
labored long and hard to produce this bill. I want to thank the Senator 
for the attention he has personally given to the small business alarm 
industry. I know that on several occasions we have talked about the 
impact of this bill on the alarm industry, and when the bill was on the 
Senate floor last year we worked out an agreement on the waiting period 
prior to Bell entry into alarm monitoring.
  I also want to express my gratitude to the distinguished ranking 
member, the Senator from South Carolina, who has taken a special 
interest in the economic vitality of small businesses that comprise the 
alarm industry.
  There is one issue that deserves some additional clarification. The 
bill and the report language clearly prohibit any Bell company already 
in the industry from purchasing another alarm company for 5 years from 
date of enactment. However, it is not entirely clear whether such a 
Bell could circumvent the prohibition by purchasing the underlying 
customer accounts and assets of an alarm company, but not the company 
itself. It was my understanding that the conferees intended to prohibit 
for 5 years the acquisition of other alarm companies in any form, 
including the purchases of customer accounts and assets. I would ask 
both the chairman and ranking member whether my understanding is 
correct?
  Mr. PRESSLER. Yes; the understanding of the Senator is correct. The 
language in the bill designed to prevent further acquisitions by a Bell 
engaged in alarm monitoring services as of November 30, 1995, is 
intended to include a prohibition on the acquisition of the underlying 
customer accounts and assets by a Bell during the 5-year waiting 
period.
  This would not prohibit, as is stated in the bill, the so-called swap 
of accounts on a comparable basis, whereby a Bell which was engaged in 
alarm monitoring as of November 30, 1995, would be allowed to swap, or 
exchange, existing customer accounts for a similar number and value of 
customer accounts with a non-Bell alarm company.
  I thank the Senator for helping the committee to further clarify the 
meaning of the legislation in the area of alarm monitoring services.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I would agree with the explanation given by the 
chairman and am pleased to have this opportunity to further clarify our 
intent in the alarm industry provisions.
  Mr. President, I am trying to save time and yield to our 
distinguished colleague from North Dakota. While he is coming to the 
floor, let me first acknowledge the leadership and the understanding 
and, more than anything else, the persistence of our distinguished 
chairman.
  Senator Pressler has been a dogged fighter all last year. He set 
history, there is no question in my mind, in this particular measure. I 
have been here 28 years, now in my 29th year. I have been chairman of 
the Budget Committee, and on the Budget Committee for over 20 years, 
and this measure is far more complex than any annual budget or any 
nonsensical 7-year budget plan. It is totally ludicrous to think that 
we could bind Congresses into the next century. That is gamesmanship 
that has been going on.
  On the contrary, here is a bipartisan measure that was reported out 
overwhelmingly from our Commerce Committee, not only 2 years ago under 
S. 1822, but again this year under S. 652. I will acknowledge and then 
get back to two leaders in this particular cause, in addition to our 
distinguished chair.
  The former chairman of our Communications Subcommittee and now 
ranking member, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, has been in the 
trenches all the time giving his leadership, and also most particularly 
to Judge Harold Greene. I do not see how, having worked intimately on 
this particular measure, one Federal judge could do 

[[Page S690]]
the remarkable job that has been done by Judge Greene.
  Now we move from the judiciary back over to the jurisdiction of the 
Federal Communications Commission, let it be noted, not on account of 
any inadequacy of the court in the person of Judge Harold Greene, but 
rather because no single entity could possibly enunciate and pursue the 
policy of communications of the national Congress.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield 10 
minutes, under our agreement, to the distinguished Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the conference report on the 
telecommunications reform legislation embodies a unique 
characterization. While this report is, in many respects, a substantial 
improvement from either the Senate or House versions, it also invites 
one of the most serious policy errors of this Congress.
  This dramatic overhaul of our Nation's communications laws will, in 
my judgement, lead to many significant advancements for American 
consumers and help spur an already explosive industry. Indeed, 
consumers will, in many areas, have more choices and lower prices. 
Also, there will, without a doubt, be thousands of new jobs created by 
the accelerated expansion of the telecommunications industry.
  The legislation that came out of the conference report is better than 
the bill that left the Senate and better than the bill that left the 
House. That is pretty unusual. We seldom ever see that in the Congress, 
but this is better.
  Last June, I voted against the telecommunications bill when it left 
the Senate for a number of reasons. One reason being the lack of the 
role of the Justice Department in determining when there is competition 
in the local exchange before the baby Bells will be allowed to go out 
and compete in the long distance service areas.
  As some may recall, a couple of us stood on the Senate floor and led 
the fight for a role of the Justice Department. We lost that vote, and 
I made the case then that this bill is supposed to be a bill about 
competition, a bill to promote, expand and foster competition when, in 
fact, if we do not have a Justice Department role, it is and can be 
increasingly a bill about monopolies and concentration.
  In the conference, they did address a Justice Department role. There 
will now be a strong role for the Justice Department in evaluating 
competition in local exchanges before allowing the Bell Companies to go 
out and compete in long distance service. The role provided for the 
Department of Justice will ensure that competition and anti-trust 
issues will be reviewed adequately. This is an important guarantee that 
competition, and the innovation that results from healthy market 
forces, will be the centerpiece of our telecommunications policy.
  The conference report contains a bulk of the key rural provisions 
that are designed to protect rural areas. One provision will maintain 
the universal service system which ensures that rural and high cost 
areas will continue to receive affordable phone services. This issue is 
of enormous importance to those of us from small States.
  We have always felt that way about telephone service. A telephone in 
the smallest city in North Dakota or the smallest town in North Dakota 
is as important as a telephone in lower Manhattan in New York because 
one makes the other more valuable. The lack of universal opportunity 
and universal communications services is very troublesome. That is why 
we have a universal service fund. This conference report protects that 
and does so in a meaningful way.
  The conference report contains important provisions that will help 
link our schools, libraries, and rural hospitals with advanced 
telecommunications services.
  I do not want to oversell this piece of legislation either. There are 
deficiencies in it. There is one which gives me enormous pause and 
almost persuaded me to continue voting against it. This report makes 
some serious steps toward concentration in broadcasting by eliminating 
the television ownership cap.
  We now say you can own no more than 12 television stations covering 
no more than 25 percent of the population of the country. This report 
says, ``By the way, we've changed that; you can own as many television 
stations as you want covering up to 35 percent of the population of 
this country.'' I guarantee you, if that stands, a dozen years from now 
we will have six, maybe eight major companies owning most of the 
television stations in America. That is not a march toward competition; 
that is a march backwards towards concentration. It makes no sense. I 
almost voted against this bill because of that defect.
  Today, Senators Hollings, Daschle, Kerrey, and I are introducing a 
piece of legislation that will call for the restoration of those 
ownership limits. I believe very strongly that we ought not remove the 
ownership caps.
  Upon enactment of the conference report cable rates for 20 percent of 
Americans will go up. While the bill maintains controls on cable rates 
for the next 3 years, the fine print immediately lifts all controls for 
so-called small systems. Under this definition, over 60 percent of all 
North Dakota cable subscribers will likely see their rates increased.
  Again, I want to say we have seen a virtual explosion in the 
telecommunications area of this country. It has changed everything. I 
grew up in a town of 300 people. Every day that I went to school I 
understood, and everybody in our town understood, our major 
disadvantage was that we lived too far from everybody. We could not 
have a manufacturing plant because we were too remote, we were too far.
  Mr. President, do you know what telecommunications has done? 
Telecommunications makes Regent, ND, as close to Manhattan as is the 
Hudson River. The telecommunications revolution has eliminated a whole 
range of products and services, and the disadvantage of geography.
  We see telecommunications firms springing up all over the country in 
rural areas. Why? Because geography is no longer a disadvantage. We see 
breathtaking changes occurring all over this country with firms that 
have innovative approaches to transmitting information, to new 
telephone services.
  We are going to see cable companies compete with new telephone 
services and new transmission of data. We are going to see broadcast 
signals change dramatically to be able to transmit information 
services. Everything is changing. There will be circumstances in our 
future in which you will have access to every corner of this country 
and probably every corner of the globe with the latest information and 
with the most breathtaking technology that any of us can imagine. All 
of this is occurring despite the fact that our communications laws are 
61 years old and in desperate need of revision.

  Again, let me say that it is unusual to come to the floor and say 
this is a better bill than the bill that left the Senate, or the House 
last year, and this advances the interests of telecommunications in 
this country. The people who worked on this bill did awfully good work, 
and I commend them.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
North Dakota for his leadership and participation within the committee. 
Throughout the entire debate, it was his influence, and he almost won a 
vote on the floor. At one time, it seemed down in the well here he had 
prevailed. That kind of pressure I welcome, because I happen to have 
agreed with him. But you have to get together in a bipartisan fashion 
in order to get things done. I emphasize that. I will also join as a 
cosponsor on the bill of the distinguished Senator. I think the Senator 
from Vermont momentarily is proceeding to the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. If I might ask a question, Mr. President, the Senator is 
correct. I did prevail on a vote on the Senate floor, and dinner 
intervened, and about eight people came back with arms in slings and we 
had another vote and it turns out that some people changed their minds 
over dinner, and I lost. Some of that was remedied later.
  One additional comment. The reason competition is so important--and 
the Senator has talked about it--is that we have seen the result in 
long distance. We have 500 companies in long distance competing 
aggressively in this country, and prices have dropped 60 percent. 

[[Page S691]]
 That is good for this country. We want to make sure the companies 
competing in those circumstances do not face unfair competition. That 
is why we were so concerned about the Justice role. I appreciate the 
work the Senator did to restore the role of the Justice Department in 
conference.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask that the chairman yield me 10 
minutes.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I yield the Senator 10 minutes.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I think this is among one of the most 
significant days I have been here on the floor of the Senate. The 1934 
Communications Act has served this Nation well. It brought us from a 
country with a fledgling communications system to the age of 
telecommunications. And now with the advent of digital communications 
becoming universal, this bill is absolutely necessary to assure the 
expansion of these industries that depend upon telecommunications.
  This is not a total deregulation bill. It is not time yet for a total 
deregulation bill. We are dealing with a bill that lessens regulation. 
But it is not a re-regulation bill. It begins to bring into our present 
system the total power of competition, with the approval of the 
National Government.

  I think one needs only to look at the definitions to see the scope of 
this bill as compared to the 1934 act. Look at it: Dialing parity, 
exchange access, information service, interLATA services, local 
exchange carriers, network elements, number portability, rural 
telephone companies, telecommunications, telecommunications carrier. If 
you look at the scope of the definitions alone, it signifies the 
changes in our system that are driven by telecommunications.
  I am particularly pleased to be here with the two leaders of our 
committee, who have worked so hard--Senator Pressler, as chairman and 
Senator Hollings, the ranking member and former chairman. We have 
worked many years now to bring us to this day, where we could literally 
say that we are ready now to take the telecommunications industry of 
the United States into the 21st century.
  In doing so, we have been careful to recognize that there are places 
in the country that have not been totally served by the existing 
telephone and information communications system. This bill has 
extensive universal service concepts. It has specific provisions 
regarding telecommunications services for health care providers, 
education providers, education and secondary schools. It is a bill, the 
scope of which I think every American is going to have, at some time, 
reason to understand.
  I am going to present here, soon, a unanimous-consent request to 
assure that there will be sufficient copies printed so that we can 
immediately send a copy of this conference report to those people in 
our individual States that must have this law available as soon as it 
is signed.
  I believe you could literally say, without being thought of as 
improper at all, that this is going to be the telecommunications 
``bible.'' This is a bill that sets new parameters. It sets new 
requirements. It changes the authority of the Federal Communications 
Commission. It deals with the scope of the authority of the State 
commissioners, as well as with the regulation of utilities. In some 
places, it preempts State and local authorities, which is something I 
am very, very slow to do, but in this instance, I agree that it is 
necessary.
  The real reason, I think, for the application of this now relates 
back to the suggestion I made to the Congress many years ago that we 
ought to stop having lotteries for the excess capacity on the broadcast 
spectrum. In days gone by, Mr. President, for $20, you would file an 
application without having any interest at all in the broadcast system 
or the telecommunications system, and if there was a spectrum 
available, there would be a lottery. If you were lucky, you then got 
the spectrum license, and immediately the world beat a path to your 
door to get the certificate that you had just won in a lottery.
  We thought, and I thought, that we ought to auction that available 
spectrum, which is, after all, something that belongs to the public. I 
felt it had a substantial chance to bring in revenue. Mr. President, 
the first estimate we got from the Congressional Budget Office, if 
memory serves me, was that it would bring in about $250 million if we 
auctioned these licenses rather than having lotteries. I remember a 
conversation very well with the Chairman of the FCC, Reed Hunt, where 
he told me they had taken in $12 billion last year from the auction of 
spectrum licenses.

  We now are in the budget process of planning additional amounts to 
come in from spectrum. As we do so--and there has been discussions here 
on the floor--we have to keep in mind the equities of the situation and 
the fact that the telecommunications system is not all going to 
transition to digital concepts immediately. It is going to take time, 
and it is going to take the formation of a substantial amount of 
capital to be able to utilize the powers and privileges that are 
available to the American business and American public under this bill.
  I hope everyone realizes it is not going to happen overnight. There 
may be some substantial challenges in court to some of these 
provisions. We are not unanimous here, and certainly the industry is 
not unanimous in terms of every provision in the bill. But I view this 
bill as an interim measure, Mr. President. I hope that our successors 
in the Senate, within 10 or 15 years, will move forward and take us 
into an era where there is even greater impact of competition and of 
the marketplace, and a reduced need for any Government involvement in 
this system. I described once to a friend of mine that I believe the 
current system is a series of playing fields, but they are on different 
levels. It is like they are on different levels of a very tall 
building. We have been talking, in the past, about trying to level the 
playing field. But you could not do it because some were on one floor 
and some on another, and now we have tried to find a way to literally 
level the playing field and set down the rules for competition. I do 
believe that we have succeeded. Even though I still have some 
reservation as to portions of this bill, as I know others do. We have 
succeeded.

  There was a reluctance on the part of many people to present this 
bill to the Congress. I am glad it has come because I think its time 
has come. We have spent, those of us on the Commerce Committee now, I 
think, the last 4 years working on a version of this bill. This means, 
now, that we have the chance to send to the President an advanced 
telecommunications and information bill that is generally accepted. 
There is a general consensus that this is timely and that the 
provisions are right. Those who have reservations, I hope they will be 
careful, because I think to force this country back to relying once 
again on the 1934 Act would be wrong.
  The Members of the House who worked on this bill, particularly 
Chairman Bliley, I think deserve substantial credit. And we ought to 
have credit here for the staff. I hope my staff assistant joins me 
soon, but Earl Comstock, who has worked with the Commerce Committee as 
one of the draftsmen on this bill, joins the ranks of a few members of 
the staff who literally deserve credit for what they have done to bring 
us together by getting the language that meets our needs and eliminates 
the controversy among us over particular provisions.
  I am very pleased to be able to present this bill and be part of the 
group that presents this bill to the Senate. I have signed the 
conference report. Not all of us did. I do think it is imperative we 
act, and I congratulate the leader for being willing to bring this bill 
forward under these circumstances today.
  Let me once again thank Senator Pressler for his leadership on our 
side, for the hard work that he has done. As he pointed out to others, 
he has been on call and so have the rest of us, literally daily and 
through the weekends and on holidays as our staff people labor to carry 
out the instructions that we had given them and to reflect the 
decisions we made accurately in the text of this bill.
  I have followed drafting of legislative bills now for a substantial 
portion of my life, Mr. President. I think this is the finest drafted 
bill I have been able to participate in. I congratulate the staff 
members who worked so hard and so long.
  Let me say to my good friend, the former chairman of the committee, 

[[Page S692]]
  Senator Hollings, I know how hard he worked in the last session, and 
Senator Pressler and I joined and worked hard with him, trying to get 
the bill during the period that he was chairman. This is a bipartisan 
bill. I think, by passing this bill, we may send a signal to the 
Congress. It is time we stop the fighting among us and start getting 
down to passing the laws that the Nation needs to provide the new job 
opportunities for the next century.
  As Chairman Pressler has said, this is the largest jobs bill that has 
ever been before the Senate. This has more to do with developing new 
technologies, implementing new technologies, and stimulating the growth 
of new business than any bill I have ever been involved with.
  I am delighted to be able to be here. As a matter of fact--again, I 
will yield in a moment, but I want to reserve a portion of the time to 
be able to ask later for agreement to the unanimous consent agreements 
being framed that will make available immediately an additional 5,000 
copies of this as a Senate document so we can distribute this as soon 
as it is available.
  I come from a State, Mr. President, one-fifth the size of the United 
States. It is rural in nature. We have a small population. We have 
people in our State who are just now getting telephone service as known 
to the rest of the country for the whole century, almost. Now, what we 
have assured here, as this program goes forward, is that universal 
service will be available to rural areas. It will be the state-of-the-
art telecommunications system. It will mean that the small schools in 
rural America will have access to modern technology, and can 
participate through telecommunications. It means that telemedicine will 
now come to my State.
  My State, when I first came here, had no assistance whatever for 
people in small villages. They had to find their way to Indian 
hospitals in regional areas. We created a system of clinics. Those 
clinics are, by and large, operated by young women from the villages 
who have a high school education and some technical training now. This 
bill means telecommunications will bring telemedicine in. They will be 
able to have a direct exposure of patients to doctors miles and miles 
away. They will be able to get assistance in dealing with mothers who 
have complications in pregnancies.
  This bill, above all the things I have dealt with--in particular 
universal service, eligible telecommunications carriers, and rate 
integration, opens the whole horizon of telecommunications to the 
people of this country, and it does so on a fair basis. It has been 
criticized by some, but the universal service provisions that I 
mentioned when I first started my comments here, I think are the most 
important to me. They mean that rural America will come into the 21st 
century with everyone else as far as telecommunications is concerned. I 
could not be more happy that the bill is here. I could not be more 
proud of those who have worked on it and to be able to be part of the 
group that presents it to the Senate. I urge its early approval.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I pay tribute to Senator Stevens of Alaska. He is the 
father of spectrum auctions. In my opinion, he is a real U.S. Senator. 
Everybody seems to be leaving the Senate, and they get a 21-gun salute 
when they leave. Some stay and do the hard work on difficult bills. Ted 
Stevens is such a man. He and Senator Hollings are examples of people 
who stay and do public service--honest, hard-working experts on this 
technical legislation.
  Some day I will be a professor in a university, I hope, out in 
western South Dakota. One of my lectures will be on real U.S. 
Senators--those who are not necessarily media stars, but who do the 
hard, honest work on the technical things, the real U.S. Senators. 
Certainly Ted Stevens is one of those, along with Senator Hollings. I 
believe both are in about their fifth term, and if they announced they 
were retiring, they would get a 21-gun salute.
  I thank Ted Stevens, the father of spectrum auctions and one of the 
originators of this legislation.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me join in the comments of my 
chairman. There is not any question that we would not have this bill if 
we did not have Ted Stevens and his wonderful leadership and work. He 
took over the so-called farm team.
  We have been working for 4 years, as the Senator from South Dakota 
knows. The farm team, the rural areas--we wanted to protect those. We 
learned in airline deregulation that we did not protect the rural 
areas, sparsely settled areas. So we made, under the leadership of 
Senator Stevens, requirements that any competition, any competitor 
coming in must serve the entire area, and the States had the authority 
to say how that competition would develop in the rural areas.
  We provided infrastructure sharing with the RBOC's, and on down the 
list. That is all attributed to the wisdom of our distinguished Senator 
and colleague from Alaska. I join in the complimentary remarks made by 
my distinguished chairman.
  The Senator from Vermont has given leadership to this from the very 
beginning and has had various provisions in the bill while we debated 
it on the floor, and I want to thank him publicly for his leadership. I 
yield now 10 minutes under our time agreement.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from South Carolina, 
a man whom I have been privileged to serve with in my whole Senate 
career. He was already a senior Member of the Senate when I came here. 
I appreciate all the help he has given me. I appreciate the fact that 
he and the chairman were able to protect the Breaux-Leahy amendment on 
1-plus dialing parity as part of the conference report to permit 
intraLATA toll dialing parity requirements to stand in States that 
already ordered it by December 19, 1995, and in single-LATA States like 
Vermont. Preserving this amendment, which Senator Breaux and I worked 
out on this floor, has helped my State.
  There are so many things I like about this bill. For example, the 
conference agreement places restrictions on buyouts between phone 
companies and cable. The conference agreement also includes a very 
strong savings clause to make clear that mergers between companies in 
the media and communications markets are subject to a thorough 
antitrust review.
  Competition, not concentration, is the surest way to assure lower 
prices and greater choices for consumers. So, while there are some 
improvements in this legislation that I support, I will not be voting 
in favor.
  I have expressed my concern on the lack of a stronger Department of 
Justice role in evaluating the anticompetitive effect of a Bell 
operating company's entry into the long-distance market, as well as my 
concern that this legislation is placing censorship restrictions on the 
Internet. As a user of the Internet and as one who communicates 
electronically with constituents and others around the country, I am 
concerned this legislation places restrictions on the Internet that 
will come back to haunt us.
  I know these provisions were done with the best of intentions. All of 
us, 100 Members of the U.S. Senate, oppose the idea of child 
pornography. All of us abhor child pornographers and child abusers. I 
am one person who has prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison child 
abusers. We do not have to demonstrate our adherence to that principle. 
But I am concerned we have not upheld our adherence to the first 
amendment with the proposed restrictions on the Internet. That creates 
an overwhelming barrier for me.
  I am also concerned that after passing the 1992 Cable Act over a 
Presidential veto, that we are now taking the lid off all cable rates 
in 3 years, whether or not there is competition in cable service. 
Before the 1992 Cable Act was passed, cable rates were rising three 
times faster than inflation rates. I do not think you can name a 
consumer in this country who did not feel that he or she was being 
gouged.
  But the law worked. Since passage of the law, consumers have saved an 
estimated $3.5 billion in their monthly bills. And, as the rates have 
gone down, more people have signed up. In 1994 alone, nearly 2.5 
million new customers have signed up for cable service.
  I do not want to see a repeat of the skyrocketing cable rates that 
prompted passage of that law. It is too easy to see what might happen 
if the cable companies are not restrained, either by competition or by 
laws. 

[[Page S693]]

  I do not have cable in my home in Vermont. I live out in the country 
where we get 1\1/2\ channels. I think sometimes I am blessed by that 
because I actually get to read, which is a good way of obtaining the 
news. You can make up your own mind. You can read in detail or not, and 
not be limited by the photographs selected by multimillion-dollar news 
media.
  But I digress.
  With the cable company I subscribe to here, you get these $2 remote 
controls but they charge you $3 a month, or something like that. They 
can give you antiquated equipment and charge as though you were getting 
good equipment and even make it impossible to watch one show and tape 
another one. All the things that sound great are not available because 
there is no competition. We are about to make that even worse. We had 
some restrictions in the cable bill, but I am afraid we are going to 
let them go before we have the protections provided by effective 
competition.
  I must admit, having said all that, I do not envy the managers of 
this bill. This is probably the most complex piece of legislation I 
think I have seen in 21 years. It has probably had more conflicting 
interests that had to be reconciled than I have seen in 21 years.
  I commend the Senators who had the ability to stick it out and bring 
it this far. Senators still have to determine whether they will vote 
for it or not, but whether you like or dislike different parts, we can 
all appreciate the hard work and long hours it took.
  The telecommunications legislation that has emerged from the 
conference will have an enormous impact on multibillion dollar cable, 
phone and broadcast industries and, most importantly, on the American 
consumer. This legislation will affect how much we pay and from whom we 
can obtain cable, TV, phone, fax, and information services. It will 
also, unfortunately, affect what we can say online.
  We have heard a lot about the support for this legislation by the 
Bell phone companies, AT&T and other long-distance phone companies, the 
giant cable companies and other media interests. But while they have 
been arguing over business advantages, who have been advocates for 
American consumers and fundamental American values, like first 
amendment free speech rights?
  Most of us have no choice who gives us cable TV service or our local 
phone service. Whether or not the service is good, we are stuck with 
our local phone or cable company. And, if the price is too high, our 
only choice is to drop the service altogether. The goal of this 
telecommunications legislation must be to foster competition, not just 
for the short term, but over the long haul. Competition will give 
consumers lower prices and more choices than simply dropping a service.
  I raised a number of questions about the Senate-passed bill, and 
fought for several amendments that in my view would have made the bill 
more consumer-friendly, pro-competitive and constitutional. I commend 
the conferees for the progress they made in several of these areas, 
which I detail below.
  First, the bill proposed by the Commerce Committee would have 
permitted our local phone monopoly to buy out our local cable monopoly 
so that consumers have even less choice rather than more. Senator 
Thurmond, the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee's 
Antitrust Subcommittee, and I raised concerns that allowing such 
unlimited buyouts between monopoly phone companies and cable companies 
could result in giant monopolies providing both phone and video 
programming services.
  The conference agreement makes a significant improvement in these 
provisions by limiting buy-outs between cable and phone companies to 
rural areas where fewer than 35,000 people live. The conference 
agreement also limits a phone company's purchase of cable systems to 
less than 10 percent of the households in its service area. This will 
insure that a single large phone company cannot simply buy up all the 
small cable systems serving the small towns in its service area. This 
part of the conference agreement helps fulfill the promise of the bill 
to maximize competition between local phone companies and cable 
companies.
  The conference agreement also contains a very strong ``savings 
clause'' to make clear that mergers between cable and telephone 
companies, or between independent telephone companies or between any 
companies in the media and communications markets are subject to a 
thorough antitrust review under the normal Hart-Scott-Rodino process. 
Nothing in this conference agreement even impliedly preempts our 
Federal antitrust laws. Mega-mergers between telecommunications giants, 
such as the rumored merger between NYNEX and Bell Atlantic, or the 
gigantic network mergers now underway, raise obvious concerns about 
concentrating control in a few gigantic companies of both the content 
and means of distributing the information and entertainment American 
consumers receive. Competition, not concentration, is the surest way to 
assure lower prices and greater choices for consumers. Rigorous 
oversight and enforcement by our antitrust agencies is more important 
than ever to insure that such megamergers do not harm consumers.

  I have been particularly concerned about how well the 
telecommunications legislation protects universal service. Vermont is 
among the most rural States in the country, but those of us who live 
there do not want to be denied access to the advanced 
telecommunications services our urban neighbors enjoy. I, therefore, 
commend the conference report for including the Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-
Kerry provision requiring preferential rates for telecommunications 
services provided to schools, libraries, and hospitals in rural areas, 
which I supported. This requirement provides an important building 
block to ensure universal access to advanced telecommunications 
services. Students whose families cannot afford sophisticated hi-
technology services at home will be able to use those services at 
school or at their neighborhood public library. Rural hospitals will be 
able to use advanced technology to provide better treatment at lower 
costs to their patients. This provision assures the broadest possible 
access to advanced telecommunications services.
  I am also pleased to see that the conference report includes the 
addition of a State-appointed consumer advocate to the newly created 
Federal-State joint board. This board will have the critical task of 
preserving and expanding universal service, and I agree with the 
conference that a consumer advocate will bring a necessary and 
important perspective to that task.
  The conference agreement also adopts a provision designed to make 
cable equipment cheaper and easier to use for all consumers, who are 
tired of paying rent for cable converter boxes and struggling with 
multiple clickers for the TV set-top box and their video machines. This 
provision is one that Senator Thurmond and I urged to be included as 
part of the telecommunications legislation in the last Congress. Under 
the conference agreement, the FCC is directed to assure the competitive 
availability to consumers of converter boxes and other electronic 
equipment used to access cable video programming services.
  As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I remain ready to address the 
copyright issues that will arise as a result of this legislation. There 
was no consideration of copyright matters during the debate over this 
legislation and I commend the conferees for not prejudging these 
matters.
  The bill proposed by the Commerce Committee would have unnecessarily 
preempted State efforts to promote the development of competition in 
local phone service. Richard Cowart, the chairman of the Vermont Public 
Service Board, provided invaluable testimony to the Antitrust 
Subcommittee last year about the detrimental preemption provisions in 
the bill.
  For example, this bill rolled-back State requirements to implement 
``1+'' dialing parity for short-haul toll calls. A number of States 
already require dialing parity. Without ``1+'' dialing parity, 
consumers must dial lengthy access codes to use carriers other than the 
local phone company for in-State toll calls. IntraLATA ``1+'' dialing 
parity encourages competition in the in-State toll market and helps 
consumers.
  As I noted before, I am pleased that the Breaux-Leahy amendment on 
``1+'' dialing parity is part of the conference report. The report 
permits dialing parity requirements to stand in the States 

[[Page S694]]
that already ordered it by December 19, 1995, and in single-LATA 
States, including Vermont. The prohibition against ``1+'' dialing 
parity for intraLATA calls in nongrandfathered States expires at a date 
certain 3 years after enactment.
  In addition, the Commerce Committee bill would have prohibited State 
regulators from using rate-of-return regulation for large phone 
companies. As Chairman Cowart of the Vermont Public Service Board made 
clear when he testified, this prohibition would have tied the hands of 
State regulators trying to adopt different forms of pricing regulation 
to stimulate local phone service competition. The conference agreement 
took a constructive step by dropping the prohibition on rate-of-return 
regulation.
  Despite this significant progress, the conference agreement still 
suffers from such serious flaws that I cannot support it.
  First, and foremost, the conference agreement contains 
unconstitutional provisions that would impose far-reaching new Federal 
crimes for so-called indecent speech. I do not often agree with Speaker 
Gingrich, but I share his view that this legislation violates free 
speech rights.
  Apparently, the conferees also have serious doubts about its 
constitutionality. They added a section to speed up judicial review to 
see if the legislation passes constitutional muster. In my view, this 
legislation will not pass that test.
  You would think the telecommunications conference would have their 
hands full with just the task of changing our communications laws to 
allow new competition among phone companies, broadcasters, cable 
operators, and wireless systems while also protecting universal service 
and other appropriate consumer protections. Yet, they also decided to 
add new Federal crimes, despite the absence of any hearings on these 
provisions, or any Senate Judiciary Committee members on the 
conference. I called for an in-depth, fast-track study of these issues 
before we took precipitous action in legislation. That study was 
included in the House-passed bill but dropped by the conference, in 
favor of provisions that will ban constitutionally protected speech on 
the Internet.
  I note that the explanatory statement accompanying the conference 
report refers to a July 24, 1995 hearing, at which I participated, 
before the Senate Judiciary Committee on ``online indecency, obscenity, 
and child endangerment.'' This hearing did not address the 
constitutionality of the indecency standard adopted by the conference 
report, nor the least restrictive means by which to implement such a 
standard, particularly in an electronic environment like the Internet. 
The hearing referred to in the statement of the conference committee 
dealt with stalking, obscenity and indecency with regard to an entirely 
different bill, S. 892. No witnesses at the hearing defended the 
constitutionality of the indecency standard in the telecommunications 
bill. Nor did any witness testifying in support of S. 892 examine in 
detail whether the indecency standard as applied to online 
communications complies with the least restrictive means test. On the 
contrary, several witnesses questioned whether any indecency standard 
could be constitutional as applied to online communications. Thus, 
Congress has opted to appear tough on pornography without examining the 
constitutional implications of this unprecedented restriction on 
freedom of expression.
  Let us make no mistake about what these provisions in the conference 
agreement will do and how it could affect you.
  The bill will make it a felony crime to send a private e-mail message 
with an indecent or filthy word that you hope will annoy another 
person, even if you were responding in kind to an e-mail message you 
received. Who knows when you might annoy another person with your e-
mail message? To avoid liability under this legislation, users of e-
mail will have to ban curse words and other expressions that might be 
characterized as offensive from their online vocabulary.
  The bill will punish with 2-year jail terms any Internet user who 
uses one of the seven dirty words in a message to a minor. You will 
risk criminal liability by using a computer to share with a child any 
material containing indecent passages. In some areas of the country, a 
copy of Seventeen magazine, could be viewed as indecent because it 
contains information on sex and sexuality. Indeed, this magazine is 
among the 10 most frequently challenged school library materials in the 
country.

  This legislation sweeps more broadly than just regulating e-mail 
messages sent to children. It will impose felony penalties for using an 
indecent four-letter word, or discussing material deemed to be 
indecent, on electronic bulletin boards or Internet chat areas 
accessible to children.
  Once this bill becomes law, no longer will Internet users be able to 
engage in free-wheeling discussions in news groups and other areas on 
the Internet accessible to minors. They will have to limit all language 
used and topics discussed to that appropriate for kindergartners, just 
in case a minor clicks onto the discussion. No literary quotes from 
racy parts of Catcher in the Rye or Ulysses will be allowed. Certainly 
online discussions of safe sex practices, of birth control methods, and 
of AIDS prevention methods will be suspect. Any user who crosses the 
vague and undefined line of indecency will be subject to two years in 
jail and fines.
  Imagine if the Whitney Museum, which currently operates a Web page, 
were dragged into court for permitting representations of 
Michelangelo's David to be looked at by kids.
  The conferees call this a display prohibition and explain that it 
``applies to content providers who post indecent material for online 
display without taking precautions that shield that material from 
minors.''
  What precautions are the conferees talking about? What precautions 
will Internet users have to take to avoid criminal liability? These 
users, after all, are the ones who provide the content read in news 
groups and on electronic bulletin boards. The legislation gives the FCC 
authority to describe the precautions that can be taken to avoid 
criminal liability. All Internet users will have to wait and look to 
the FCC for what they must do to protect themselves from criminal 
liability.
  We have already seen the chilling effect that even the prospect of 
this legislation has had on online service providers. A few weeks ago, 
America Online deleted the profile of a Vermonter who communicated with 
fellow breast cancer survivors online. Why? Because, according to AOL, 
she used the vulgar word ``breast''. AOL later apologized and indicated 
it would permit the use of that word where appropriate.
  Complaints by German prosecutors prompted another online service 
provider to cut off subscriber access to over 200 Internet news groups 
with the words ``sex'', ``gay'' or ``erotica'' in the name. They 
censored such groups as ``clarinet.news.gays,'' which is an online 
newspaper focused on gay issues, and ``gay-net.coming-out'', which is a 
support group for gay men and women dealing with going public with 
their sexual orientation.
  What is next? The Washington Post reports today that one software 
program used to protect children from offensive material blocked the 
White House home page because it showed pictures of two couples 
together. Those two couples happened to be the President and Mrs. 
Clinton and the Vice-President and Mrs. Gore. Will Federal Government 
censors do any better when they dictate blocking technologies?
  The Communications Decency Act is the U.S. Government's answer to the 
problem that China is dealing with by creating an intranet. According 
to news reports, this censored version of the Internet allows Chinese 
users online access to each other, but an official censor controls all 
outside access to the world-wide Internet.
  We already have crimes on the books that apply to the Internet, by 
banning obscenity, child pornography, and threats from being 
distributed over computers. In fact, just before Christmas, the 
President signed a new law we passed last year sharply increasing 
penalties for child pornography and sexual exploitation crimes.
  Unlike these current laws, which do not regulate constitutionally 
protected speech, this legislation would censor indecent speech. While 
the proponents of the proposals claim that they do not ban indecency--
only prohibit making it available to minors--the practical result of 
such a restriction on the 

[[Page S695]]
Internet is the criminalization of all indecent speech.
  Because indecency means very different things to different people, an 
unimaginable amount of valuable political, artistic, scientific and 
other speech will disappear in this new medium. What about, for 
example, the university health service that posts information online 
about birth control and protections against the spread of AIDS? With 
many students in college under 18, this information would likely 
disappear under threat of prosecution. In bookstores and on library 
shelves the protection of indecent speech is clear, and the courts are 
unwavering. Altering the protections of the first amendment for online 
communications could cripple this new mode of communication.
  The Internet is a great new communications medium. We should not 
underestimate the effect that the heavy-hand of Government regulation 
will have on its future growth both here and abroad. With the passage 
of this bill the U.S. Government is paving the way for the censorship 
of Internet speech. Apparently, China already censors weather 
predictions from foreigners. What do we think the Iranian Government 
will make illegal? What could Libya ban and criminalize?
  Also, as I alluded earlier, I continue to have grave concerns about 
letting the Bell operating companies, with their monopoly control over 
the phone wires going into our homes, enter the long-distance market 
even when the Department of Justice finds an anticompetitive impact. I 
supported efforts to amend the bill and give the Justice Department the 
authority to review the Bell companies' long-distance entry in advance. 
These efforts were unsuccessful.
  The conference report requires the FCC to consult with the Justice 
Department and give substantial weight to the Justice Department's 
opinion, in determining whether to permit entry of a Bell company into 
long-distance service. Although this provision strengthens the Senate-
passed bill, it does not go far enough. It fails to achieve the balance 
proposed by the Commerce Committee in 1994. In the end, the FCC is the 
final decision maker and can decide to disregard the Justice 
Department's evaluation of the anticompetitive effect of letting the 
Bell companies offer long-distance service.
  The conference agreement would permit a Bell company to offer long 
distance service in its own region, upon approval by the FCC and after 
satisfying an in-region checklist. This checklist could be satisfied by 
the presence of a competitor with its own networking facilities. 
Despite recognition by the conferees that building local telephone 
network facilities will require a significant investment in time and 
money, the bill allows only 10 months after enactment for facilities-
based competitors to get established and apply for interconnection and 
access to the Bell company's network. Absent a facilities-based 
competitor in those 10 months, I fear that the language of this bill 
could be interpreted broadly to allow the Bell operating company to 
seek approval to enter long-distance service, and authorize the FCC to 
grant that approval, even without any actual competition in local 
phone service. The short time-frame provided in the bill to establish a 
facilities-based competitor, compounded by the lack of a dispositive 
Justice Department role in the approval process, could provide the 
incumbent Bell company with the ability to use its stranglehold 
monopoly on local service to leverage its new long-distance service, to 
the detriment of consumers. Regulators will have to be vigilant to this 
potential consequence.

  As I noted, the conference agreement takes the lid off all cable 
rates in 3 years, whether or not there is any competition in cable 
service.
  We passed the 1992 Cable Act over a Presidential veto because 
consumers were being gouged by cable company monopolists. Cable rates 
were rising three times faster than the inflation rate. Consumers 
demanded action to stop the rising cable rates. This law worked. Since 
passage of that law, consumers have saved an estimated $3.5 billion in 
their monthly rates. As rates have gone down, more people have signed 
up.
  Congress has already responded once to complaints of cable 
subscribers in the 1992 Cable Act. I, for one, do not want to see a 
repeat of the sky-rocketing cable rates that prompted passage of that 
law. The conferees must be predicting that, in 3 years, cable companies 
will face plenty of competition from satellite systems and phone 
companies offering video services. But if their prediction is accurate, 
and the cable companies faced effective competition, they would be 
deregulated under the 1992 Cable Act anyway. This is a precipitous 
action to sunset a law that worked to reduce cable rates on the hope 
that effective competition will grow over the next 3 years.
  Finally, the conference report requires the FCC to preempt State or 
local rules that may have the effect of barring any entity from 
providing telecommunications services. Although the report says this is 
not supposed to affect local management of public rights-of-way or 
local safeguards for the rights of consumers, in Vermont, citizens are 
rightly concerned that rules designed to protect our environment and 
health may be preempted by bureaucrats at the FCC who are focused on 
helping entrants in the telecommunications business.
  I recognize the need for an over-haul of our communications laws. We 
have not kept up with the dramatic technological changes that are 
fueling the Information Age. But I cannot support this bill, which 
threatens fundamental constitutional rights of free speech over the 
Internet and provides insufficient consumer protection from 
monopolistic pricing for cable and telephone service.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                            Commending Staff

  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I should pay tribute to the staff on 
both sides who have worked so hard on this.
  On our side of the aisle there has been Paddy Link, Katie King, 
Donald McClellan and Earl Comstock. On the Democratic side, Kevin 
Curtin, John Windhausen, Kevin Joseph and Chris McClean. The 
committee's legislative counsel, Lloyd Ator. All this staff has done a 
magnificent job.
  Let me also mention the dilligent efforts of David Wilson, Mark Buse, 
Brett Scott, Jeanne Bumpus, Dave Hoppe, Kevin Pritchett, Margaret 
Cummisky, Tom Zoeller and Cheryl Bruner.
  I do not know if people know it, but the only days the staff got off 
were Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and barely Christmas Eve, in 
drafting this technical legislation and in all the negotiations. This 
piece of legislation was drafted entirely by Senators and staff. Many 
times there have been accusations that legislation was drafted by 
outsiders, but this technical piece of legislation was drafted line by 
line by Senators and staff. Many times we would have to call a Senator 
on the weekends and ask about a line or word change.
  I do not know if people realize how hard these staff people work. I 
just wanted to pay tribute to them because, to me this technical 
document is a remarkable achievement. They did it as public servants.
  One day I went in on a Sunday and bought them some pizza. I said, 
``Someday a judge may look down upon you from his bench and say, 
`Obviously, counsel does not know what he or she is talking about.' And 
you can look up at the judge and say, `Oh, yes, I do. I wrote that.' ''
  That is not their motive. But these young people should be heralded. 
Again, I pay tribute to the staff on both sides of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.


                            Commending Staff

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, awaiting the attendance here, to deliver 
his comments, of the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Senator 
Kerrey, let me join with my distinguished chairman in thanking the 
hardest-working staff I have ever been associated with during my years.
  The truth is, as the Senator from South Dakota has said, they only 
had that 1 day off at Thanksgiving. We worked all weekends and 
everything else. But this started, really, in October 1993. We had 
worked very hard, gotten a three-fourths vote of the U.S. Senate on a 
manufacturing bill. We learned the hard way that these entities, the 
various disciplines in telecommunications, had the power to obviate or 
cancel out the enactment or 

[[Page S696]]
passage of any measure, once they got determined to do so. With a 
three-fourths vote, we still could not pass the simple manufacturing 
bill, the text of which is already in this measure here as a minor item 
compared to being a single bill.
  So we agreed to work in a bipartisan fashion and bring in every week 
the various interests involved--every Friday the regional Bell 
companies, the principals involved, and thereupon on every Monday, the 
various long distance carriers. They have been doing this now for the 
past almost 3 years.
  So, I thank, as I pointed out, Paddy Link, Don McClellan over on the 
minority side--as well as Katie King and Earl Comstock. I particularly 
want to thank for their guidance and counseling Kevin Curtin, John 
Windhausen, and Kevin Joseph on our Commerce Committee Democratic 
side--because I never really would be able to imbibe this entire 
measure without their help. They have really been in the trenches over 
the many years. They have given expert advice. They have listened to 
all the parties. They know all the lawyers.
  This town has 60,000 lawyers registered to practice before the 
District of Columbia bar. I think 59,000 of them are in the 
communications discipline. And I think we met all 59,000, I am 
convinced, in the last 3 years.
  I also want to thank Jim Drewry, Yvonne Portee, Sylvia Cikins, Pierre 
Golpira, Lloyd Ator, and Joyce Kennedy of our Commerce Committee staff; 
Jim Weber of Senator Daschle's leadership staff; Greg Simon for Vice 
President Gore; Steve Richetti for the White House; Carol Ann Bischoff 
for Senator Kerrey; and the staff members of our Commerce Committee 
members. These include Margaret Cummisky for Senator Inouye, Tom 
Zoeller and the late Martha Moloney for Senator Ford, Chris McLean for 
Senator Exon, Cheryl Bruner for Senator Rockefeller, Scott Bunton and 
Carole Grunberg for Senator Kerry, Mark Ashby and Thomas Moore for 
Senator Breaux, Andy Vermilye for Senator Bryan, and Greg Rohde for 
Senator Dorgan.
  Let me also thank, Mr. President, talking about the bipartisan 
nature, the leadership over on the House side that we have the 
privilege to work with. Because Chairman Dreier on the House side was a 
tiger on this measure. He was determined that we get this bill passed. 
In fact, we were ready really before Christmas. And working with him, 
Mr. Markey, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Fields--all on that Communications 
Committee, a major committee over on the Judiciary Committee--Mr. Hyde, 
and Mr. Conyers, they all worked hand in glove to make sure that the 
public interest was protected.

  Particularly, since I mentioned the Judiciary Committee feature of 
this measure, the Department of Justice was protected in the sense that 
what we did was have the savings clause for all antitrust laws 
included, positive language, and the substantial weight of the 
Department of Justice be given by the Federal Communications Commission 
in their decision.
  I yield now to our distinguished colleague from Nebraska, Senator Bob 
Kerrey, who has worked intimately with us. He was not on our 
Communications Committee, but I thought he was by the way he attended 
the meetings, and his staff was in there making suggestions and making 
sure that the public interest was protected.
  So it is a particular pleasure for me at this time to yield to the 
distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South Carolina 
and the Senator from South Dakota.
  I believe this conference report is substantially improved from both 
the House and the Senate bill. I voted against the bill when it left 
here, and I intend to support the conference report in its current 
form.
  I appreciate in particular the language that provides a more 
meaningful role for the Department of Justice. I, frankly, would have 
preferred the language which the Commerce Committee produced last year. 
I think that would have been better than the 14-part interconnection 
competitive checklist requirement that is in there. But I think that a 
meaningful role, including the substantial weight requirement for the 
Department of Justice, will make it more likely that we will see 
competition at the local level.
  I appreciate very much the concern of both the chairman and the 
ranking member, concern about including some good consumer protection 
provisions as well as the inclusion of interconnectivity language, 
incidental interLATA relief for the RBOC's to provide Internet and 
interactive distance learning services to K through 12 schools, and the 
so-called Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey, et al, language that will 
allow the K through 12 schools to be able to go either to the Public 
Service Commission or the FCC. They will now have the force of law to 
be able to argue for subsidized rates.
  I particularly appreciate as well, finally, the inclusion of the so-
called farm team provisions in the conference report.
  Mr. President, when the request came for a unanimous consent on a 
time agreement, I asked for 15 minutes. I do not know if it will take 
that long given where I am right now in my comments.
  I will observe, as I did on a number of occasions during the debate 
earlier on the bill, that this is a very unusual piece of legislation 
in that the demand for it is not coming from the citizens; it is really 
coming from corporations, the whole range of corporations--I do not 
mean the RBOC's; I mean RBOC's, long-distance, cable, broadcast; all of 
them are in this business--that feel the current law, which does not 
allow them to do a variety of things, is too restrictive. And they say, 
if you change the law and allow us to do these things, you are going to 
generate a lot of new economic activity and create new jobs. We have 
heard all kinds of representations about all the good things that are 
going to happen.
  I am an advocate for embracing the future and changing the current 
law. So there is no question in my mind that the Communications Act 
needs to be changed. But I am very mindful and very aware that the 
demand for this change does not come from at least the citizens of 
Nebraska, whom I represent. I did not hear any question in my 
reelection campaign in 1994 coming from citizens saying, ``Well, 
Senator, how do you feel about the regulation of local telephone, long 
distance, and so forth, because I do not like the structure? I am 
unhappy with my phone, I am unhappy with my cable, or I am unhappy with 
my network service, whatever it is I am buying.'' Yes. They might 
complain sometimes about the rates and have concerns about that sort of 
thing, and a lot of concern about the content, pornography, violence, 
and so forth. But nobody was really coming to me asking for this 
change. This is Congress initiating change and saying it is going to be 
good for the people.
  It must be said, Mr. President, that that requires a substantial 
amount of courage at the beginning. It is not my intention to come here 
and say that Members who are enthusiastic about this change are under 
the influence of special interest money. That is not my point at all. I 
am not trying to say that any Member has been bought out or anything 
like that. The problem, though, when you once cross the line, is 
saying, OK, we are going to try to do something that is good for the 
people. It seems to me that you have to do, in an irrationally cold-
blooded way, an analysis of what the impact is going to be.
  There are about 100 million households in the United States of 
America, and we have achieved, over the 60 years of this Communications 
Act, a remarkable degree of not just penetration, but of universal 
service. Ninety-four percent of all households today have a telephone. 
It may be significantly lower than that when the Communications Act was 
passed in 1934. But we did not do it by saying let us let the market 
run wild. We did it by monopoly, by creating a monopoly and giving 
monopoly rights in 1934. We changed it substantially by divestiture. 
But even with divestiture, we retained monopoly rights for local 
telephone service. We have accomplished a remarkable thing.
  Yes, there are market forces. There is lots of private capital. Most 
of these companies are private shareowner companies. But we have 
achieved not just universal service, but by all accounts the best 
telephone and telecommunications system in the world, an active, 
vibrant industry, competitive industry, and it is a great success 
story. 

[[Page S697]]

  So when we radically alter the landscape, as we are with this 
legislation, it seems to me appropriate to sort of ask ourselves: What 
is the consumer going to get out of it? I know the one thing that is 
going to happen is that the subsidy that has been in place for all 
these years at the local level in order to achieve universal service is 
going to begin to come off. Say I have a market. If I am going to be 
out there trying to compete with a long distance company, to compete 
with a cable company, whoever, at the local level, that subsidy is 
going to come off.
  Indeed, the regional Bell operating company in our region has already 
indicated they would like to increase the residential rate by a $2 
State subscriber-line charge in order to provide lower costs for long 
distance. For those of us whose incomes are over $100,000, that sounds 
like a pretty good deal. We have a lot of long distance charges. But 
there are, I would surmise, a majority of Americans for whom long 
distance is still a bit of a luxury. They budget it. They watch it. 
They are careful about it. They do not have unlimited long distance 
service. They may not come out so good in that transaction.
  In fact, one of the things that is very often not understood in this 
whole debate about universal service is there still is a substantial 
means test on it. Ninety-nine percent of the households in America with 
incomes over $100,000, which includes all of us in Congress, have 
telephones. Only 75 percent with incomes under $5,000 have telephones, 
largely because of cost. They probably would say, ``I cannot afford it. 
I cannot afford to buy it. So I am not going to have a telephone 
connected to my house.''
  There is a means test on these services. There is a means test as 
these dollar figures go up for the cost of local service. I think you 
are going to see people say, ``I cannot afford it any longer. I cannot 
afford to pay the price.'' Though we have some protection in the farm 
team universal service provisions, I think that we are going to have to 
be alert in the first instance that there are going to be households 
out there currently able to afford the fare who are going to find 
themselves saying, ``I cannot afford it any longer.''
  I think, on the basis of policy, if the market does not get the job 
done, we as Members of Congress are going to have to ask ourselves a 
question: Well, what is it like if you are in a household without a 
telephone? How essential is it? How important, how valuable is it? One 
measure is going to be: Can I get out and talk to the people who may 
need to come to my household and haul me to the hospital if I have a 
heart attack or some other sort of health problem?
  But increasingly the question is going to be not only if I do not 
have the dial tone, but if I do not have the volume, the enhanced 
services, I may not be able to get as good an education as my neighbor, 
I may not be able to get as good a break with the economy, I may not be 
able to have a home-based company. One out of seven jobs in the State 
of Nebraska are self-employed today. We are seeing an increasing number 
of households that, in fact, are taking advantage of enhanced 
telecommunications services. I think we are going to have to be alert 
to that in the second instance. Many Americans are not going to be able 
to buy enhanced services.
  I think there is general agreement among Republicans and Democrats, 
before you ever get to the point of are we going to spend money, that 
this land of opportunity ought to be a land of opportunity for 
everybody. That opportunity does not necessarily fall equally as a 
consequence of your birth.
  The next thing, Mr. President, that I think we are going to have to 
be alert to is this question of the control of content. I have heard 
the concentration debate. I appreciate very much the language changes 
made in the legislation on media concentration. I think that we do have 
to worry about this even though there are all kinds of other choices 
out there.
  All of us know it is the networks that dominate this deal. If the 
networks decide they want to raise a stink about something, they will 
raise a stink about something and they will drive it into the 
household. If they decide they are not going to, as the distinguished 
majority leader said earlier about the sale of digital spectrum, they 
are not going to say anything about it. They are not going to talk 
about that ripoff. They are not going to talk about something that 
might have an impact upon them.
  This concentration issue is a very important issue, and we, it seems 
to me, are going to have to be alert to it and watch it very carefully 
in the aftermath of passing this conference report, and watch what 
happens to universal service. Is there change in rural America? Are 
there people who are genuinely not going to get service? We have 
accomplished a great thing in the United States of America with 
universal service.
  Second, we are going to have to watch very carefully as to whether or 
not people can afford to buy enhanced services. The laws of this land 
ought to provide equal opportunity for all Americans who are willing to 
make the effort. It ought to reward people who work hard and are 
determined through self-discipline to be a success. We need to be 
careful over this legislation and watch in the aftermath and see what 
the impact is going to be.
  Finally, whether it is in education or whether it is in health care 
or whether it is merely trying to find out what is going on in your 
country with the budget and other sorts of things, we are going to have 
to pay a great deal of attention to content. Content determines what an 
individual receives in their household. We do not want to follow this 
legislation sort of blindly in presuming it is going to in all cases do 
good.
  Again, I intend to vote for the conference report. I appreciate very 
much the efforts made by the distinguished chairman, the Senator from 
South Dakota, and the distinguished ranking member, the Senator from 
South Carolina. I think this conference report is substantially better 
than the bill that we earlier passed. I believe it will in the main be 
good for the economy, but there is a great deal of scrutiny that is 
going to have to occur in the aftermath of this legislation being 
enacted and signed by the President.
  Mr. President, the conference report before us is substantially 
better than the bill that this body considered last summer for 
competition and consumers, for a number of reasons.
  First, the House and Senate bills did not contain a meaningful role 
for the Department of Justice [DOJ] in safeguarding competition before 
local telephone companies are allowed to enter new markets. Under the 
conference report, the DOJ's opinion on regional Bell operating company 
[RDOC] entry will be accorded substantial weight by the Federal 
Communications Commission [FCC] in its proceeding and will be included 
in the official record of decision.
  Neither bill had sufficient provisions to ensure that the local 
telephone market was open to competition before the RBOC's entered long 
distance. The conference report provides that before RBOC's can enter 
long distance, they must complete an interconnection checklist, have a 
facilities-based competitor and satisfy a public interest analysis at 
the FCC. They are required to offer long distance through a separate 
subsidiary for 3 years, which the FCC can extend for a longer period.
  The underlying legislation also would have preempted the States from 
using rate-of-return regulation and forced them to use price caps or 
alternative rate regulation. Under the conference report, States 
continue to regulate local phone rates as they choose.
  I strongly supported retention in the final bill of the Snowe-
Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey [SREK] provision--which was not included in the 
House bill--that will ensure that K-12 schools, libraries, and rural 
hospitals have access to advanced telecommunications services. SREK was 
retained in the conference report, and there are important provisions 
to help rural areas, health care providers, libraries, and citizens 
with disabilities.
  Both House and Senate bills permitted waiver of the cable-telco 
buyout provision. These were overly broad, and would have permitted an 
excessive number of in-region buyouts between telephone companies and 
cable operators. The conference report limits cable-telco mergers to 
communities with fewer than 35,000 inhabitants that are outside of 
urban areas according to the Census Bureau.
  Both bills also deregulated cable monopolies before there was 
effective 

[[Page S698]]
competition. The conference report deregulates small cable systems only 
immediately, and does not deregulate enhanced basic programming for all 
cable systems until March 31, 1999.
  And both bills permitted excessive concentration in ownership of 
local TV and radio stations. The conference report retains the cross-
ownership ban on newspaper/broadcast and cable/broadcast; retains 
limits prohibiting one person from owning two stations in one market; 
expands the limits on local radio stations but retains numeric limits 
on the number of stations in a market; dropped the provision allowing a 
loophole in the ownership attribution rules for TV stations; and 
expands the national limit on TV ownership to 35 percent national 
market reach, but drops the provision allowing waivers.


                      ``meaningful role'' for doj

  Mr President, I would like to elaborate further on the role afforded 
the Department of Justice in the conference report. The final bill 
appropriately includes a strong role for the Justice Department in 
evaluating applications by regional bell operating companies to provide 
interLATA telecommunications.
  The Antitrust Division has unrivaled expertise in assessing 
marketplace effects, particularly so in telecommunications, where it 
has been deeply involved continuously for more than 20 years.
  During floor debate on S. 652, we worked hard to secure an 
independence role for the Antitrust Division in determining when and to 
what extent to remove the consent decrees's core restriction, the long 
distance or interLATA restriction.
  Independent DOJ role narrowly lost in the Senate, but conferees were 
persuaded to give DOJ a special, strong advisory role within FCC 
procedure, almost equivalent protection for competitive freedom. 
Thirty-six Senators cosigned a letter supporting this meaningful role.
  As I earlier indicated, the FCC is required by the conference report 
to consult with the Attorney General and give the Attorney General's 
evaluation substantial weight.
  In conjunction with this evaluation, the Attorney General may submit 
any comments and supporting materials under any standard she believes 
appropriate. Through its work in investigating the telecommunications 
industry and enforcing the MFJ, DOJ has important knowledge, evidence, 
and experience that will be of critical importance in evaluating 
proposed long-distance entry--which, as I indicated earlier, requires 
an FCC finding that such entry is in the public interest, and that a 
facilities-based competitor is present. On both of these issues, the 
DOJ's expertise in telecommunications and competitive issues generally 
should be of great value to the FCC.

  While the substantial-weight requirement does not preclude FCC 
departure from the Attorney General's recommendation if sufficiently 
indicated by other evidence on the record, this additional legal 
requirement means that the FCC's decision must be appropriately mindful 
of the Antitrust Division's special expertise in competition matters 
generally and in making predictive judgments regarding marketplace 
effects in particular.
  This requirement will ensure that DOJ's position is given serious 
substantive consideration on the merits--by the courts on appeal as 
well as by the FCC. DOJ also retains its full statutory authority to 
represent the interests of the United States before the courts on 
appeal.
  Moreover, even after entry occurs, there are important separate 
affiliate requirements--section 271--that will apply for at least 3 
years.
  The conference report further contains an absolute savings clause for 
antitrust laws. No authority that is given to the FCC, and no 
authorization that is given to any private entity, will diminish in any 
way the full applicability of the antitrust laws. This is an important 
guarantee that competition, and the innovation that results from 
healthy market forces, will be the centerpiece of our 
telecommunications policy. In addition, telco-cable, broadcast and 
other media mergers are subject to full antitrust scrutiny, regardliess 
of how they are treated by the FCC.


                     repeal of antitrust exemption

  Finally, the conference report repeals a provision (47 U.S.C. Sec. 
221(a)) that exempts mergers between telephone companies from antitrust 
review--a provision left over from the 1920's, a bygone era when 
Federal telecommunications policy was actually to promote monopoly over 
competition.
  If not repealed, this provision could have taken on a new meaning 
under the bill, since the provision did not define telephone company. 
And, as a result of the walls brought down and the forces unleashed by 
the bill, it is not clear what will constitute a telephone company in 
the future--perhaps every firm that transmits information by any 
electronic means. Absent repeal of this provision, the entire 
communications industry might have merged into one vast monopoly 
without ever being subject to antitrust review.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Who yields time?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, on behalf of the distinguished chairman, I 
yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi has 21 minutes.
  Mr. LOTT. We have 21 minutes remaining. I will take then 5.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to begin by sincerely thanking 
and congratulating the members of the Commerce Committee in the Senate 
and also our House colleagues for the outstanding work that has been 
put into this legislation. But I particularly have to recognize the 
dogged, determined, tenacious, informed effort by the chairman of the 
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. We would not be 
here without question if he had not continued to work on this 
legislation to try to find ways to keep informed all the Members on 
both sides of the Capitol on both sides of the aisle. He has been 
willing to accept some compromises, and, after all, that is the art of 
legislating. He has done a fantastic job. He has made history with this 
legislation.
  I believe we will pass this conference report overwhelmingly in a few 
minutes, and I venture to say right now there will not be a bigger, 
more important piece of legislation that passes the Congress this year 
and probably not one in the last decade in terms of the impact this is 
going to have in the creation of jobs and bringing legislation out of 
the Edsel era of the 1934 Communications Act into a modern Explorer 
because that is what this legislation is going to do--open up 
tremendous horizons for our people.
  So I just have to say I take my hat off to the chairman, Senator 
Pressler, from the great State of South Dakota. He has done a fantastic 
job.
  I also have to say we would not be here without the leadership and 
effort of the ranking member on the committee, Senator Hollings. He has 
been good to his word. He has worked hard. He has been tough. He even 
thought I was trying to game him one time, which I might have been 
trying to do. But he was always open. He was always willing to talk 
with us. When he has made commitments, he has kept those commitments. 
He has continued to work with the chairman to move this thing forward. 
He has worked to keep his Members informed, and we have been informed 
on this side.
  I just think they have done a fantastic job. I think we will look 
back in years ahead and call this truly a historic activity and piece 
of legislation. I also have to say that Chairman Bliley in the House 
took some real risks with his leadership, and the ranking member there, 
Congressman Dingell, who is obviously a very experienced, long-time, 
tough negotiator. But they have all done a great job.
  I wish to also commend the staff. There have been times, I am sure, 
when our staffs on both sides of the aisle were ready to throw in the 
towel or did not want to see us come in again. They worked hard, long 
hours, weekends, and they produced outstanding legislation.
  Let me take a minute to talk just a bit about the process. There were 
those who thought we could not get this bill through the Senate. There 
were those who thought we could not get it through the House. There 
were those who thought we could not get it through the conference. 
There were those who did not want a conference 

[[Page S699]]
agreement. But we moved it forward, and we reached a point where some 
decisions had to be made, and the leaders of the committees in the 
House and Senate stepped up and made a decision.
  It has been suggested that maybe some Senators or some Congressmen or 
some of us got rolled. In some respects, all of us got rolled a little 
bit. I have some things I would like to change in this conference 
report that are important to me and my State. But when you look at the 
entire package, this is good legislation. It took a little extra effort 
during the past couple days to push it to where it could be completed 
today. And so while it is not perfect, it certainly is very good 
legislation that is going to be good for our country and good for the 
economy.
  This legislation is deregulatory. Just take a look at what it does in 
terms of opening up markets; the local markets, the cable industry. We 
are going to have competition. Local telephone companies will be able 
to get into long-distance business and long distance will be able to 
get into local telephone service. They will be able to get into the 
cable area. Cable will be able to provide phone service. What it is 
going to mean is great competition and choices for the people. It is so 
fundamental to what America is all about. It is amazing to me it has 
been so hard to make this happen. But it is a bill that opens up 
markets. It is about more competition. It is deregulatory. I think that 
we should say that over and over again and recognize that is what we 
have here.
  There are all kinds of people who are supporting this legislation 
now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask the Chairman, could I have an 
additional 5 minutes?
  Mr. PRESSLER. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. The telephone companies are supporting this legislation. 
The long-distance companies are supporting this legislation--both of 
them would like to have a little more in their sections, but basically 
they know this is good legislation--the cable industry, the 
broadcasters. The utility industry is going to be able to be involved 
and provide another option, more competition. We made sure that the 
public utilities law on the books did not keep the utilities from 
offering the services they could offer. We made sure that it was a fair 
bill even for the burglar alarm industry.
  There is going to be a tremendous explosion in technology. It will 
help education. It will help health care. We will have manufacturing. I 
hope we are going to have manufacturing of telephone equipment in 
America. But there will be more of it. At least now our companies that 
have been prohibited over the past 15 or 20 years will be able to get 
in there, get into manufacturing and offer additional equipment and 
create some jobs.
  But most of all, the beneficiaries of this bill will be the people. 
They are going to be staggered by the choices, Mr. President, that they 
are going to have to choose between on their telephones and on their 
television sets. There is going to be an absolute revolution occurring 
in the next 10 years in the telecommunications industry.
  It was a question, frankly, of would the Congress step up and 
acknowledge what was happening. Would the Congress take off the 
shackles and allow the telecommunications industry to move forward 
aggressively, or would we retard and restrain and regulate that 
potential?
  We have decided in this legislation to open it up. The people will be 
the beneficiaries. There are adequate safeguards in this legislation 
for consumers. Some people might say too much. But I think that they 
are there. I think they are important. We are going to get jobs 
creation from this legislation. The people will get choice in how they 
get their services. They can choose to have one company in the future 
to give them their local service, their long-distance service, their 
television.
  There is no end to the ideas that will come as a result of this 
legislation. It is going to provide opportunities for growth and 
development and lower prices. Competition will give us more choices, 
tremendous developments and activities at lower prices.
  So I just wanted to say briefly how important I think this 
legislation is. We are changing 60 years of law with it. It is going to 
have a tremendous impact.
  I have been honored to be a part of the process through the 
committee, on the floor of the Senate, in conference. I thank the 
distinguished majority leader for allowing us to get this legislation 
up this afternoon. Without his being willing to step up and say we 
should go forward with this, it would not be happening.
  He raises legitimate questions about the spectrum question. But the 
chairman and the ranking Member have made a commitment we are going to 
have hearings on this. We are going to see what can be done there. We 
are going to make sure we do it right. The FCC is not going to go 
forward with giving away spectrum until we have taken an additional 
look at it. But I have to say it is a very complicated area, and one we 
need to be careful about.
  We should not break our word, and we should not say we can get more 
money than we can get. And we should not take actions that slow down or 
stop the move to digital, the next step in the very pure picture that 
we can get. So we are going to get this legislation, and we are going 
to get additional action on spectrum. We are going to do it, and we are 
going to do it properly.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair for recognizing me at this time. I 
thank the chairman for yielding it to me. I am anxiously awaiting the 
final vote on this historic legislation.
  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, may I say to the Senator from 
Mississippi that this legislation would not have happened without him. 
He has been a valued member of the committee and a valuable friend. He 
has taken great personal risks. I have seen him in meetings really 
perform as a leader. I am very proud to have him as a friend. This 
legislation would not have happened without him. I pay tribute to 
Senator Lott of Mississippi who made this happen. I thank him very, 
very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota has 11 minutes. 
The Senator from South Carolina has 14 minutes.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Montana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I thank my chairman and the Chair.
  First of all, I rise today to join my colleague in pledging my 
support for this piece of legislation, the Telecommunications Act of 
1995. Let me first start out talking about the leadership that Senator 
Pressler has shown on this particular piece of legislation.
  As you know, we have gotten the reform of telecommunications further 
than it has come since I have been in this body. In 1989, we started 
working on telecommunications in the reform, the deregulation of it, to 
do one thing, and that was to push new technologies into areas where we 
desperately needed those new technologies, because all one has to do is 
to look around and say we are going to do things differently when it 
comes to educating our kids, we are going to do things differently when 
we talk about telemedicine.
  I can remember almost 5 years ago I joined with then-Senator Gore to 
introduce a series of telecommunications infrastructure bills. I 
remember that day. I think the ranking member of the Commerce Committee 
was chairman at that time. I can remember that situation. We both 
strongly believed at that time in the need to unleash the digital 
revolution through the substitution of competition for excessive 
regulation. The bill basically achieves that basic goal, and because of 
this, it will accelerate by decades the deployment of advanced 
telecommunications infrastructure.
  This is not to say, Mr. President, that the conference report is 
perfect or the best it could possibly be. In some places I would like 
to change it. But, you know, you do not get everything you want, but at 
least you want everything that you got. I think basically that is the 
position we are in. We cannot let the best become the enemy of the 
good. It is time that we take what we can get now and move forward with 
this piece of legislation.
  Under this bill, the nature of regulation will change. Instead of 
regulating the profits of telephone companies, regulation will now 
focus on ensuring that competition can take root in all 

[[Page S700]]
aspects of the telecommunications markets. Once full and effective 
competition can take root, it will protect the consumer interests and 
the need for regulation will end. This process of using regulation to 
embrace and advance the cause of competition toward an ultimate goal of 
deregulation will require the conscience and the constant vigilance of 
this Congress and Congresses to come. Cooperation between the FCC and 
the States will also be mandatory.
  We all must be vigilant to ensure that competition can take root and 
that it grow and it prosper. If it does not, then this bill will be a 
failure. I believe this bill will not be a failure. I am proud of most 
of the agreements that were made and reached in this conference.

  I believe that a good deal was struck where both rural and urban 
interests are well served. My home State of Montana will benefit 
greatly from the universal services provisions and lower telephone 
rates, better cable services, and increased competition in all segments 
of telecommunications across the board.
  What does it do? It removes almost all State and local government 
restrictions on competition and local exchange telephone, video 
services, wireless, and other communications markets. It also reforms 
the broadcast license renewal process to forestall strike units or 
other abusive practices by self-styled consumer groups and community 
activists, removing network cable owner limits and raising current 
radio and television station ownership caps. It restructures the 
remaining FCC procedures and requires speedy action on complaints, 
petitions for forbearance, applications and other requests, and 
establishes a permanent biennial regulatory review of the process.
  It also removes and relaxes the restrictions on the ability of public 
utility holding companies to engage in competitive telecommunications 
activities.
  Furthermore, the report's rules on interconnection will empower 
competitors by ensuring that they can gain access on fair and 
reasonable terms to existing local telephone facilities without 
imposing unreasonable burdens on rural telephone companies.
  The report also protects the continuation of universal service, an 
essential feature, especially for rural areas where competition will be 
slow to evolve.
  And, a backup provision, the so-called advanced telecommunications 
provision, was included in the report to ensure that competition and, 
hence, infrastructure deployment evolve in a reasonable and timely 
manner. If competition is stalled, the report gives the FCC authority 
to quicken the pace of competition and deregulation to accelerate the 
deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure.
  These provisions, taken together, will ensure that all Americans--in 
urban, suburban, rural, and remote areas--gain access to the most 
advanced telecommunications capability as quickly as market forces will 
allow.
  Finally, I also support the radio ownership deregulation provision 
included in the report. The provision is a good compromise between 
those who wanted complete deregulation and those who were concerned 
about concentration in radio ownership in local markets. By 
deregulating radio ownership rules, we are setting the groundwork for 
our Nation's radio operators to compete and survive in this new 
telecommunications environment.
  For these reasons, I support the conference report and hope that my 
colleagues will as well in the confidence that its enactment will 
ensure the rapid deployment of advanced telecommunications capability 
to the benefit to all Americans.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana's time has expired.
  Mr. BURNS. Again, I want to congratulate the leadership of Senator 
Pressler and the many people that it took to put this together, because 
we know that it was frustrating at times. It was frustrating to all of 
us at times. But, nonetheless, I think it is a good piece of 
legislation. I yield the floor.


             commercial availability of navigation devices

  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. The competitive availability of navigation devices 
provision, section 304, instructs the FCC to consult with appropriate 
voluntary industry standards setting organizations for the purpose of 
promulgating a regulation. Given that the FCC is not a standards 
setting organization, do you agree that this legislation does not 
authorize the FCC to set a standard for interactive video equipment?
  Mr. BURNS. I agree. Moreover, FCC involvement in the emerging digital 
market could have the effect of freezing or chilling the development of 
that market. If private industry groups are able to develop sufficient 
standards on their own, there is no need for the FCC to intervene. One 
such example of this policy approach is the so-called Eshoo amendment 
which leaves the development of ``features, functions, protocols, and 
other product and service options'' for analog cable equipment to the 
private sector.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Do you also agree that the intent of this provision is 
that the use of rate regulated services to subsidize equipment might 
unfairly penalize the general rate-payer?
  Mr. BURNS. I agree. However, when those services are no longer rate 
regulated such subsidy cannot be sustained and the prohibition on 
bundling is no longer necessary. The bill's prohibition on bundling and 
subsidization no longer applies when cable rates are deregulated. 
Consumers should have the option of obtaining digital devices through 
commercial outlets, but this does not mean that network operators must 
make each type of equipment available through commercial outlets. 
Network operators should have the flexibility to package and bundle 
equipment and services.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I speak today in opposition to the 
conference report on S. 652, the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 
1995. I regret that I cannot support this legislation, because it 
contains important protections for parents to be able to monitor what 
their children are viewing. I support the language in the conference 
report that requires manufacturers to include V-chips in new 
televisions. I also hope that the television industry will voluntarily 
develop ratings for video programming. Parents need this rating system 
so that they can more fully monitor what their kids are viewing.
  This bill also represents so much for our country. I can imagine 
workers in rural Minnesota telecommuting to and from work as far away 
as New York or Washington without ever having to leave their homes or 
families. As a teacher the possibilities really excite me--
schoolchildren in Minneapolis reading the latest publications at the 
Library of Congress via thin glowing fiber cables or rural health care 
providers on the iron range consulting with the top medical researchers 
at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester to better treat their patients. All of 
this is before us.
  When the Senate debated this bill in June, I felt then and still feel 
now that this bill presents to each Senator a daunting responsibility. 
The concern that I still have now that we are voting on the conference 
report, has to do with whether or not we can make sure that there will 
be true competition, and that this technology and information will 
truly be available to everyone in the Nation, not just the most 
privileged or the most wealthy.
  The conferees maintained some very important Senate provisions, 
including language to keep telecommunication rates low for schools and 
hospitals. This will help to ensure that our communication technologies 
are affordable for future generations. I was proud to support this 
provision when opponents tried to strip this provision in the Senate.
  The conferees also kept language requiring V-chips in new 
televisions. I am proud to say that I supported this provision that 
will help keep adult-oriented video programs away from children. I 
believe that this will give those who know best, parents, the ability 
to control the flow of new services into their homes.
  What disappoints me the most is that this bill did not go far enough 
to assure competition and therefor does not go far enough to protect 
consumers. I am not just concerned about the alphabet soup 
corporations. I am concerned about the people that live in Eveleth or 
Fergus Falls or Virginia or St. Paul or Northfield or Pipestone. I was 
hoping that at least we could build in more protection for consumers 
and more 

[[Page S701]]
guarantees that there would in fact be the competition that we all talk 
about.
  I ask my colleagues, after you remove the protections against huge 
rate increases, against monopoly, against service just for the 
privileged, what would you replace them with? Words, Mr. President. 
Promises, guarantees, reassurances that this time, although many of 
these companies have misbehaved in the past, and have been fined 
repeatedly for violating promises to protect consumers, that this time 
the corporations promise to behave themselves and to conduct themselves 
in the consumer's best interest.
  Mr. President, I have said it before, and I will say it again. I do 
not buy it. I would rather put my trust in solid protections, written 
in law, to make sure that rates remain affordable, services are 
available for everyone, and no one is left behind in the stampede for 
corporate profits. Protections that ensure affordability, fairness, and 
access in local and long distance phone service and cable TV.
  Mr. President, the need for the continuation of consumer protections 
and antitrust circuit breakers is clear. With every passing day, we see 
more integration in the telecommunications and information marketplace. 
Over the summer, we saw the Lotus Corp. agree to a friendly takeover by 
IBM. AT&T and McCaw Cellular will be joining forces, as will other 
companies, in preparing for this newly deregulated telecommunications 
environment. I am concerned that this integration will mean a broadcast 
concentration where consumers will get their news and information from 
fewer and fewer sources.
  This integration at the top corporate level and the market position 
of many of these companies demands that consumers be given a voice--a 
trusted voice--to speak for them in the coming years. No more trusted 
voice could be found on this subject than that of the Department of 
Justice. It was through that Department's courageous leadership that 
the old AT&T Ma Bell monopoly was broken apart--it was a long, tough 
fight, but this experience gained by the DOJ has been invaluable in 
guiding the breakup of the Bell system, and the development of 
competition in long distance and other services. It only makes sense 
that we allow the DOJ to put this experience to use again as we move 
into an exciting, but potentially risky, new market. I believe that DOJ 
oversight is essential to ensure competition and consumer protection to 
keep telephone monopolies from reassembling themselves.
  While I fully appreciate the potential of this legislation, I am 
really worried about where we are heading because I think there is 
going to be entirely too much concentration of power. The New York 
Times reported in a December 19, 1995, article:

       For Wall Street, a frenzy of deals would be a bonanza. For 
     many consumers though, the activity is unlikely to make much 
     difference in the price of quality of their phone service. 
     Only in large metropolitan areas, where the lure of lucrative 
     markets might intensify competition, could the average phone 
     customer expect to see much benefit.

  The article goes on to report from one investment analyst that ``What 
you need to have is a large footprint to reach more customers with one 
network.'' He went on to say ``There's no reason on God's Earth why you 
have to have seven bell companies.''
  Well this may be true if the only bottom line is to make money. But 
my bottom line is to ensure that consumers all over America have access 
to affordable, quality telecommunications services.
  I believe that this legislation will lead to too much concentration 
of power in a very, very important and decisive area of public life in 
the United States of America. I think we are making a mistake if we 
pass this piece of legislation. I will therefore, vote against it.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, there is language within S. 652 which 
requires all must carry challenges filed with the FCC to be resolved 
within 120 days. Let me further state that broadcast stations are 
important sources of local news, public affairs programming, and other 
local broadcast services. This category of service will be an important 
part of the public interest determination to be made by the Commission 
when deciding whether a broadcast renewal application shall be granted 
by the Commission. To prevent local television broadcast signals from 
being subject to noncarriage or repositioning by cable television 
systems and those providing cable services, we must recognize and 
reaffirm the importance of mandatory carriage of local commercial 
television stations, as implemented by Commission rules and 
regulations.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the telecom conference 
report and its adherence to procedures we set up with passage of S. 1, 
the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995.
  We passed S. 1 one year ago with overwhelming bipartisan support. It 
was one of the two major items in the Contract with America that has 
actually been enacted. I am proud to be its coauthor along with my 
colleague, Senator Kempthorne.
  S. 1 sets up a process where, first, we would understand the cost of 
future Federal mandates on State and local governments before we voted 
to enact them. We would get this cost information from CBO and, to do 
so, we secured an additional $1.4 million in fiscal year 1996 funds for 
CBO to hire the needed analysts. Second, S. 1 ensures that we would pay 
for those mandates or otherwise face a possible point of order on the 
floor. We set a date of January 1, 1996 for the act's cost estimating 
and funding requirements to take effect.
  This telecom conference report violates S. 1's spirit, intent and 
requirements. Section 424(d) of the act stipulates that ``the 
conference committee shall ensure, to the greatest extent practicable'' 
that CBO shall perform cost estimates on conference reports containing 
Federal mandates. This provision was an amendment to S. 1 by Senator 
Gramm from Texas that was unanimously adopted by the Senate. It is 
meant to address the possibility of Federal mandates all of a sudden 
showing up in conference reports.

  State and local government groups alerted Members to three sections 
of the report, section 302, 303, and 602 that restricted or limited 
their authority to raise revenues through licensing and franchising 
fees. Section 421(3) of the act defines direct costs to mean ``the 
aggregate estimated amounts that all State, local, and tribal 
governments would be prohibited from raising in revenues in order to 
comply with the Federal intergovernmental mandate.'' So the State and 
local groups were right to raise these concerns and ask that CBO do a 
scoring of the conference report as required under S. 1.
  Unfortunately, CBO did not receive the conference report until this 
morning. Earlier efforts by the CBO analysts to get copies of earlier 
versions of the conference report were also unsuccessful. Apparently, 
they were ignored by the conference committee staff. That's not the 
process we envisioned under S. 1.
  I understand that the rights of way provisions in section 303 were 
altered to address State and local concerns. Those were the provisions 
that were of the greatest concern to them. However, that still leaves 
sections 302 and 602. Those sections are being looked at right now by 
CBO for their cost on State and local governments, but I'm afraid it's 
too late. We are going to pass this conference report shortly without 
having any estimate of what those costs might be.
  When we passed S. 1, I talked on the floor about how Congress and its 
committees would have to change the way they do business in order for 
the act to work. That change didn't happen on this conference report. I 
hope there is a better effort at compliance next time.
  I support this conference report because it makes long-needed and 
important reforms in the telecom industry. But in terms of following S. 
1's rules and procedures, it falls far short.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am very pleased that the Senate will 
vote today on final passage of S. 652, the Telecommunications 
Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995--one of the most important 
bills to be considered by the 104th Congress. While there are many 
issues that have been addressed in this legislation, most notably to 
ensure that there is competition among the telecommunications 
technologies of the 21st century, I have been particularly concerned 
about one important issue associated with telecommunications reform--
the impact of television programming on our children, and the 
importance of ensuring 

[[Page S702]]
that parents have information and the technology necessary to make an 
informed decision about television programming for their children.
  In this regard, I am very pleased that conferees have agreed to 
accept the Parental Choice in Television Programming provisions--the V-
chip--that was adopted by both the House of Representatives and Senate 
by overwhelming margins during consideration of S. 652 and H.R. 1555 
last summer. The importance of this parental choice technology for 
parents was underscored by President Clinton last week in his State of 
the Union Message to the Nation.
  In that message, the President called on Congress to pass the V-chip 
requirement in S. 652 that would permit parents to screen out 
television programming inappropriate for children. The President also 
called on the entertainment media to create movies, CD's, and 
television programming that members of the entertainment community 
would want their children to view. He further challenged the broadcast 
industry to help parents protect their children by providing families 
with more information about TV programming through improved advisories 
or rating system. To accomplish this goal, the President invited 
leaders of the major entertainment media to the White House later this 
month to discuss and work on ways to improve what children view in 
entertainment programming.
  Mr. President, I commend President Clinton for strongly endorsing the 
V-chip in his State of the Union Message, as well as for his leadership 
on behalf of parental choice chip technology during consideration of 
telecommunications reform legislation in the Senate and House. 
President Clinton remarked that the V-chip represents a reasonable 
solution--not censorship--to the concerns of parents who have little 
control over the television programming that is available to their 
children, and want more information on the content of this programming. 
The President said, ``when parents control what their children see, 
that's not censorship. That's enabling parents to assume more 
responsibility for their children's upbringing''. I agree with 
President Clinton.
  Regrettably, the reaction of the broadcast media to President 
Clinton's support for the V-chip technology and appeal to the media to 
work together to make the V-chip technology effective, has not been 
encouraging. Despite broad public support among parents, the medical 
community, educators and other children advocates for this technology, 
and successful tests of this technology in Canada, broadcasters say the 
V-chip proposal is unworkable, and unconstitutional on free-speech 
grounds. According to press reports, the broadcasters intend to oppose 
the V-chip in court. I believe this decision is unfortunate--children 
will be the losers if this technology does not become available to 
parents. Unfortunately, many in the television broadcast industry 
continue to misrepresent the provisions adopted in the conference 
agreement to S. 652.

  As adopted in the conference report (Section 551--Parental Choice in 
Television Programming), manufacturers of television sets (13 inches or 
larger), both domestic and foreign, would be required to install 
technology--the V-chip--that would allow parents to block the display 
of programming with a common rating. The Federal Communications 
Commission, following consultation with the electronics industry, would 
determine a date for the implementation of this provision. There is 
also a provision under section 551 that would prohibit the shipping of 
television sets in interstate commerce that do not meet the 
requirements for the manufacture of television sets with blocking 
technology. These are the only mandates under section 551.
  To make the parental choice chip technology an effective tool for 
parents, section 551 calls on television broadcasters, cable operators, 
and other video programmers to work with concerned interest groups, 
including parents, over a 12-month period--before any of the provisions 
of section 551 become effective--to voluntarily develop rules for 
rating television programming with violent, sexual, or other indecent 
content. Broadcasters and cable operators during this same period would 
also be encouraged to voluntarily develop rules for the transmission of 
signals encoding the ratings that would block certain television 
programming.
  Effective voluntary rating systems have already been developed for 
television programming in Canada. In addition, as I noted during the 
telecommunications debate last summer, the Recreational Software 
Advisory Council and the Interactive Digital Software Association on 
behalf of video game manufacturers have voluntarily adopted a rating 
system that is included with most video games sold in the United 
States. A voluntary rating system is workable.
  Mr. President, following the 12-month period from the date of 
enactment of S. 652, if the television broadcasters, cable operators 
have not taken the opportunity to voluntarily develop a rating system 
to guide parents, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would be 
authorized to establish an advisory committee to develop 
recommendations and guidelines for the identification and rating of 
television programming. The advisory committee would include industry 
representatives, parents, and public interest groups. Any guidelines or 
recommendations established by the advisory committee could serve as a 
model for the television broadcast industry in the development of a 
rating system.
  Section 551 does not mandate a government rating system, or that a 
program be rated if a broadcaster refuses to rate programming. Nor does 
this legislation establish a government entity to rate television 
programming. There is also no authority or suggestion to rate or 
identify in any way religious or political programming. No penalties 
are established by this provision if a television broadcaster's cable 
operator refuses to develop ratings, or apply whatever ratings or 
identification system is established voluntarily, or by the advisory 
committee under the FCC. The development of any rating or other 
television program identification is entirely voluntary--the 
effectiveness of the V-chip technology as an aid for parents rests with 
television broadcasters and cable operators, not the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. President, 90 percent of the public supports the installation of 
the V-chip on television sets--parents want more information on the 
contents of television programming, and to be able to block that 
programming if they consider it inappropriate for children. They should 
have that right. In Canada, recent trials of V-chip technology that 
were conducted in Toronto and other communities have shown that the V-
chip is popular, and workable. More than 80 percent of the families 
that participated in the demonstration felt positively toward the V-
chip, and more than 70 percent thought the system effective and should 
be maintained.
  I urge television broadcasters, cable operators, and other video 
programmers to take advantage of the 12-month period provided under 
section 551 to voluntarily develop an identification or rating system 
that will help parents to make informed decisions about television 
programming that is appropriate for children. I hope that media 
executives will view the upcoming White House meeting on violence and 
children's programming as an opportunity for constructive dialog on 
this important issue for children, and to make this new parental choice 
technology an effective tool for parents and families. The time has 
come to work together.
  I applaud House and Senate conferees on S. 652 for including the V-
chip provisions in the final conference agreement. I also want to 
express my appreciation to Senator Hollings for his leadership on 
behalf of children's television programming, and for his strong support 
of the V-chip provision in conference. I urge my colleagues to lend 
their strong support for passage of this important telecommunications 
reform conference report.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, as we approach the end of the 20th 
century, it becomes increasingly clear that our telecommunications 
industry has outgrown the Communications Act of 1934. Changes in 
technology and in consumer demands since then mean that it is now time 
to pass the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 
1995. This legislation will foster technological growth, bring more 
choices and lower prices to consumers, 

[[Page S703]]
increase productivity, jobs, and international competitiveness.
  The Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995 will 
provide consumers with more choices and lower prices in long distance 
phone service and television programming. And it will do so in a way 
that protects rural customers: This legislation explicitly preserves 
the universal service fund which subsidizes telephone services to rural 
areas.
  Right now, consumers have a choice among long distance phone 
companies. After this legislation takes effect, consumers will also be 
able to choose among companies that offer them local phone service.
  This legislation will also give consumers more choices in how they 
receive television programming. Currently, if a consumer's area is 
served by cable, a consumer may choose between the cable company and 
Direct Broadcast Satellite [DBS] service. This legislation will allow 
the phone company to offer television over phone lines, so consumers 
will be able to choose television services from among cable companies, 
phone companies, and DBS.
  The Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995 will 
also encourage investment in domestic telecommunications industries. By 
requiring that local telephone service be provided solely through 
regulated monopolies, the Communications Act of 1934 has forced U.S. 
companies wanting to invest in local phone markets to invest overseas.
  The President's Council of Economic Advisors estimates that as a 
result of deregulation, by 2003, 1.4 million service sector, U.S.-based 
jobs will be created.
  Over the next 10 years, a total of 3.4 million jobs will be created, 
and, according to telecommunications analyst George Gilder, the gross 
domestic product will increase by as much as $2 trillion.
  Increased investment in telecommunications products and services will 
bring a better quality of life to rural New Mexico. With fiber optic 
cable connections, doctors in Shiprock, NM, can consult with 
specialists at the University of New Mexico Medical Center or any 
medical center across the country.
  These new technologies will enable students in Hidalgo County, NM, in 
towns like Lordsburg and Animas, to share teachers through a video and 
fiber optic link. This legislation will remove the regulations that 
currently prevent local phone companies from making the investments 
necessary to provide such technologies.
  Mr. President, I support this legislation because it will help 
improve rural education and rural health care, enhance local and long 
distance phone services, and speed up the development of new technology 
and new jobs for Americans. I believe this legislation represents a key 
step forward toward achieving these valuable objectives.
  As with any effort at serious, large-scale reform, this legislation 
leaves a few important policy questions unresolved. I am pleased that 
we have agreed to separate those issues out from this bill so that we 
can give them the full attention they deserve in the future.
  I wish to commend the managers of this bill, and their staffs for 
their tireless work to craft this legislation. In particular, I 
appreciate the legislative skill of Chairman Pressler, Majority Leader 
Dole, Senator Stevens, and ranking member Senator Hollings, as well as 
their commitment to real reform of obsolete and burdensome regulations.
  The public ought to be proud that by working together, Democrats and 
Republicans have succeeded in crafting legislation that will enhance 
the capacity of our economy to respond to the new, and rapidly growing 
challenges of the information age.
  Mr. HEFLIN, Mr. President, telecommunications technology has 
undergone a major evolution in the six decades since Congress passed 
the landmark ``Communications Act'' in 1934. Enacted during the Great 
Depression, the ``Communications Act'' alleviated the turf disputes 
which emerged when AT&T entered the broadcasting arena to compete with 
the well-established radio networks. The New Deal approach to this 
problem was to erect strict walls between public utility communication 
providers and broadcasters. Amazingly, though, the regulatory approach 
established 62 years ago is still the law of the land.
  Mr. President, it is my belief that cellular telephones, fax 
machines, cable television, direct broadcast satellites, and computers 
have rendered obsolete the Nation's aging telecommunications regulatory 
framework. Therefore, I believe the time has come to overhaul that 
framework as we prepare to enter the 21st century. But as my friends on 
the Commerce Committee can attest, the task of rewriting the antiquated 
Communications Act of 1934 is much easier said than done.
  I suspect that we all agree that the present regulatory structure 
needs revision, but forming a consensus on just how to create a new 
regulatory environment that acknowledges and fosters competition while 
at the same time protects the public interest has proven to be elusive. 
After reviewing the conference report on the Telecommunications Act, 
though, I feel that the conferees have done a commendable job in 
finding an equitable balance between these two competing goals.
  The past few months have been witness to some historic agreements. 
For instance, those who negotiated the Dayton Peace Accord deserve 
credit for a job well done, but the conferees who were able to broker 
an agreement between the long distance industry and the Bell operating 
companies deserve the Nobel Peace Price. The ability of these two 
divergent interests to come to terms in regards to the Baby Bell's 
entry into the long distance market is one of the reasons I plan to 
support the bill.
  In addition, I am pleased that the bill will provide independent, 
rural cable systems with the option to merge or be bought out by their 
local exchange carrier if the cable system in question decides it can 
not compete head-to-head. I specifically want to thank Senator Hollings 
for his help on this section of the bill.
  One other issue worth mentioning in regards to the telecommunications 
bill is the spectrum flexibility issue. All television stations will 
soon be making the transition from an analog signal to a digital 
signal. This will provide the consumer with a better signal and will 
give television stations new sources of revenue, such as digital paging 
and data transmission. In that broadcasters provide their services to 
the viewing public for free, I think it would be a mistake to require 
them to pay for spectrum on which to start digital broadcasts, 
particularly since they will turn their analog spectrum back to the 
Government once the transition to digital is complete. This bill would 
not actually give spectrum to broadcasters, but it would leave the 
decision on how best to handle the transition to digital in the hands 
of the FCC, where it should be.
  Mr. President, in closing this bill is good for the consumer because 
it will open the floodgates of competition among communications 
providers. As we all know, increased competition means lower prices and 
new services in the marketplace. In addition, the bill is supported by 
the regional Bell companies, the long distance industry, the cable 
industry, and broadcasters. Therefore, I intend to vote in favor of 
this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to join the 
distinguished Senator from South Dakota, Senator Pressler, and the 
Senator from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, in supporting the 
conference report to S. 652, the telecommunications reform bill. As a 
conferee on this historic piece of legislation, I firmly believe that 
this bill is a balanced approach to the overhaul of our 
telecommunications laws and regulations and towards a de-regulated and 
competitive telecommunications industry.
  In the last several months, the Congress has been highly criticized 
for the partisan nature of our debates. And it is true that a 
significant number of legislative initiatives are caught in intense 
partisan differences. But at the same time, there have been a number of 
developments where both sides of the aisle have come together, where 
both sides have been able to reach an accommodation of differing views 
and opinions. I believe that this conference report is just one example 
of how this Congress can work in a bi-partisan manner to produce solid 
legislation. 

[[Page S704]]

  That is not to say that it is easy. This conference has been working 
throughout the fall and early winter to produce this conference report. 
Our negotiations were long and difficult ones. But, Mr. President, I am 
by nature a compromiser. I guess that is because I am from Kentucky. 
And Kentucky produced many fine legislators and statesmen, including 
the great compromiser, Henry Clay. And Henry Clay once said that 
compromise is ``a mutual sacrifice.'' Well, let me tell you Mr. 
President, that we conferees have made many sacrifices in order to 
reach a bi-partisan conference report.
  When the House passed its version of telecommunications reform last 
August, I was asked what the significance of that event meant. I stated 
then that I was fairly confident that we could produce a final bill--
but that it was not going to be easy. There were significant 
differences between the Senate and House bills. In particular, I know I 
and many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle were concerned 
about the scope of the deregulation contained in the House bill. But 
something significant happened in this conference. We sat down and we 
listened to each other. Throughout numerous discussions and informal 
meetings of conferees, we were able to state our concerns and have 
those concerns understood and appreciated. And more importantly, we 
were able to have those concerns addressed in a satisfactory manner. I 
do not think that any one side prevailed over the other. This 
conference was one of significant negotiations and compromises. But the 
result is that today we have a bi-partisan bill. I believe that this 
conference report is a fair, logical, and balanced approach towards 
reforming our Nation's telecommunications law and policies.
  There is no question that we need to pass a reform bill. Not since 
the passage of the 1934 Communications Act has the Congress taken a 
step towards a major overhaul of that law. The 1934 Act has served its 
purpose in guiding our telecommunications policy for the last 60 years. 
But we are at a crossroads in terms of policy and technology. Our 
telecommunications industry has been in a state of complex 
transformation that began in 1984 with the divestiture of AT&T. Since 
that time, the seven regional telephone companies have actively sought 
permission to enter into other areas of business. And as the regional 
Bell companies have sought to expand, other companies and industries 
have sought to enter into the local telephone market. Clearly, these 
changes cannot be made through court rulings and petitions to the 
Federal Communications Commission.
  The slow and haphazard de-regulation that has been on-going since 
1984 has frustrated the ability for real and effective competition. In 
turn, I think that has also frustrated the ability for the 
telecommunications industry to develop and improve technology. In fact, 
Mr. President, I would argue that an initial and almost immediate 
effect of this legislation will be rapid advances in telecommunications 
technology.
  Our telecommunications industry is on the cutting edge of technology. 
Research and development and existing technologies are inhibited by 
rules created several years ago, if not several decades ago. The 
reforms contained in this conference report will help ensure America 
remains competitive.
  Throughout my experience in this legislation, I always hear people 
talking about the so-called ``information superhighway''. If we want to 
make that ``information superhighway'' a reality for all Americans, 
then I think we need to spur competition which will encourage 
investments.
  Mr. President, competition and investments can only mean one thing--
jobs. This conference report is not just a regulatory reform bill. It 
is a job creation bill as well. Today, the telecommunications industry 
is 15 percent of the GDP. And it is also a sector with high-growth 
potential which will create high-skill and high-paying jobs.
  In fact, in a recent study conducted by the Wharton School of 
Business, the Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Association (``The WEFA 
Group'') found that full competition in telecommunications has the 
potential to create 3.4 million jobs by the year 2005. And the 
potential to cause a $298 billion increase in the gross domestic 
product within 10 years.
  In Kentucky, it is estimated that over 32,000 new jobs will be 
created during this same period. Telecommunications reform in Kentucky 
could mean the distribution of 1,000 new jobs in the mining industry; 
2,900 jobs in the construction industry; 7,300 new jobs in 
manufacturing; 1,200 new jobs in the transportation and utilities 
sector; 11,200 new jobs in the wholesale and retail trade sector; 1,300 
new jobs to the financial services industry; and, 7,500 new jobs to 
other services in general.
  Mr. President, this telecommunications reform bill is also a pro-
consumer bill because it will create more competition, and in turn, 
lower prices. It is estimated that telecommunications reform will lower 
rates by 22 percent, saving consumers nearly $550 billion over the next 
10 years. Lower long distance rates alone will yield $333 billion in 
consumer savings. With lower local telephone rates, consumers can 
expect to save another $32 billion. Lower cellular rates could generate 
another $107 billion and lower cable television rates will yield 
another $78 billion in consumer savings.
  But this bill is not simply about jobs and money. This bill also 
contains important provisions which will enhance access to advanced 
services in our public schools. I am pleased that this conference 
report retains the provisions of the Senate bill known as the Snowe-
Rockefeller Amendment. Because of this provision in the legislation, 
our classrooms are going to be able to link with other institutions and 
other programs to enhance education. This is most important for a state 
like Kentucky with a large rural population. Students and teachers in 
rural areas will gain access to sources of information and libraries in 
other locations across Kentucky and the Nation. The reforms contained 
in this bill will hasten the pace by which schools in rural areas will 
receive comparable access to the Internet, just like those schools in 
more urban areas. Access to advanced services can lead to improvements 
and efficiencies in the administration of education. In fact, this is 
already occurring in Kentucky. Our State government has contracted for 
the establishment of the Kentucky Information Highway. Schools and 
school district offices are linked together on the network and advanced 
services are made available at preferential rates.

  Mr. President, as I have mentioned, this conference report includes 
important changes to our telecommunications laws which enable the 
development of new technologies. I am pleased to say that the 
conference report includes a provision which will limit the role of the 
Federal Communications Commission in setting standards that may affect 
the computer and home automation technologies. Section 301(f) of the 
bill provides that the FCC may only set minimal standards for cable 
equipment compatibility, to maximize marketplace competition for all 
features and protocols unrelated to descrambling of cable programming, 
and to ensure that the FCC's cable compatibility regulations do not 
affect computer network services, home automation, or other types of 
telecommunications equipment. In short, this section keeps the 
government out of setting high technological standards and prevents the 
FCC from setting standards for the computer and communications services 
of the future.
  I believe that this section is a small but important aspect of this 
historic bill: to embrace the future by allowing new technologies to 
flourish with minimal government interference. Just as this bill will 
help open markets by eliminating the barriers to long-distance and 
equipment manufacturing competition, Section 301(f) ensures that our 
vital computer and high-tech markets remain open and competitive by 
ensuring that the FCC's technical standards are kept to a minimum. 
Since almost all standards in the communications and computer 
industries are voluntary, private standards, this section of the bill 
maintains that this practice shall continue. This is very important as 
we see the accelerating pace of the convergence of the computer and the 
communications industries.
  Section 301(f) modifies the FCC's authority in order to reign in the 
Commission's ongoing rulemaking on cable equipment compatibility. This 
is a problem that arises out of the 1992 

[[Page S705]]
Cable Act, which directed the FCC to assure compatibilitybetween 
televisions, VCR's and cable systems. But, I believe that the FCC has 
gone beyond the directions contained in that 1992 law. This section of 
the conference report prevents the FCC from standardizing any feature 
or protocols that are not necessary for descrambling, by preventing the 
selection of an other home automation protocol as part of the FCC's 
cable compatibility regulations. It further prevents the FCC from 
affecting products in the computer or home automation industry in any 
way. Simply put, Section 301(f) leaves these standards to be set, as 
they should be, by competition in the marketplace.
  I understand that some have questioned whether the term ``affect'' is 
too broad. Indeed it is a broad term in order to effectively implement 
the principle that the FCC regulations should not interfere in 
competitive markets. Because there is no reason to affect computers or 
home automation products, and because even inadvertent or relatively 
small effects on emerging and rapidly changing markets can easily 
displace technological innovation, this section 301(f) is weighted 
toward protecting competition and open markets. The accompanying 
Statement of Managers states that any material influence on unrelated 
markets is prohibited. Because it is impossible for agencies or courts 
to judge whether the impact of technical standards in emerging markets 
would be harmful or substantial, Section 301(f) draws a bright line to 
avoid any regulatory impact whatsoever.
  I think this is an important policy. The risk associated with wide 
regulatory powers over technological issues in a time when we are 
seeing rapid technical change is that premature or overbroad FCC 
standards may interfere in the market-driven process of standardization 
or impede technological innovation itself.
  It is interesting to note that the industry itself has been able to 
solve compatibility problems, and create workable standards in the VCR, 
personal computer, compact discs and other products without any 
government involvement. I believe that the inclusion of Section 301(f) 
continues that tradition and will permit the industry to set the 
standards, not the FCC. That is in keeping with the nature of this 
legislation as a whole.
  Mr. President, in addition to reforms of the local and long distance 
telephone companies, this conference report includes a number of 
overdue revisions to the laws regulating the broadcasters. I believe 
that these changes are necessary to respond to the changing competitive 
nature of the broadcast industry, in the same manner as the changes 
this conference report foresees for the telephone industry. One of the 
changes in this legislation includes directions to the Federal 
Communications Commission to conduct a rule-making on the so-called 
duopoly rule.
  The duopoly rule was last revised by the FCC in 1964. And it prevents 
the ownership of more than one television station in a local market. 
This regulation served a useful purpose by ensuring there would be 
competition and a diversity of media voices in a television market.
  However, in the last 32 years, the local media have gained so many 
new competitors that I have begun to question whether the duopoly rule 
still promotes good policy. That is why I endorse the provisions of the 
conference report which direct the FCC to conduct a rule-making to 
determine whether to retain, modify, or eliminate this rule.
  Today, consumers have access to many more broadcast stations than a 
generation ago, let alone, a decade ago. More significantly, consumers 
today have access to a host of non-broadcast station video providers, 
all of which offer dozens or even hundreds of channels. Competition to 
broadcasters is coming from the cable industry, wireless cable systems, 
satellite systems, and video dialtone networks. With such competition, 
I believe that we may have reached the point where the viability of 
free over-the-air programming, provided by single-channel broadcasters, 
may be threatened by the new multi-channel competitors.
  Too many local broadcasters, particularly in smaller markets, are 
already losing money. This is a concern to me, and should be a concern 
to other Members, because I believe that local television broadcasters 
are just as important as local radio stations and local newspapers. 
Together, these local broadcasters help to develop a sense of community 
through the coverage of local events. It is my hope that the FCC will 
examine this matter thoroughly and revise the duopoly rule 
appropriately.
  In addition to the duopoly rule, I am also pleased to see that this 
conference report grandfathers local marketing agreements, or LMA's. 
Many local broadcasters have stayed competitive by entering into these 
LMA's with one another. These innovative joint ventures allow 
separately owned stations to function cooperatively, achieving 
economies of scale through combined sales and advertising efforts, and 
shared technical facilities. These local marketing agreements have 
served their communities in a number of ways: some have increased 
coverage of local news; others have increased coverage of local sports, 
particularly college sports; and, many LMA's have provided outlets for 
innovative local programming and children's programming.
  Together, a review of the duopoly rule and the grandfathering of 
LMA's, these provisions will help ensure that consumers always have 
access to free local television programming.
  Mr. President, it is clear that the reform of our communications laws 
is long overdue. This conference report is a comprehensive and balanced 
approach to rewrite our National telecommunications policy for the 21st 
Century and beyond. After years of debate, negotiations and compromise, 
we have finally reached the point where we can make the promises of the 
advanced telecommunications into realities.
  I applaud the efforts of the Chairman and Ranking Member for their 
determination and persistence in bringing together a comprehensive and 
bi-partisan bill to the floor. We would not be here today without their 
combined leadership. We would not have bi-partisan support on the 
conference. As a result, it has earned the support of many on both 
sides of the aisle and the support of the President. S. 652 deserves to 
become law and I urge my colleagues to join in supporting final 
passage.


          clarification of local station ownership provisions

  Mr. INOUYE. Will the gentleman from South Carolina, the ranking 
member of the Commerce Committee, yield for a colloquy?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I'd be delighted to yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. The conference report directs the FCC to conduct a 
rulemaking proceeding to determine whether to retain, modify or 
eliminate its duopoly rule, which prevents ownership of more than one 
television station in a market. Is it the intent of Congress that in 
reviewing the duopoly rule the FCC should consider whether broadcasters 
are able to compete fairly with other media providers while ensuring 
that the public receives information from a diversity of media voices?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. The gentleman's interpretation is my interpretation as 
well.
  Mr. INOUYE. I'd appreciate my colleague's help in clarifying the 
conference report's effect on the Hawaiian television market. No one 
needs a geography lesson to learn that my state is located in the 
middle of the Pacific Ocean. As such, interference with adjacent 
television markets is not a concern and, unlike every other market in 
the United States, every VHF channel is utilized somewhere in Hawaii's 
market.
  I'd ask of the gentleman, when the FCC considers the duopoly rule, 
does he agree that the FCC should strongly consider that Hawaii's 
unique situation represents an example of compelling circumstances that 
could permit the combination between two VHF stations in that market?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. The gentleman from Hawaii is correct. His state's local 
television market developed differently from continental markets 
because of its unique geography and terrain, and thus is characterized 
by many VHF stations. Many of our concerns about combinations involving 
two VHF stations in local markets in the continental United States do 
not apply to Hawaii. The FCC should recognize this 

[[Page S706]]
distinction when considering the duopoly rule.
  Mr. INOUYE. I thank my colleague for his clarifications and for his 
expertise and leadership on this historic revision of our 
telecommunications law.
  Today's local marketplace is characterized by an abundance of media 
outlets that were not present or contemplated when the rule was last 
revised, and the FCC should take this development into consideration.
  This new competition, such as from clustered cable systems offering 
advertisers the same buy as local broadcasters (but on multiple 
channels), threatens the very viability of free, over-the-air 
programming. Broadcasters have searched for creative solutions to these 
marketplace changes, and one proven solution has been Local Marketing 
Agreements. These LMAs are innovative joint ventures which enable 
separately owned stations in the same market to find economies of scale 
through combined operations.
  The need to relax the duopoly rule is illustrated by broadcasters' 
experience with LMAs. These joint ventures have generated substantial 
rewards for both competition and diversity, and improved the quality 
and quantity of free local programming. In Hawaii, an LMA has made 
possible a significant increase in local programming, including an in-
depth local news program at 9 p.m., extensive coverage of the 
University of Hawaii's sporting events, weekly programs on Hawaiian 
culture and local issues, and a doubling of children's programming.
  It is my understanding that Sec. 202(g) allows LMAs currently in 
existence to continue as long as they are consistent with FCC rules. 
These LMAs give stations the flexibility to meet the challenge of the 
multi-channel marketplace.
  Again, I thank the ranking member of the Commerce Committee for 
clarifying the intent of the conference report regarding the duopoly 
rule.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of one 
portion of the telecommunications legislation we are currently 
considering. In particular, I wish to speak on the cyberporn provisions 
of the bill. I believe that it is high time that Congress apply the 
same rules to protect children on the Internet that have laws applied 
to other communications media. Since 1934, indecency has been regulated 
in broadcast. And when it became clear that children were vulnerable to 
sexually explicit material over the telephone, Congress prohibited 
providing indecency to children via the telephone. Today, we are taking 
the next step in protecting children from child molesters and 
unscrupulous porn merchants.
  It is important to note that despite the best efforts of the liberal 
establishment, the Supreme Court has never--not even once--ruled that 
the indecency standard is unconstitutional. So the vocal opponents of 
the legislation before us today are going to have a very hard time to 
challenge it in court. Just a few weeks ago, in the Act III case, the 
Supreme Court was asked to review the constitutionality of the 
indecency standard. But the Supreme Court declined to do so, indicating 
to many constitutional lawyers that the indecency standard is on firmer 
footing than ever.
  I predict that the left-wing free-speech absolutists who have 
promised to challenge the cyberporn provisions will have no more 
success with their antifamily efforts than they have had in the past.
  This summer, I had the opportunity to chair the first-ever 
congressional hearings on cyberporn. During that hearing, I had the 
opportunity to hear from parents who had discovered that their children 
had been sent pornography or solicited by adults. One teenager girl was 
even stalked on-line by someone who was later arrested--but had to be 
released because his conduct was not illegal.
  That's why, with the assistance of the distinguished chairman of the 
Commerce Committee, Senator Pressler, I worked to include a 
cyberstalking provision in the conference committee report. That 
section makes it a crime to use computers to seduce or lure children. I 
believe that this is an important step. As with indecency on computers, 
America's children should be given the same protections in the on-line 
world that they have in the real world.

  In my hearing this summer, I asked each parent that appeared before 
the Judiciary Committee--do you believe that a technical solution 
alone, without Federal legislation, is enough to protect their 
children. Without exception these parents said no, that the technology 
is part of the Answer, but not the whole answer. So for those who claim 
that Congress has no role at all to play in protecting America's 
children from on-line pornography and child stalking, I say ask 
America's parents about that. The parents of America, who have to try 
to use cumbersome and highly technical computer programs to block out 
cyberporn and on-line child stalkers believe that congressional 
assistance is crucial and that there simply is no other way to keep 
America's children safe.
  Finally, let me say that me of the most perplexing misrepresentations 
during the conference deliberations on this matter involved the so-
called harmful to minors standard as opposed to the indecency standard. 
The harmful-to-minors standard is a creature of State law, and there 
has never, during the entire history of our Nation, been a Federal 
harmful-to-minors law. On the other hand, Congress has had indecency 
regulations on the books since 1934, the beginning of the mass 
communications era. So, despite statements to the contrary, the 
harmful-to-minors standard, which has never been the subject to 
congressional action, is too uncertain, too new to be applied to the 
dynamic medium of computer communications. I believe that the harmful-
to-minors standards would unduly chill the kind of freewheeling 
discussions we have become used to on the Internet. The tired-and-true 
indecency standard is much better, in the opinion of this Senator and 
noted constitutional scholars like Bruce Fein.
  I would like to take my hat off to Senator Exon, Senator Coats, and 
Senator Helms for their work and leadership on this issue. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate finally is 
going to pass this important telecommunications bill (S. 652). There 
have been many attempts down through the years to reform the 
telecommunications law, and I am happy that the Republicans have been 
able to get the job done this year.
  This bill will remove barriers to competition and lead to lower 
prices for consumers. It can create as many as 100,000 jobs in North 
Carolina, help spur the economy, lead to innovative developments in 
technology, and provide children with greater access to educational 
opportunities. In addition, in the near future, millions of consumers 
will be able to shop and bank from their homes through the use of their 
computers or television sets.
  Mr. President, one study conducted by the WEFA group projected that 
open competition could very well lead to 3.4 million new jobs in 10 
years. It further concluded that consumers could pay $550 billion less 
in communications rates.
  There have been many hard fought battles on this bill. But in the end 
this legislation is a very carefully crafted balance. For example, 
earlier versions of this bill would have allowed for an unhealthy 
concentration of media power. These proposals could have made local 
community broadcasting a thing of the past; but this concern has been 
resolved.
  Perhpas most importantly, this bill will help protect children from 
computer pornography, which today is readily accessible on the Internet 
and elsewhere. I have been notified of numerous instances in which 
unscrupulous, sleazy individuals have used the Internet as a tool to 
distribute pornography to minors. This legislation provides tough 
prison terms for any smut peddler who uses a computer to send or 
display child pornography. This bill upholds standards of morality and 
decency as well as protects children and families from the peddlers of 
sleaze. This is a victory for families and children.
  Mr. President, the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation 
Act of 1995 provides the American consumer with less expensive prices, 
more competitive opportunities, and better service. Chairman Larry 
Pressler and all of his colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee 
deserve the gratitude and respect of all Americans for a job well done.

[[Page S707]]

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I stand before you today to urge my 
colleagues to support final passage of this telecommunications reform 
legislation. It is truly a monumental piece of work. The competitive 
forces that this legislation will unleash will create an explosion of 
new jobs, new technology. It will secure for this Nation, well into the 
future, its rightful place in the forefront of industry and 
technological development and utilization.
  I am pleased that the conference report contains strong protections 
for America's children. This provision reflects the concern of our 
Nation to ensure that, as we establish the framework for the rising 
tide of the technology society, we take care to establish an 
environment safe for our children. I am speaking about the provision, 
sponsored by myself and Senator Exon, that deals with the issue of 
pornographic material on the internet.
  Mr. President, sometimes our technology races beyond our reflection, 
and we are left with a dangerous gap--a period when society is 
unprepared to deal with the far-reaching results of rapid change. This 
is the situation we have on the internet. This is the situation which 
this legislation will address.
  The type of pornography currently available on the internet includes 
images and text dealing with the sexual abuse of children, the torture 
of women and images of perversion and brutality beyond normal 
imagination, and beyond the boundaries of human civilization.
  Childhood must be defended by parents and society as a safe harbor of 
innocence. It is a privileged time to develop values in an environment 
that is not hostile to them. But this foul material on the internet 
invades that place and destroys that innocence. It takes the worst 
excesses of that red-light district and places it directly into a 
child's bedroom, on the computer their parents bought them to help them 
with their homework.
  Let me take a moment to outline exactly what this legislation will 
do:
  Those who utilize a computer to persuade, include entice, or coerce a 
minor to engage in prostitution or any sexual act will be prosecuted, 
fined, and imprisoned up to 10 years.

  If you use your computer to contact and harass another individual, 
you will be prosecuted under this bill.
  This legislation would prosecute those who utilize an interactive 
computer service to send indecent material directly to a minor or use 
an interactive computer service to display indecent material in a 
manner easily available to a minor.
  On-line services and access software providers are liable where they 
are conspirators with, advertise for, are involved in the creation of 
or knowing distribution of obscene material or indecent material to 
minors.
  This legislation leaves unchanged E-mail privacy laws.
  Simply put, this legislation extends the same protections for 
children that exist everywhere else in our society to the internet.
  The bottom line is simple: we are removing indecency from areas of 
cyberspace easily accessible to children, if individuals want to 
provide that material, it must be in areas with barriers to minors, if 
adults want to access that material, they must make a positive effort 
to get it.
  Our warning is equally clear: if you post indecent material on the 
internet in areas accessible to children, you will be held to account.
  Mr. President, one of the most urgent questions in any modern society 
is how we humanize our technology--how we make it serve us. America is 
at the frontier of human knowledge, but it is incomplete without 
applying human values. And one of our most important values is the 
protection of our children--not only the protection of their bodies 
from violence, but the protection of their minds and souls from abuse.
  We can not, and should not, resist change. But our brave new world 
must not be hostile to the innocence of our children.
  Mr. President I am proud that we have taken this very important step. 
I am proud that as we usher in this information age, America has placed 
the protection of our children as a central issue in this landmark 
legislation.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, telecommunications technology is evolving 
at a speed that is unprecedented, and it has been and will continue to 
be difficult to keep up with these revolutionary developments. However, 
without a vehicle that allows us to at least attempt to keep pace with 
these changes, we cannot even hope to take full advantage of the 
benefits that today's technology potentially affords us.
  That is why I am pleased to support the telecommunications conference 
report that we are considering today. It has been a very long and 
difficult process over a number of years in order to get to this point 
today. There have been many hearings held in several committees, long 
debates in both houses of Congress, and extensive hours spent in 
conference meetings. And, as is always the case with legislation that 
is as important and far-reaching, the conference report we will vote on 
shortly is not perfect.
  As we have already heard on the floor today during this final debate, 
there are still a number of issues upon which total consensus has not 
been reached. In fact, we can expect to be revisiting a number of 
issues in the not too distant future, and I look forward to that.
  Nevertheless, I believe we can all agree that this legislation 
establishes some basic principles that will provide a gateway to the 
future of communications in our country. I am convinced that the basic 
policy changes contained in this conference report will not only 
positively impact our Nation's economy be enhancing competition within 
a number of communications markets but will also result in noticeable 
benefits for individual consumers throughout the United States.
  I do not wish to take up too much time, but I want to commend the 
distinguished chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee for his 
leadership over the past year in bringing this historic legislation to 
the floor of the Senate. I especially want to thank him and his 
committee colleagues for effectively keeping the conference focused on 
the communications issues under its jurisdiction. Implementation of the 
legislation will raise issues in the area of intellectual property, 
which will need to be addressed in the future. These issues are best 
left to the appropriate committees of jurisdiction and expertise. As 
the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is the committee 
of jurisdiction over intellectual property issues in the Senate, I look 
forward to working on these matters. We can support the efforts of the 
conference and to increase the opportunities the legislation makes 
available to creators and users of intellectual property.
  Again, let me commend the conferees for their work in the 
communications arena and thank them for not prejudicing the Judiciary 
Committee's work on any relevant intellectual property issues.
  I am pleased to support this bill. It is a major step forward.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of the 
conference report to S. 652, the Telecommunications Competition and 
Deregulation Act. This legislation will revolutionize our 
telecommunications industry as broadly as telecommunications have 
revolutionized our society.
  And I am pleased that it contains the Snowe-Rockefeller provision 
that was included in the original Senate bill--a provision of 
significant importance to rural regions and rural Americans.
  I would first like to thank my friend and colleague, the 
distinguished chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee who also served 
as chairman of the House-Senate conference committee on this 
legislation, Senator Pressler.
  For over a year now, he has worked tirelessly to shepherd this 
legislation through the Commerce Committee, the full Senate, and the 
House-Senate conference committee. In the process, he has worked to 
ensure that telecommunications reform remains a priority for our Nation 
as we enter the next century--a century that is certain to bring even 
greater advancements in technology and telecommunications.
  I also want to congratulate the distinguished Senate majority leader, 
Senator Dole, for his outstanding efforts in bringing this critical 
legislation to the floor of the Senate.
  Telecommunications is an increasingly important part of our daily 
life. Over the past few years, most of us have become dependent on 
communications services as diverse as wireless 

[[Page S708]]
telephones, fax machines, information services, computers, pagers, 
alarm monitoring services, and cable television. In many cases, it is 
hard to imagine functioning without them. We are clearly witnessing a 
revolution in the way we do business and in the way we live, a 
telecommunications and information revolution as important to our 
future as the industrial revolution was in the last century.
  As I stated during debate on the legislation last summer, my State of 
Maine has, for more than a century, faced serious economic challenges 
in attracting business and industry. Thus, the revolution in 
telecommunications technologies which has opened the door to the 
information age continues to be especially important for Maine.
  At 60 miles an hour, the speed of truck transportation, Maine's 
geography can be an economic disadvantage. At the speed of light--the 
speed with which information can be transmitted over Maine's state-of-
the-art telecommunications networks--Maine's location becomes an asset. 
Information technology coupled with our outstanding quality of life has 
created substantial business and employment opportunities in my State.
  Recognizing the importance of telecommunications to Maine, the Maine 
State Legislature adopted legislation that established the policy goal 
of ensuring that all of Maine's businesses and citizens have affordable 
access to an integrated telecommunications infrastructure capable of 
providing voice, data and image-based services.
  Furthermore, Maine intends to adopt policies that encourage the 
development and deployment of new technologies, and encourages service 
applications that support economic development initiatives or otherwise 
improve the well-being of Maine citizens.
  Mr. President, this conference report will bring unprecedented 
competition and development to the telecommunications industry. And 
while competition can bring an array of improved services at a lower 
cost, we must ensure that competition ultimately achieves this goal for 
all Americans, in both urban and rural areas.
  I am, therefore, particularly pleased that the conference report 
before us recognizes that strong universal service provisions are a 
necessary and important part of telecommunications reform.
  Residents of rural areas should bear no more cost for essential 
telecommunications services than residents of densely populated areas. 
Just as extending basic telephone service and electrification to rural 
areas rose to the top of our national agenda in the 1930's and 1940's, 
so telecommunications must be a top priority today. No American citizen 
should be left out of the communications revolution.
  Indeed, the concept of universal service was established in the 1934 
Communication Act, to establish widely available basic telephone 
service at reasonable rates. The rationale for this policy is that 
telephone service is essential to link Americans together, so that all 
Americans can communicate with each other on approximately equal 
footing. It was an important economic development tool, as well.
  Everyone in our country must be able to engage in commerce using the 
tools and technologies necessary to interact with buyers and sellers, 
and be able to be informed and to inform others of emergency situations 
and to access emergency services.
  Presently, every telephone can interconnect with every telephone, but 
every computer cannot hook up with every computer. If in the future, 
computers replace telephones and become the basic standard equipment 
for communication, a mechanism must to be in place to ensure that all 
Americans can continue to be interconnected as they are presently via 
the telephone.
  Central to the concept of universal service is access for public 
institutions, which provide services to a broad segment of our 
population. We must ensure that key institutions in our society--
schools, libraries, and rural hospitals--are also assured affordable 
access to telecommunications services.
  That can not be done when schools and libraries are paying business 
rates for educational services like access to the Internet. Business 
rates are frequently beyond these institutions' ability to pay--and 
without access, I am concerned about the consequences.
  The Internet, the ``information highway,'' is increasingly critical 
to our children and our Nation. How can we hope to compete in the world 
economy if our educational institutions are unable to link with a 
critical telecommunications link?
  I strongly believe that the economic future of our children is 
inexorably tied to their education. In turn, education is becoming 
increasingly entwined with the use of emerging technologies and the 
information these services carry and provide.
  Our schools need access to educational telecommunications services to 
prepare our children for economic success. In the 21st century, our 
children will be competing in a global economy where knowledge is 
power. Their future depends on their ability to master the tools and 
skills needed in that economy.
  Unfortunately, there is a widening gap between the high expectations 
of an increasingly technologically driven society and the inability of 
most schools--particularly rural schools--to prepare students 
adequately for the high-technology future. Almost 90 percent of 
kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms lack even basic access to 
telephone service.
  Telecommunications can help us provide a world class education to 
children across America. If we want young people to actively use the 
technology of the future so it becomes second nature to them, then we 
must ensure that schools are part of the national information 
infrastructure.
  For starters, telecommunications will enable students and teachers to 
do research in libraries across the country and the world, and to 
connect to experts and other students across the country. It will 
ensure that small schools in remote rural areas, and schools with 
limited financial resources have access to the same rich learning 
resources.
  Consider that only 30 percent of schools with enrollments of less 
than 300 have Internet access, while 58 percent of schools with 
enrollments of 1,000 or more reported having Internet access. Only 3 
percent of classrooms in public schools are connected to the Internet, 
and cost is cited as a major barrier to access.
  Rural schools and libraries usually pay more for access to 
information services than schools and libraries in urban areas because 
the information service providers do not have access points in local 
calling regions, meaning that rural schools and libraries must make a 
long distance telephone call to access the Internet and other 
information services. It is imperative that access the information 
superhighway be affordable, because America's schools and public 
libraries operate on very slim, inflexible budgets.
  And it is an area where we need the strength and innovation of the 
private sector as well. That's why I am especially pleased to note that 
NYNEX and the independent telephone companies that serve Maine have 
already taken steps to deploy and encourage the utilization of needed 
telecommunications services throughout Maine. As a result of a unique 
agreement with Maine's telephone companies--all Maine libraries and 
schools are now eligible to receive substantially discounted long 
distance services that will now allow access to a broad range of 
information services.
  But schools and libraries in Maine and across America will not be the 
only ones to benefit from this provision. So does our health care 
system through telemedicine. When I served in the House of 
Representatives, I cowrote the Rural Health Care Coalition's ``Rural 
Health Care Bill of Rights.''
  The paper argued that Congress should adopt policies that seek to 
ensure that those who live in rural areas receive the same quality of 
health care as other Americans. All Americans, regardless of their age, 
income, employment status, medical history or geographic location, have 
a right to access affordable, quality health care.
  Telemedicine can help us achieve this goal by enabling physicians in 
rural areas to communicate through state-of-the-art telecommunications 
networks with providers and specialists in other areas.
  With Telemedicine, a burn victim in Presque Isle, ME, may be able to 
get care from some of the Nation's best 

[[Page S709]]
burn specialists, without ever leaving the local hospital. Rural 
doctors will be able to connect directly to major hospital centers for 
consultation, diagnostic assistance, and ongoing professional 
education. However, rural areas pay significantly more than urban areas 
for transmission of Telemedicine services.
  Mr. President, I believe that the Snowe-Rockefeller provision is 
fundamentally important to assuring that we do not end up with a two-
tiered telecommunications system in America.
  The Snowe-Rockefeller provision is fundamental to assuring that all 
areas in America have access to the essential telecommunications 
services of the future. And it is fundamental to ensuring that this 
legislation provides a solid foundation for the future.
  Mr. President, I believe that this legislation offers tremendous 
promise, making this among the most exciting and meaningful bills we 
will vote on this session.
  By promoting true competition in telecommunications while providing 
necessary safeguards that further the goal of competition and serve the 
public interest, this conference report offers a strong framework on 
which the technological future of America can be built. I believe that 
this bill strikes the right balance that is needed, and offer my strong 
support. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am pleased that after years of 
struggle, the Senate has before it, a telecommunications reform 
conference report that represents the dawning of a new 
telecommunications era in this country.
  I want to commend the Commerce Committee chairman, Senator Pressler, 
and the ranking member, Senator Hollings, for their hard work and 
efforts in bringing a measure before us today that will enhance true 
competition in telecommunications without shortchanging American 
consumes.
  This is complex and potentially far-reaching legislation, that will 
affect an economic sector that constitutes 20 percent of our economy, 
and whose services reach virtually every American.
  Mr. President, this bill is all about competition in telephone 
services, cable services, information and data services, and 
broadcasting services. By unleashing these competitive forces, 
innovation and progress will flourish in the rapidly expanding 
telecommunications field, and will greatly increase the opportunity for 
every citizen to affordably access the rapidly changing world of 
advanced telecommunications technology.
  While this legislation focuses on competition and deregulation, the 
conference report contains essential rural safeguards in the form of 
universal service provisions that will benefit our rural communities 
and greatly increase their ability to persevere in the 21st century.
  There is little doubt that our urban areas can and will sustain the 
enormous expansion of telecommunications services in the years ahead. 
We must make certain that our rural areas are not left behind as 
services expand and new products come on line. In the long run, 
universal service at high standards nationwide is in the best interests 
of the entire economy.
  I believe that telecommunications reform is essential in preserving 
the economic vitality of rural America and am optimistic that the 
affordable accessibility to these new telecommunications services will 
be the harbinger for a new renaissance among the main street economies 
in communities throughout rural America.
  Already, many in my home State of South Dakota are beginning to 
realize the importance and value of telecommunications services. Many 
small, rural medical clinics and hospitals are linking together with 
larger, more urban hospitals via telemedicine to provide their citizens 
with a higher quality of care. Children in schools that are hundreds of 
miles from the nearest population center can now have access to the 
world's greatest libraries at their fingertips. An increasing number of 
South Dakota agricultural producers are determining weather forecasts 
and market reports with a simple keystroke. And all across main street 
South Dakota, small businesses are reducing their overhead via 
networking services, reducing their paper work through electronic mail, 
and saving thousands of dollars a year in travel expenses through their 
use of teleconferencing.
  And all of this is just the beginning, As these technologies continue 
to develop, the playing field for economic development will begin to 
level. South Dakota is already enjoying the benefits of advanced 
telecommunications and they can only stand to benefit from further 
telecommunications reform.
  The bill before us also recognizes the important role that must be 
played by Public Utilities Commissions [PUC's] in rural States. PUC's 
are the best entities to judge whether a given market within their 
State can support competition. That's not a judgment we should make 
from Washington.
  Nor is it something we can or should leave to the unbridled, 
unsupervised judgment of the private sector. Those who have taken the 
risks and made the investments to extend cable or phone services to 
smaller rural communities should not be placed a risk of being 
overwhelmed by larger, better-financed companies.
  I want to note, Mr. President, that consideration of this conference 
report was delayed by the concerns raised by Senator Dole and others 
about the future use of broadcast spectrum. There is no question that 
the issues surrounding national spectrum management policy are complex, 
and worthy of full debate and thorough consideration in the Congress. I 
am pleased that the telecommunications conference report, which in my 
view is not a spectrum giveaway bill, will move to the President's desk 
for his signature.
  Mr. President, let me once again congratulate the distinguished 
chairman and ranking member for their efforts in producing this 
telecommunications reform conference report.
  Having been raised in a small community in rural South Dakota, I can 
truly remark with wonder and appreciation at the rapid pace in which 
our communities are being brought together through the use of 
telecommunications services. The changes that have occurred in our 
lives due to these services have been remarkable, and have benefited 
society greatly. I believe that the telecommunications reform 
conference report before us today strikes the balance needed between 
deregulation and consumer protection to allow these services to 
continue their remarkable advances in improving our society and 
preparing us for the challenges ahead.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the United States and, indeed, the world 
have embarked upon a new technological revolution. Like previous 
revolutions sparked by technological innovation, this one has the 
potential to change dramatically our daily lives. It will certainly 
transform the way we communicate with each other.
  What we are witnessing is the development of a fully interactive 
nationwide and, indeed, worldwide communications network. It has the 
potential to bring our Nation and our world enormous good; without 
appropriate groundrules to assure fair competition, however, this 
revolution could create giant monopolies. It could hurt workers and 
families. We bear a tremendous responsibility to assure that does not 
happen with this legislation. The communications policy framework we 
create here will determine whether many voices and views flourish, or 
few voices dominate our society.
  The impact of this new age communications revolution on the way we 
send and receive information, and the way we will view ourselves and 
the world, is profound. Even more staggering is its potential impact on 
our economy. We could be seeing the largest market opportunity in 
history. Some forecasters, including the WEFA Group in Burlington, MA, 
predict an opening of the telecommunications market this year to full 
competition would create 3.4 million new jobs, increase GDP by $298 
billion, save consumers nearly $550 billion in lower communications 
rates and increase the average household's annual disposable income by 
$850 over the next ten years. As the Communications Workers of America 
have underscored, delaying free and fair competition means fewer new 
high-wage, high-skill jobs.
  For workers and companies in Massachusetts, which has a significant 
comparative advantage in technology or knowledge-intensive industries, 
this 

[[Page S710]]
legislation is good news. It should expand opportunities for our 
current telecommunications companies, it should create a fertile 
climate for the creation of new companies and it should create more 
family-wage jobs. The telecommunications industry in Massachusetts is 
well situated to take advantage of the communications and information 
revolution.
  New telecommunications-related or dependent technologies and 
industries seem to be emerging and merging almost daily. They range 
from such sectors as entertainment and education to broadcasting, 
advertising, home shopping and publishing. One key player in this 
revolution is the Internet--the global computer cooperative with a 
current subscriber base of approximately 37 million in North America 
alone and a 10-15 percent monthly growth rate. One billion people are 
expected to have access to the ``net'' by the end of the decade. While 
some may consider the ``net'' to be the revolution, it is only one of 
many players in the new communications network game.
  We see examples of this new era almost daily, such as someone driving 
a car while talking on a cellularphone. In the future, we are likely to 
see more Americans accessing video dialtone, choosing their television 
programs through their telephone service. Likewise, cable franchises 
may enter the local telephone service market. Residents of Springfield, 
MA, may be able to watch their state legislators in Boston debate an 
education bill and instantaneously communicate with those legislators 
about how to vote on an amendment.
  As we consider this brave new age of communications, it is clear the 
current law, the l934 Communications Act, is not a sufficiently sturdy 
foundation upon which to build a communications system for the 21st 
Century. Moreover, although the courts on occasion properly have 
intervened to halt monopoly abuse--most notably a little over a decade 
ago in the telephone industry--we should no longer leave the 
fundamentals of telecommunications policy to the courts.
  The conference report on S. 652, the Telecommunications Competition 
and Deregulation Act of l996, is not perfect. In some respects, I would 
have preferred S. 1822, the bill crafted so ably by Senator Hollings 
and reported by the committee in l994. However, the conference report 
before the Senate now is preferable to the status quo. It will foster 
competition and establish fair and reasonable groundrules for the 
intense competition that will continue in the communications sector as 
we enter the next century.
  This legislation sets forth a national policy framework to promote 
the private sector's deployment of new and advanced telecommunications 
and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening 
all telecommunications markets to competition. Free and fair 
competition and maintaining universal service are the twin pillars of 
this new framework.
  The bill seeks to assure that no competitor, no business and no 
technology may use its existing market strength to gain an advantage on 
the competition. The legislation requires that a company or group of 
companies satisfy certain competitive tests before being able to offer 
a new service or enter a new market. Entry into new services and new 
areas is contingent upon a demonstration that competition exists in the 
market in which the business currently competes. But once competition 
has been achieved, most Federal and State regulation is replaced by 
consumer demand to regulate the market.
  These fundamental features of the conference report on S. 652 are 
designed to create a level playing field where every player will be 
able to compete on the basis of price, quality, and service, rather 
than on the basis of monopoly control of the market.
  The conference report also maintains universal service as a 
cornerstone of our Nation's communications system. With many new 
entrants in the communications market, the legislation provides that 
every player is to pay his fair share to continue universal service 
throughout our Nation.
  I am also pleased the conference report includes three amendments 
which I sponsored. The first deals with the cable broadcast rates for 
public, educational and governmental entities, known as ``PEG'' access 
groups. These are the local channels that produce and broadcast such 
things as town council meetings, Chamber of Commerce seminars and 
little league baseball games. My amendment will assure the continued 
production and broadcast of these important community events by 
guaranteeing that the PEG access groups are not charged more than local 
broadcasters to air their programs.
  The second amendment will establish a level playing field for 
independent payphone providers. For too long, these small, independent 
entrepreneurs have gone toe-to-toe against some of the biggest players 
in the telecommunications market. We have in Massachusetts about 75 
independent payphone providers, employing several hundred people. They 
range from ``mom and pop'' operations with a handful of payphones to 
several that have more than 1,000 payphones. Virtually all of them have 
invested their own capital in their businesses, from life savings to 
the proceeds of mortgages on their homes, and it is a tribute to their 
perseverance that they now own ten percent of the payphone market in 
Massachusetts. My amendment will allow all the players in the payphone 
market to compete against each other on the basis of price, quality and 
service, rather than on marketshare and subsidies.
  The third amendment will make sure that as we build the information 
highway, the builders do not bypass poor rural or urban communities. 
When interstate highways were built through cities across our Nation, 
oftentimes they went directly through poor neighborhoods. Construction 
of the technology interstate system must not be allowed to detour 
around children and families in the same or similar areas who already 
face enormous challenges. My amendment is designed to assure that the 
telecommunications network will reach every neighborhood, offering 
access to those who need it most for a decent education, to upgrade 
their job skills or to connect them to medical help they need.
  Another provision that I am pleased was included in the final hours 
of negotiations on the conference report relates to local regulation of 
public rights-of-way. The language added to the conference report 
brings needed clarification to this area. It retains for local 
authorities the right to regulate public rights-of-way while at the 
same time guaranteeing that if local authorities exercise that 
latitude, they do so in a manner that is non-discriminatory and 
competitively neutral. A cable or phone company that needs to tear up a 
street to lay new line should not be allowed to disturb a neighborhood 
in the middle of the night. The clarifying language on public rights-
of-way should help in this regard.
  Through the debate we have had on this legislation, I believe we have 
crafted a solid telecommunications policy framework for the next 
century. Today, each of us is in a sense a pioneer heading out on the 
new information highway. Each of us is not only a witness to, but a 
participant in, one of the most amazing technological revolutions in 
history. We, as legislators, bear a special responsibility to assure 
that competition in this new era is fair and that every American in 
this and future generations may enjoy the fruits of this competition. 
This is truly one of the greatest challenges we face as we enter the 
21st century.
  I want to express my deep admiration for the outstanding work my good 
friend and colleague from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, has done on 
this landmark legislation. He has exercised visionary leadership 
throughout this long and arduous process. I also want to extend my 
appreciation to his very able staff, particularly Kevin Curtin, John 
Windhausen and Kevin Joseph, for their tireless efforts and the good 
humour they always brought to the task. I also want to thank Chairman 
Pressler and his staff for their hard work on this legislation.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise to commend the leadership, the 
distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Pressler, and 
the distinguished ranking member, Senator Hollings, for their extensive 
efforts and good work on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. I am 
pleased that the Senate is now giving consideration to final passage of 
this legislation.

[[Page S711]]

  I have seen the telephone business develop from its infancy, when 
obtaining a party-line telephone was a truly amazing step for many 
Americans, to today's tremendous range of telecommunications products 
and services. It is impossible to predict what the future holds in this 
dynamic sector of our economy, but it is clear that telecommunications 
is among the most critical and far-reaching issues before the Congress.
  As the chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Antitrust, Business 
Rights, and Competition Subcommittee, two important antitrust issues 
deserve mention as we consider final passage of this historic 
legislation.
  First, I am pleased that the legislation now includes a meaningful 
role for the Department of Justice in determining when the Bell 
Operating Companies should be permitted to provide long distance 
telecommunications. As I have previously stated, the Bell companies 
certainly should be allowed to enter long distance markets under 
appropriate circumstances, for it is generally desirable to have as 
many competitors as possible in each market. The issue is how to 
determine the point at which entry by Bell companies will help rather 
than harm competition. That question, quite simply, is an antitrust 
matter which will be informed by the antitrust expertise and 
specialization of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department.
  The Justice Department's Antitrust Division has been deeply involved 
in nurturing and protecting a competitive environment in this industry 
for more than 20 years, through five administrations. The Justice 
Department was responsible for the breakup of the AT&T telephone 
monopoly, which created the current Bell companies. The Antitrust 
Division has been evaluating the potential competitive effects--
positive and negative--of Bell entry into long distance since that 
time. Through this work, the Division has achieved unparalled expertise 
which is bolstered by its experience and perspective gained from 
evaluating numerous markets throughout our economy.
  Anticompetitive conduct in long distance markets was at the heart of 
the Antitrust Division's case against the old Bell system monopoly, and 
it has been a central concern in the current legislation. During the 
debate over the telecommunications bill in the Senate in June 1995, I 
was on the floor for several days with an amendment to give the 
Department of Justice primary responsibility to determine when the Bell 
operating companies should be permitted to enter long distance markets, 
and to avoid duplicative efforts by the Federal Communications 
Commission.
  My amendment to give the Antitrust Division independent authority 
only narrowly failed on the Senate floor last June, while in August a 
similar amendment received the support of more than one-third of the 
House of Representatives. When it became clear that there would be one 
consolidated procedure within the FCC to decide on Bell applications 
for long distance authorization, it became important to ensure that the 
antitrust expertise of the Antitrust Division would be given adequate 
weight in the decision.
  I am pleased that in the final legislation we are considering today, 
proposed long distance entry is determined by the FCC subject to 
judicial review, but only after the FCC consults with the Attorney 
General on the application, and gives the Attorney General's evaluation 
substantial weight. This process, which permits the Attorney General to 
submit any comments and supporting materials deemed appropriate, is 
critical to making accurate and proper determinations about long 
distance entry. Through its work in investigating the 
telecommunications industry and enforcing the MFJ, the Antitrust 
Division has accumulated important knowledge, evidence, and experience 
that can be constructively brought to bear on these evaluations.
  The substantial weight requirement will also ensure that the 
expertise of the Antitrust Division will be brought to bear in any 
appeal of a decision made on long distance entry. If the FCC rejects 
the Antitrust Division's recommendation, the court must look to the 
weight the FCC accorded the Attorney General's evaluation in 
ascertaining whether the FCC correctly followed the law.
  Review of this legal requirement should be governed by the standard 
that generally applies to questions of law. As a practical matter, this 
legal requirement ensures that the reviewing court will consider the 
Antitrust Division's position on the merits--and will assess for itself 
the views and evidence put forward in support of that position--and 
will not discount that position out of customary judicial deference to 
the FCC's decision. Moreover, the Antitrust Division retains its full 
authority to represent the interests of the United States on appeal, 
which permits it to contribute its unique antitrust expertise and 
perspective to the judicial process.
  The second important antitrust issue in this legislation is the 
unequivocal antitrust savings clause that explicitly maintains the full 
force of the antitrust laws in this vital industry. Today we take for 
granted that the antitrust laws apply to the communications sector. 
During the Antitrust Division's antitrust case in the 1970's against 
the Bell system, however, some argued that the existence of FCC 
regulations displaced the antitrust laws and made them inapplicable. 
The courts emphatically rejected that challenge them, and the antitrust 
savings clause in the bill today makes clear that that question cannot 
be reopened. A strong, competitive communications sector is essential 
to continued American prosperity in the next century. Application of 
the antitrust laws is the most reliable, time-tested means of ensuring 
that competition, and the innovation it fosters, can flourish to 
benefit consumers and the economy.
  The antitrust savings clause makes clear, for example, that the 
antitrust enforcement agencies are not barred from scrutinizing, under 
appropriate circumstances, the home satellite broadcasting market, even 
though the new provision in section 205 of the bill gives the FCC 
exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the provision of direct-to-home 
satellite services. While some might have been tempted to read that 
provision to mean that the antitrust enforcement agencies would not 
have any jurisdiction over these activities, the antitrust savings 
clause makes clear that that is not the case. The same is true of other 
provisions of the bill, including those concerning access requirements 
for commercial mobile providers--section 705--limits on telco-cable 
buyouts--section 302--and broadcast ownership--section 202--and the 
joint marketing of commercial mobile services--section 601(d). In each 
case, the antitrust laws will continue to apply fully.
  Continued application of the antitrust laws is also the rule where 
the Bell companies' entry into the long distance market is concerned. 
The fact that the Attorney General is given a defined role in the FCC 
proceeding to decide Bell entry does not in any way supplant or limit 
the separate applicability of the antitrust laws or the Justice 
Department's antitrust enforcement authority--either pre-entry or post-
entry. For example, if a Bell operating company sought to enter long 
distance markets through a merger or acquisition, that merger or 
acquisition would be fully subject to review under the Clayton Act. 
Likewise, if a Bell operating company were to engage in anticompetitive 
conduct after being granted entry into the long distance market, the 
Antitrust Division would not be precluded from addressing that conduct 
through the antitrust laws.

  The importance of the antitrust savings clause is underscored by the 
decision to repeal section 221(a) of the Communications Act of 1934. 
That provision, a relic from the period when Federal policy sought to 
promote monopoly over competition, exempts mergers between telephone 
companies from antitrust review. That is an era I believe all of us 
agree should be put behind us, and the fact that this exemption has 
been eliminated in this legislation is another confirmation that the 
Congress intends for the antitrust laws to be the means by which free 
markets are maintained in telecommunications.
  Finally, the hearing of the Antitrust, Business Rights, and 
Competition Subcommittee, which I chaired in May 1995, confirmed the 
importance of competition to achieve lower prices, better services, and 
products, and more innovation in telecommunication markets for the 
benefit of consumers and our Nation. I am pleased, therefore, that this 
legislation preserves the role of 

[[Page S712]]
the Antitrust Division in applying the antitrust laws--which have 
protected free enterprise for over 100 years--in the telecommunications 
industry.
  Mr. President, enacting legislation of this magnitude, where the 
stakes are so high for so many businesses and other interested groups, 
inevitably requires the resolution of many conflicts. I would like to 
commend all those who worked on this legislation and kept focused on 
the ultimate objective--replacing regulation and monopoly with healthy 
free market forces. This is the role that the Congress should play to 
assist this industry, as well as American consumers and the entire 
American economy. I urge the Senate to pass this important legislation.


                           unfunded mandates

  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. The majority leader is aware that State and local 
governments had previously raised an issue with this Senator that 
certain provisions of the conference report on S. 562 may violate the 
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 regarding local governments' 
ability to manage their rights-of-ways. The majority leader is also 
aware that I have worked with the Senate and House conferees for 
several days to resolve those difficulties and insert language to the 
satisfaction of the local representatives of State and local 
governments.
  Mr. DOLE. The Senator from Idaho is correct. I am aware that he has 
worked to represent the interests of State and local governments to 
assure that there is no unfunded mandates impact on them in this bill.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. The majority leader is aware that the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995 does not require the Congressional Budget 
Office to prepare an estimate of the impact of mandates on State and 
local governments for conference reports and that the Congressional 
Budget Office is currently preparing an estimate on this conference 
report. Based on discussions my staff have had with CBO, it is my 
understanding that this conference report does not include unfunded 
mandates.
  Mr. DOLE. That is correct.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Will the majority leader agree that in the event the 
Congressional Budget Office determines that there are any unfunded 
mandates in S. 562 that he will work with me to make technical 
corrections in the bill to eliminate those mandates.
  Mr. DOLE. Yes.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Will the majority leader agree that in the event such 
technical corrections bill comes from the House which corrects any 
unfunded mandates found by the Congressional Budget Office that he will 
seek to have the Senate take up the bill to make those corrections.
  Mr. DOLE. Yes, I do agree.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the conference 
report on S. 652, the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
  I know, Mr. President, that the conferees have made a number of 
improvements to this legislation and that many of the stakeholders in 
this bill are pleased with the results.
  And it is with regret that I must oppose this bill. But I cannot in 
good conscience cast a vote for legislation that I believe violates our 
fundamental first amendment rights to freedom of expression.
  The Internet indecency provisions of S.652, as passed in the Senate, 
remain virtually intact in the conference report. I am referring to the 
sections of this bill which would subject to criminal penalties 
constitutionally protected speech via interactive telecommunications 
networks--the so-called Internet Indecency provisions.
  The sponsors of the Internet provisions have good intentions --to 
protect children from those who might use the Internet to harm them. 
Sadly, there are those who will use the Internet, as they will use any 
tool, to victimize children. The sponsors of the Internet provisions of 
this bill have pointed to the obscene materials and child pornography 
that can be accessed via the Internet. To be sure, Mr. President, it is 
out there.
  Unfortunately, the provisions in this bill will do very little, if 
anything to protect children. That is because much of what the 
proponents of this legislation wish to banish from cyberspace is 
already subject to criminal penalties--obscenity, child pornography and 
child exploitation via computer networks are already criminal acts.
  So, if that is the case, what exactly does the provision in the 
conference report cover? It covers ``indecent'' speech which is 
afforded far greater constitutional protection than obscenity which is 
not protected by the first amendment. What is indecent speech? Indecent 
speech may include mild profanity that children hear on the playground 
well before they read it on a computer screen. While that language may 
be offensive to some, it is protected by the first amendment.
  Mr. President, I have found the rhetoric of the Internet debate 
interesting. The terms obscenity and indecency have been used 
interchangeably even though they have very different meanings. I have 
heard parents voice legitimate concerns about the obscene materials 
available via computer networks. I have heard them express outrage that 
their children are solicited by adults for exploitative purposes. But I 
have never heard a parent say there is too much profanity on the 
Internet. And yet, that is precisely what this bill covers. Rather than 
addressing the enforcement needs of existing law, it adds unnecessary 
to provisions to criminal statutes.
  That is a fundamental flaw, Mr. President. The legislation does not 
address the problem it seeks to solve. This does nothing more than 
current law does to prevent obscenity on the Internet. Instead, this 
bill steps in and decides for parents which speech is appropriate for 
their children and which is not. I would contend, Mr. President, that 
is the role of parents, not the federal government, particularly given 
that technology exists for parents to block objectionable material.
  I think, Mr. President, this legislation will do more harm than good. 
Will parents become less observant of their childrens' use of the 
Internet now that they think the government has solved the problem? 
Will they fail to use the technology available to them to regulate 
their children's access to sites on the Internet? I fear that they will 
because the U.S. Congress has led them to believe that these new 
provisions protect children when in fact, they do not.
  This legislation which provides no additional protection for children 
comes at a great cost--our rights to free speech over the Internet. 
This legislation, when it becomes law, will establish different 
standards for the same speech appearing in different media. More 
protection will be afforded for profanity that appears in a library 
book than for the same text which appears on-line. Equally important, 
this legislation will require all adults to self censor the speech on 
public newsgroups on USENET to what is appropriate for children in the 
most conservative American communities. This legislation will bring 
about the immediate demise of many socially valuable forums on the 
Internet. It will likely happen as quickly as CompuServe dumped some 
200 newsgroups from their network after a German prosecutor suggested 
they might violate German law.
  I have come to this floor many times to speak on this topic and I 
will not take the Senate's time to reiterate the many arguments against 
these provisions.
  I do think, Mr. President, that this is a sad day on the Senate 
floor. That the Internet indecency provisions have met with the barest 
resistance in this chamber, indicates how quickly this Congress is 
willing to abandon the United States Constitution in favor of political 
expediency.
  My hope, Mr. President, is that the expedited judicial review process 
provided for in this bill, will quickly lead to a judgment that the 
Internet indecency provisions are unconstitutional. In the meantime, 
Mr. President, I will work toward solutions that will protect children 
on the Internet without trampling on the first amendment.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the conference report on S. 652 is finally 
being considered by the Senate. We have heard much about the positive 
changes to this bill and the ramifications for the telecommunications 
industry. But I must still express my concern about the absence of a 
provision that I see as vital to the protection of the American 
consumer. I am referring to the capability of telecommunication 
entities to 

[[Page S713]]
develop monopolies and dominate marketplaces to the detriment of the 
consumer.
  This Nation learned through long and hard experience that laissez-
faire attitudes towards industries does not protect smaller entities 
when larger competition comes along and certainly does not provide 
safeguards where consumers are concerned. I acknowledge the roles of 
government oversight that the bill does now provide. But the larger 
corporations will not be constrained in their ability, should they 
desire, to monopolize media and various telecommunication mediums. And 
in our effort to allow such an environment do we want to place the 
consumer on the altar of deregulation?
  Nevertheless, my constituents from Nevada believe this bill will 
provide genuine competition. And I note with some pride, their 
foresight and fairness in establishing a telephony commission to watch 
over the changes within the industry. Mr. President, the 
telecommunications industry is clearly evolving. Everyday we read of 
new emerging technologies that will directly impact all that this bill 
is trying to accomplish. While we should give it freedom to compete; we 
must, as is our responsibility, watch carefully to protect the 
consumers and small businesses so that this sphere of our economy is 
truly competitive. Despite my reservations, I will vote for this bill 
because there are positives and I hope that steadfast government 
oversight will preserve the competitive marketplace.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, anyone who has followed the debate over 
telecommunications legislation in recent years knows that much of it 
has been over when and under what conditions the Bell companies will be 
allowed to compete in the long distance market S. 652 resolves this 
issue.
  Congress has determined that removing all court ordered barriers to 
competition--including the MFJ interLATA restriction--will benefit 
consumers by lowering prices and accelerating innovation. The 
legislation contemplates that the FCC should act favorably and 
expeditiously on Bell company petitions to compete in the long distance 
business. There are various conditions for interLATA relief. These 
include the establishment of Sate-by-State interconnection agreements 
that satisfy the 14 point check list outlined in Sec. 271 of the bill. 
Bell companies also have to show they face competition from a 
facilities based carrier. They can also show that they have not 
received a legitimate request for interconnection from a competing 
service provider within three months of enactment.
  In short, interLATA relief should be granted as soon as competing 
communications service providers reach an interconnection agreement. In 
some States these agreements have already been put in place with the 
approval of state public service commissions. In those instances, we 
see no reason why the FCC should not act immediately and favorably on a 
Bell company's petition to compete, once the test for facilities based 
competition is satisfied.
  Congress fully expects the FCC to recognize and further its intent to 
open all communications markets to competition at the earliest possible 
date. The debate over removing legal and regulatory barriers to 
competition has been resolved with this legislation. Unnecessary delays 
will do nothing more than invite vested interests to ``game'' the 
regulatory process to prevent or delay competition.
  The time has come to let consumers--not bureaucrats--choose.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today we are voting on the approval of 
historic telecommunications legislation that will reshape the landscape 
of the entire communications industry and affect every household in 
this country. The future success of America's economy and society is 
inextricably linked to the universe of telecommunications. After a 
decade of intense debate, this legislation rewrites the Nation's 
communications laws from top to bottom.
  The bill before us, S. 652, has come a long way and survived many 
battles. It is not a perfect bill in the sense that no one got 
everything they wanted--but I believe it will unleash a new era in 
telecommunications that will forever change our society and make our 
Nation a key driver on the information superhighway. We should applaud 
this amazing effort and support the conference report to S. 562.
  The debate over this measure has never been about the need for 
reform--everyone agrees that it's time. The real debate has been over 
how we reform our telecommunications law. The 1934 Communications Act 
serves our country as the cornerstone of communications law in the 
United States. The current regulatory structure set up by the 1934 act 
is based on the premise that information transmitted over wires can be 
easily distinguished from information transmitted through the air. So 
regulations were put in place to treat cable, broadcast, and telephone 
industries separately and for the most part, to preclude competition.
  However, advances in technology have brought us to a melding of 
telephone, video, computers, and cable. Digital technology allows all 
media to speak the same language. These once neat regulatory categories 
between telecommunications industries have started to blur and the 
assumptions upon which they are based are fast becoming obsolete.
  The essential purpose of this measure is to foster competition by 
removing barriers between distinct telecommunications industries and 
allowing everyone to compete in each other's business. But how do we 
increase competition while simultaneously ensuring that everyone is 
playing on a level playing field?
  Coming from a rural State, this was an especially important question 
for me. The overall goal of this legislation is to increase competition 
and I wholeheartedly believe that increased competition will benefit 
consumers. However, we must also recognize that telecommunications 
competition is limited in some areas, especially in many rural areas. 
The high cost of providing telecommunications to rural areas is 
prohibitive for most telecommunications service providers without some 
incentive. The 1934 communications bill understood this and adopted a 
principle called universal service, which was thankfully maintained and 
updated in S. 652.
  The universal service concept charged the FCC with responsibility for 
``making available, so far as possible to all people of the United 
States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio 
communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable 
charges.'' So far we have done a heck of a job: 98 percent of American 
homes have television and radio, 94 percent have telephone, close to 80 
percent have a VCR, while 65 percent subscribe to cable TV--96 percent 
have the option.

  Without universal service protections, advanced telecommunications 
will blow right by rural America creating a society of information 
haves and have nots. S.652 recognizes that the definition of universal 
service is evolving as the technology changes. S. 652 requires the FCC 
to establish a Federal-State joint board to recommend rules to reform 
the universal service system. The Joint Board will base its policies on 
principles which understands that access to quality, advanced 
telecommunications services should be provided to all Americans at a 
reasonable cost.
  I was particularly pleased to support an amendment, now in the bill 
before us, which guarantees that our nation's K-12 schools, libraries 
and rural health care providers have affordable access to advanced 
telecommunications services for education. As Congress moves forward on 
this bold legislation it is vital to provide a mechanism to assure that 
children and other community users have access to the information 
superhighway. The information superhighway must be available and 
affordable to all Americans through schools and libraries.
  And in the midst of the great battles among corporate titans like the 
Baby Bells and the major long distance carriers it's also important to 
balance the needs of the little guy. Small businesses are the backbone 
of economic and community life in this country. I was proud to put 
forward two provisions, included in this bill, which maintained the 
integrity of small businesses in the telecommunications revolution.
  My first provision amended the telecommunications bill to allow 
companies with under 5 percent of the market nationally, to continue 
offering joint marketing services. Under current law, joint marketing 
companies can approach a business and offer to provide 

[[Page S714]]
them local and long distance service together, at a low rate. The 
business therefore gets a low cost integrated service, with the 
convenience of having only one vendor and one bill to deal with for all 
their telephone service. In an effort to prevent the big long distance 
companies from having a competitive advantage, the original 
telecommunications bill would have prohibited joint marketing.
  Such a prohibition would have put small company owners like Clark 
McLeod out of business. Mr. McLeod has been offering joint marketing 
services to businesses in Iowa for several years. In the process he has 
created thousands of jobs and filled a need for service. While I think 
any prohibition on joint marketing is anti-competitive, my proposal 
will at least allow the many innovative companies like Mr. McLeod, to 
continue their operations and continue to provide the services valued 
by so many Iowans.
  My other small business provision prevents the Bell Operating 
companies from entering into the alarm industry before a level playing 
field exists. The burglar and alarm industry is unique among small 
businesses in the telecommunications industry. It is the only 
information service which is competitively available in every community 
across the nation. This highly competitive $10 billion industry is not 
dominated by large companies. Instead, it is dominated by approximately 
13,000 small businesses employing, on average, less than ten workers. 
Vigorous competition among alarm industry companies benefits consumers 
by providing high quality service at lower prices.

  Lastly, I am pleased that the Senate unanimously adopted two 
amendments I wrote to crack down on phone scams where enterprising 
swindlers have used the telephone to scam unsuspecting customers out of 
their hard earned money.
  Today, it is all too easy for telemarketing rip-off artists to profit 
from the current system. The operators of many of these promotions set 
up telephone boiler rooms for a few months, stealing thousands of 
dollars from innocent victims. These scam artists often prey on our 
senior citizens. Then they simply disappear. They take the money and 
run--moving on to another location to start all over again.
  My provision will protect consumers by providing law enforcement the 
authority to more quickly obtain the name, address, and physical 
location of businesses suspected of telemarketing fraud. It makes it 
easier for officers to identify and locate these operations and close 
them down. This change was requested by the U.S. Postal Inspection 
Service--our chief mail and wire fraud enforcement agency. They do a 
very good job and this provision gives them an important new tool to 
protect the elderly and other Americans from scam artists and 
swindlers.
  I also succeeded in adopting a provision to help stop another 
outrageous phone scam that has added hundreds, even thousands of 
dollars, to a family's phone bill. Worst of all, this ripoff exposes 
young people to dial-a-porn phone sex services--even when families take 
the step of placing a block on extra cost 900-number calls from their 
home.
  Companies promoting phone sex, psychic readings and other 
questionable services--often targeted at adolescents--use 800-numbers 
for calls and then patch them through to 900-number service via access 
codes. My amendment closes the loophole that allows these unseemly 
services to swindle families and restores public confidence in toll 
free 800-numbers.
  If we pass this bill today, these provisions will become the law of 
the land. As Microsoft giant, Bill Gates said in a recent interview 
with Newsweek,

       The revolution in communications is just beginning. It is 
     crucial that a broad set of people participate in the debate 
     about how this technology should be shaped. If that can be 
     done the highway will serve the purposes users want. Then it 
     will * * * become a reality.

  This bill is a starting point, a gateway to the revolution, that 
allows all Americans to participate. I urge my colleagues to support 
this conference report.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I would like to engage my colleague from 
Nebraska, the author of Title V of the telecommunications conference 
report, in a colloquy. I have a number of questions I hope you can 
answer to help clarify the intent of title V.
  Is a company such as Compuserve which provides access to all 
mainframes on the Internet liable for anything on those mainframes 
which its users view?
  Is a company like Compuserve which maintains its own mainframe and 
which allows people to post material on its mainframe liable for 
prohibited material that other people post there in the absence of an 
intent that it be used for a posting of prohibited material?
  Is the entity that maintains a mainframe, such as a university, that 
allows a person to post material on its mainframe liable for prohibited 
material that other people post there in the absence of an intent that 
it be used for a posting of prohibited material?
  When a user accesses prohibited material on a mainframe that was 
posted by a third party, does that constitute an ``initiation'' of 
transmission for which the entity maintaining the mainframe or the 
entity providing access to the mainframe is liable?
  Mr. EXON. I appreciate the questions raised by my colleague, Senator 
Levin. These questions are important and helpful. In general, the 
legislation is directed at the creators and senders of obscene and 
indecent information. For instance, new section 223(d)(1) holds liable 
those persons who knowingly use an interactive computer service to send 
indecent information or to display indecent information to persons 
under 18 years of age. You can't use a computer to give pornography to 
children.
  The legislation generally does not hold liable any entity that acts 
like a common carrier without knowledge of messages it transmits or 
hold liable an entity which provides access to another system over 
which the access provider has no ownership of content. Just like in 
other pornography statutes, Congress does not hold the mailman liable 
for the mail that he/she delivers. Nothing in CDA repeals the 
protections of the Electronic Message Privacy Act.
  For instance, new section 223(e)(1) states that ``no person shall be 
held to have violated subsection (a) or (d) solely for providing access 
or connection to or from a facility, system, or network not under that 
person's control, * * * that does not include the creation of the 
content of the communication.'' In other words, the telephone 
companies, the computer services such as Compuserve, universities that 
provide access to sites on Internet which they do not control, are not 
liable.

  There are some circumstances, however, in which a computer service or 
telephone company or university could be held liable. If, for instance, 
the access provider is a conspirator with an entity actively involved 
in creating the proscribed information (223(e)(2)), or if the access 
provider owns or controls a facility, system, or network engaged in 
providing that information (223(e)(3)), the access provider could 
potentially be held liable. Access providers are responsible for what's 
on their system. They are generally not responsible for what's on 
someone else's system.
  Even in these cases, however, an access provider that is involved in 
providing access to minors can take advantage of an affirmative defense 
against any liability if the entity takes ``good faith, reasonable, 
effective, and appropriate actions * * * to restrict or prevent access 
by minors to such communications ``(223(e)(5)). The Federal 
Communications Commission may describe procedures which would be taken 
as evidence of good faith. One such good faith method is set forth in 
the legislation itself--the access provider will not be liable if it 
has restricted access to such communications by requiring use of a 
verified credit card or adult access code (223(e)(5)(B)). This 
affirmative defense is similar to the defense provided under current 
law for so-called ``dial-a-porn'' providers.
  I hope that this response provides clarification to the Senator.
  Mr. LEVIN. Yes; it does, and I thank my friend from Nebraska for that 
clarification.
  Mr. President, when the telecommunications reform bill was before the 
Senate in June, I supported giving the Justice Department a role to 
ensure that existing monopoly powers are not used to take advantage of 
the new markets being entered. While 

[[Page S715]]
the effort to give the Justice Department a role in this process was 
not successful at that time, I'm pleased to see a Justice Department 
role included in the final version of the bill. This is good news for 
American consumers.
  In addition to including a role for the Justice Department in 
determining when there is adequate competition in the local exchange, 
some of the other problems I had with the earlier bill have also been 
addressed in the conference report. For example, it protects the right 
of local governments to maintain access to their rights-of-way.
  I believe we should try to keep obscene material from being 
transmitted on the Internet and by other electronic media. That is a 
constitutional standard that is well known. But the words used in title 
V of the bill dealing with this matter include ``filthy'' and 
``indecent,'' broad and vague enough so they are unlikely to meet the 
constitutional test. These words do, however, exist in current law 
covering telephone calls. That's why it's useful to have an expedited 
review to test the constitutionality of this provision which the bill 
provides for.
  I don't think the intent of Title V is to hold Internet service 
providers liable for content they did not create or initiate. The 
previous colloquy with my colleague from Nebraska who is the sponsor of 
this provision developed this in greater detail.
  While there are some problems with the bill, on the whole, it strikes 
a better balance between making needed regulatory changes to encourage 
technological innovations while maintaining adequate protections of the 
public interest than earlier versions of the bill. I will therefore 
vote for the conference report before the Senate today.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference 
report to S. 652, the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation 
Act. This legislation will promote significant new investment in and 
improvement of our Nation's telecommunications infrastructure. It will 
heighten opportunities to export American goods overseas. It will 
increase competition in many industries--the telephone industry, cable 
television, utilities, long-distance telephone service providers, 
telecommunications equipment manufacturers, and the alarm industry, to 
name several--leading to greater economic efficiency. Above all, the 
telecommunications bill marks a victory for consumers, who will enjoy 
lower prices and better services.
  Mr. President, I voted against the bill when the Senate first 
considered it last June because I was concerned about a provision which 
purported to prohibit computer transmission of obscene or indecent 
material, particularly to minors. Such activity is, of course, 
reprehensible. But I voted against that amendment, No. 1362, which the 
Senate adopted, because I feared that we were taking action 
improvidently and without adequate consideration for its constitutional 
and practical implications.
  I remain concerned that the conference report's provisions dealing 
with computer transmission of obscene or indecent material and language 
may be overly broad, but this is a matter for the courts to decide and 
the conferees have paved the way for expedited judicial review of the 
measure's constitutionality. Therefore, if this language is determined 
to be troublesome when put into practice, the courts will be able to 
correct it at the earliest possible moment.
  Notwithstanding my concern about this particular matter, the bill on 
balance is meritorious and I urge the adoption of the conference 
report.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, today I rise to associate myself with the 
comments of the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee, 
Senator Pressler, and with the comments of the able majority leader, 
Mr. Dole, regarding the conference report to S. 652, the 
Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995.
  Mr. President, this is indeed a historic day in the annals of the 
Senate. By an overwhelming vote of 91 yeas to 5 nays, the Senate passed 
legislation which will revolutionize the telecommunications industry.
  This landmark legislation will promote increased competition among 
telecommunications service providers and will remove Depression-era 
restrictions which have impaired the growth of this dynamic industry.
  This bill will enact much needed reforms so that the 
telecommunications industry is prepared to meet the challenges, and 
opportunities, of the 21st century. The conference report language, 
while not perfect, represents a marked improvement over current law.
  Consumers and firms in my own Commonwealth of Virginia will gain 
under this landmark legislation. Virginia is home to a rapidly 
developing high-technology and telecommunications industry. Northern 
Virginia, in particular, is at the forefront of this technological 
revolution and is poised to build on that lead under the bill.
  Virginia's consumers will benefit from increased services and 
benefits at a lower cost as telecommunications providers compete for 
their business. At the same time, this legislation is pro-family and 
will assist parents in overseeing the type of programming that their 
children view.
  In short, Mr. President, both consumers and industry will benefit 
from the passage of this historic bill. I would like to take this 
occasion to commend the distinguished chairman of the Senate Commerce 
Committee, Senator Pressler, and Chairman Bliley of the House Commerce 
Committee, and the distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, for 
their leadership in bringing this critical legislation to the floor of 
the U.S. Senate. Most importantly, I want to thank the numerous 
Virginians who, over the past year, have provided me with their views 
and guidance on this issue.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference 
report for the Telecommunications Act of 1995. This legislation 
establishes real progress on important issues and I am pleased to 
provide my support.
  This legislation creates a new regulatory structure for the rapidly 
evolving communications technology and fills an important need. The 
current regulatory scheme divides industries, like local telephone 
service and long-distance service, broadcast television, and cable 
television.
  A new regulatory framework is needed, to permit the creation of new 
companies, new services, and promote competition between the previously 
separated lines of business. Stronger competition in the communications 
industry will bring new services to the market, present more choices 
for the public and lower prices to consumers. This bill significantly 
deregulates the communications industry to permit that competition to 
take place.
  During consideration of the bill, I joined many of my colleagues in 
urging several components and I was pleased to see that a number of 
these important proposals were able to be incorporated in this 
legislation. Among the issues included were:
  The V-Chip requirement, which will assist families to monitor 
television in their homes to protect children from unsuitable and 
inappropriate TV programming, including sex or violence. During the 
state of the union speech, President Clinton called for passage of the 
telecommunications legislation with the V-chip and a content ratings 
system for television programming. I am pleased Congress could address 
the concerns of families across America and incorporate these 
provisions.
  The cable scrambling amendment I offered with Senator Lott requiring 
cable companies to scramble indecent or sexually explicit materials to 
assist parents to protect minors.
  Senator Exon's provisions to control access to indecent materials 
will require the operators of computer networks, like America Online, 
to screen out indecent materials for children. Conferees had a 
difficult time reconciling different proposals and I am pleased the 
provisions could be accommodated.
  Assisting high-technology industry from inappropriate standards and 
requirements: During consideration of the bill, some of California's 
leading high-technology firms and computer companies raised a concern 
that regulations prepared by the FCC would deny flexibility and limit 
the computer industries' ability to develop standards based on market 
needs. Computer companies including Apple, Motorola, and Echelon, urge 
adoption of a provision prohibiting the FCC from developing overbroad 
regulations that could impede progress in the computer industry. I was 
pleased these provisions to 

[[Page S716]]
allow the computer industry to develop and meet the needs of the market 
were incorporated.
  I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle don't want to stand 
in the way of technological innovation or consumer choice. When the 
Senate initially considered the legislation last May, Chairman Pressler 
observed that the computer industry has transformed America and that 
computer industry competition has brought huge benefits to our homes, 
schools and workplaces. These provisions preserve that competition, and 
keeps the government away from premature standards setting.
  Adoption of a stronger role for the Justice Department to review 
competition in the telecommunications industry: In the years since the 
break-up of AT&T, the Justice Department has developed the expertise to 
promote competition in the communications industry and protect 
consumers. It would be a shame to squander that expertise just as new 
concerns for competition and fairness arise under this bill. With the 
passage of this legislation, we will enter a new era of 
telecommunications policy and the experience of the Justice Department 
will be critical in protecting strong competition and consumer 
interests.
  Important steps to promote universal service: In the 1930's, the 
nation's universal service goals involved providing telephone service 
to everyone, but as communications have evolved, the concept of 
universal service also must develop and evolve as well. The bill 
recognizes the need to modernize the concept of universal service and 
will provide for telephone service discounts for schools, libraries and 
hospitals to protect against our station splitting into the high-
technology haves and have-nots.
  When this legislation came before the Senate last spring, I joined 
with our colleague Senator Kempthorne raising concerns about the impact 
on our Nation's cities and counties. As a former mayor, I know how 
important it is to protect the cities' bridges, roads and other public 
rights-of-way. I know the local government officials remain concerned 
about the bill and the preemption provisions.
  While legislative adjustments addressed some of the concerns of State 
and local governments, cities, counties and States remain concerned 
about the future and the possibility they could be brought to 
Washington before the Federal Communications Commission to defend local 
laws, regulations or fee.
  The revised language clarifies that cities can impose fees on 
communications providers like cable companies, as long as the fees are 
imposed in a way that does not discriminate between different 
competitors and the fees are fair and reasonable. Further, the 
preemption authority only applies to communications issues and if the 
cities have other authority to regulate communications provider, they 
may continue to charge fees.
  I am pleased that section 253(c) recognizes the historic authority of 
State and local governments to regulate and require compensation for 
the use of public rights-of-way. It further recognizes that State and 
local governments may apply different management and compensation 
requirements to different telecommunications providers' to the extent 
that they make different use of the public rights-of-way. Section 253 
(c) also makes clear that section 253 (a) is inapplicable to right-of-
way management and compensation requirements so long as those entities 
that make similar demands on the public rights-of-way are treated in a 
competitively neutral and nondiscriminatory manner.
  As for the issue of FCC preemption, while I favored the complete 
elimination of the preemption provision, I am pleased that the 
committee could accept the view that authorizes the Commission to 
preempt the enforcement only of State or local requirements that 
violate subsection (a) or (b), but not (c). The courts, not the 
Commission, will address disputes under section 253(c).
  The overwhelming vote in the House on the amendment offered by 
Representative Barton and Representative Stupak, as well as the 
unanimous acceptance of Senator Gorton's amendment in the Senate, 
indicate that the Congress wishes to protect the legitimate authority 
of local governments to manage and receive compensation for use of the 
rights-of-way.
  I am concerned that mayors, county commissioners, and State utility 
commissioners, including California Public Utility Commissioner, are 
concerned that State telephone regulations will be preeempted. This is 
an important issue in California where 31 companies have applied to 
begin offering services in July. Under the bill, California's efforts 
to license more competitors to offer local phone service could be 
preempted and slowed down if the Federal Government acts or declines to 
act. Under the bill, the State will be preempted and prohibited from 
acting contrary to the Federal decision.
  I am troubled by the significant uncertainty which remains regarding 
the role of cities, counties, and States who may face added burdens. 
Earlier, the unfunded mandates legislation was signed into law, yet the 
Congressional Budget Office acknowledges that the legislation includes 
unfunded mandates for State and local governments. Further, CBO 
recognizes it lacks the ability to evaluate the potential cost. I will 
continue to monitor this issue and, if necessary, Congress may need to 
return to evaluate the balance between our State and local governments 
and the Federal Government on telecommunications policy.
  Mr. President, the legislation raises important issues and represents 
important progress for the Nation. As a result of the bill, we can move 
forward with new technology, new products, and new services. The bill 
will open up exciting new challenges and opportunities and we should 
embrace them. I look forward to these exciting new challenges. While I 
remain concerned about mandates and the role of cities, States, and 
counties in our telecommunication policy, I am pleased by the exciting 
opportunities presented by the legislation. I am pleased to lend my 
support.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from South 
Carolina has 14 minutes. The Senator from South Dakota has 6 minutes.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me, as we acknowledge the 
contributions of so many--specifically on Senator Stevens' staff, I 
meant to mention our friend Earl Comstock. I worked with him throughout 
the years on our Commerce Committee, and he was really diligent, along 
with Senator Lott's staff, in the early days, Chip Pickering and now 
Kevin Pritchett, and, of course, Senator Lott himself over there, along 
with Senator Stevens.
  On our side, you would have to comment on the contribution of Senator 
Ford, who has been down there helping us orchestrate everything. He was 
been there since the early times helping us, along with Senator Exon 
and his contribution on cyberporn and its control; Senator Rockefeller, 
along with Senator Snowe in the Snowe-Rockefeller particular amendment 
relative to the discounted rates of the schools, the libraries, the 
hospitals.
  Senator Breaux of Louisiana has been very, very active on this 
measure. I certainly want to thank him.
  The reason we do this, Mr. President, to go right to the point while 
we have a minute, is so the public can understand the involvement.
  We had involved in this particular measure and in the conference 
report, which has just been adopted, incidentally, over on the House 
side by a vote of 414 to 16. I do not know what happened to 16 people, 
how they got misled. I do not see why we did not get a unanimous vote, 
but, in any event, it shows the wonderful work done by Chairman Bliley, 
Congressman Markey, and the others over on the House side.
  Look at the entities involved: The regional Bell operating companies. 
They have a tremendous interest and influence, and the long-distance 
companies. I think that was the real contest. I mentioned earlier that 
on every Friday, we got together the RBOC's, the regional companies, 
and every Monday the staff would work. It was all on top of the table. 
There was no downtown lawyering and that kind of thing. It was all on 
top of the table with the long-distance companies. Necessarily, the 
long-distance companies had been thrown into competition at the time of 
the divestiture back some 10 years ago. And Bob Allen, chairman of AT&T 
said, ``Look, I have a third less personnel. I am doing a third more 
work and 

[[Page S717]]
making an increased profit.'' So as they downsized, as they call it, 
and became competitive, the best proof that competition has worked is 
with MCI and Sprint and AT&T and the rest of them that come in under 
that particular description.
  But the long-distance companies have been so aggressive that they 
were beginning to move into the local exchange. I know of one 
particular concern this Senator had in the southern region where our 
friends at MCI said they were going to move into Atlanta with our 
friends of Bell South. Bell South is, yes, a monopoly, but it was a 
control monopoly whereby they could not get into long distance.
  It was to our interest and the public interest, of course, that they 
not be cherry picked. In other words, take off the wonderful market of 
Atlanta and just leave the rest of the State wanting. That had occurred 
in downtown New York City with Teleport. So we wanted them to come in 
on an even-steven, balanced basis. Trying to work that out was really 
the task to bring them on board where they all approved of this 
particular bill and supported this particular bill. Not that they are 
100 percent in agreement with every feature, obviously, but they 
realize this is a mammoth step forward in trying to bring the 
communications law of America into the modern technological age.
  So we had the guidance of the 8(c) test from our friend Judge Greene 
where he ruled that there be no substantial possibility of using 
monopoly power to impede competition. Every word meant something to 
every communications lawyer. So we had to really get a checklist of 
``unbundling'' and ``dialing parity'' and ``access,'' and all these 
things to be agreed upon.
  It took actually weeks on every one of those particular measures all 
last year where we worked around the clock to get it balanced and not 
overweighted one way and not let long distance come in and market 
without the ability, let us say, of our Bell companies to joint market 
also.
  So we were educated about that and came around to a balance in this 
particular measure and now have the support of, and can you imagine of 
all of these entities supporting this particular measure: The regional 
Bell operating companies, the long-distance companies, the 
broadcasters, the cable TV companies, the cellular, satellite 
companies, the newspapers, burglar alarm, electronic publishing, public 
utilities, pay phones, minority groups, computers were vitally 
interested in the outcome of this particular measure, the schools, 
libraries, the hospitals. Snowe-Rockefeller, the Secretary of 
Education, Dick Reilly, and the administration were strong in this 
information superhighway of our distinguished Vice President.

  The Department of Justice worked diligently to make sure it was not 
just a casual thing to send a letter or opinion over to the Federal 
Communications Commission and just be thrown in the wastebasket; that 
it should be given substantial weight to their opinion to make sure 
that no monopolistic tendencies and actual entities develop in opening 
up the markets for competition. The State public service commissions 
had to be coached and brought along. The cities, the retailers of 
equipment, the privacy groups, the local competition or competitors 
like Teleport, the manufacturers, the rural telephone companies, the 
independent program producers. I can go on and on. But we now have the 
support of every one of these groups.
  I think we have it because we feel very strongly that the public 
interest has been protected in the long-distance section, in the 
broadcast section and carried over from the 1934 Telecommunications 
Act. The antitrust laws have been protected, as I pointed out.
  One of the big disputes that we had was the takeover of 50 percent of 
the broadcast market in the United States. Mr. President, I could be 
President if I had that. I would call up Madison Avenue and say, 
``You're not going to advertise your Miller High Life unless,'' and 
then I would complete my thought. You can control 50 percent of the 
television advertising in this country, and we also already saw a 
tendency by cable news--CNN did not want to carry certain parts of 
advertisements because it was against their interest. We tried to 
protect against that.
  But if you had 50 percent, you might as well forget it, because the 
money is there, they buy it out, they control it. You could become the 
President, as we can see right now on the buying of the Presidency up 
in the distinguished State of New Hampshire where the distinguished 
Presiding Officer lives. I as a candidate, if I take the public moneys, 
am limited to $600,000. But if I have millions, I have spent millions, 
go to Channel 5 in Boston and cover Highway 128 going up to Nashua 
where half of the population of that great State resides.
  It is not so much the flat tax as it is the sweep of the television 
control and the purchase. We will get to that later on with campaign 
financing, because I have a one-line constitutional amendment: The 
Congress of the United States is hereby empowered to control 
expenditures in Federal elections.

  We have had bipartisan support, a majority vote. All we lack is two-
thirds for that particular amendment. I go back to the day when our 
colleague from Louisiana, Senator Russell Long, was elocuting in 1974 
about the Federal Election Campaign Practices Act and said every 
mother's son was going to be able to run for President. Nobody was 
going to be able to buy it. Now they are buying it. But let me go back 
to communications.
  We are about to vote. We protected the 50 percent. We never would 
yield on that. That would be embarrassing for anybody to stand on the 
floor and ask for it. To tell you, the only reason I agreed to 35 
percent is CBS. Westinghouse already has 32 percent, and we did not 
want to have to go backwards. Twenty-five percent is enough.
  We protected the rural areas. The distinguished chairman of our 
committee, Senator Pressler, Senator Stevens of Alaska, and Senator 
Burns of Montana and all, they protected those rural areas. Any 
competitor that comes in must serve the entire rural area. They cannot 
just come in and take a part. The public service commissions or 
authorities will determine how competition will occur in those rural 
areas. The infrastructure sharing is provided for from the regional 
Bell operating companies to help them sustain. We learned a lot with 
that blooming airline deregulation.
  I see I have a colleague who wants a few minutes. I want to yield to 
make sure he can comment.
  The RBOC's, the checklist, and the long distance I have touched on. 
Universal service: Every carrier, Mr. President, coming into the local 
market shall contribute.
  We have the Rockefeller provision and Senator Exon's cyberporn 
provision, which he is momentarily ready to address.
  How much time do I have left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. About 3 minutes 10 seconds.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield that to my colleague from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. I thank my friend from South Carolina. My heartiest 
congratulations to Senator Pressler, the chairman of the committee, and 
my friend and colleague from South Carolina, the ranking member, for a 
job well done under some extreme circumstances. I congratulate you. I 
understand that the House has just agreed to the conference report by 
an overwhelming majority. I think the same thing will happen here.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to voice my enthusiastic support for this 
most significant piece of telecommunications legislation since the 
enactment of the Communications Act of 1934.
  As a Conference Committee member and author and backer of key 
provisions of the bill I believe that this legislation is good for 
American families, children and citizens in rural America.
  Too often progress and discussions of this legislation has been 
segregated to the business pages of many of America's newspapers. Too 
much attention has been paid to how this bill affects large 
corporations. This legislation is not only about large corporations. It 
is legislation which will touch every person's life. It will open 
unprecedented economic, educational and information opportunities for 
all Americans.
  Few pieces of legislation considered by this or any other Congress 
have so embraced the concerns and needs of America's children and 
families as has this legislation. I am very proud of the fact that this 
legislation includes the 

[[Page S718]]
Communications Decency Act which I introduced earlier this Congress and 
in the last Congress to protect children from indecent, pornographic 
communications on the Internet and other computer services and to 
protect all Americans from computer obscenity and electronic stalking. 
With the passage of this bill, the Congress will help make the 
Information Superhighway safer for kids and families to travel. The 
current lawlessness on the Internet has opened a virtual Triple-X 
(XXX)-rated bookstore in the bedrooms of every child with a computer. 
This law alone will not clean up the Internet. Parental supervision, 
industry cooperation along with strict law enforcement, need to work 
together to make this exciting new technology the family friendly 
resource that it should be.
  I am especially pleased that the conference report also included 
legislation Senator Grassley and I put forward to crack down on those 
who use various means of communications to lure children into illegal 
sexual activity.
  Concurrent with our efforts to make the Internet and other computer 
services safe for families and children, this bill includes legislation 
which will help turn the information revolution to the benefit of all 
Americans but especially for America's children. The Snowe-Rockefeller-
Exon-Kerrey amendment which is part of this bill creates a unique 
partnership with private industry. It will ensure discount 
telecommunications rates for schools, libraries and rural health care 
facilities. This landmark provision will, perhaps, give children in 
Harvard and Cambridge, NE, opportunities to use telecommunications 
technologies to learn from libraries and scholars at Harvard and 
Cambridge Universities.
  Another area of critical importance is in enacting legislation to 
require new televisions to contain the so-called V-chip which will give 
families an opportunity to block violent, vulgar or other objectionable 
entertainment programming from their TV set. If successfully 
implemented, this legislation will lead to the objective rating of 
programs and give to parents the power to bar from their homes those 
programs which assault their values. I was proud to co-sponsor the 
Senate V-chip amendment.
  Mr. President, this legislation also represents a major victory for 
rural America. The conference report gives approval to the so-called 
farm-team provisions. These provisions assure that rural citizens enjoy 
telephone technologies and prices which are comparable to those in 
urban areas. The provisions also allow rural phone companies to pool 
resources with each other and with cable companies to share new 
technologies and to give states the power to prevent unfair cherry-
picking competition in rural markets. Under the farm-team provisions 
States can require new telephone competitors to offer service to an 
entire community rather than just a select few highly profitable rural 
phone users. The provisions also give the Federal and State regulators 
flexibility in dealing with small and mid-sized phone companies. Too 
often, one-size-fits-all regulation needlessly pushes up costs for 
Nebraska's home town phone companies.
  The farm team, by the way, is a group of rural Senators which pushed 
a package of rural-oriented reforms during last year's consideration of 
telecommunications legislation. As a charter member of the farm team 
along with Senators Bob Kerrey, Jay Rockefeller, Byron Dorgan, Ted 
Stevens, and the current chairman of the Commerce Committee Senator 
Larry Pressler, it is very gratifying that our ideas on universal 
service, rural markets, regulatory flexibility and preferential rates 
for schools, libraries and rural health care facilities are now central 
principles of America's future telecommunications policies.
  In a real sense this legislation is less about big corporation and 
more about changing the way Americans live, work and learn. No one will 
be untouched by this legislation. New options may confuse and frustrate 
some consumers at first, but will bring new services, new choices and 
more affordable prices to all Americans.
  The barriers to investment and innovation have been removed while 
protecting the essential elements of a free market. The 
telecommunications reform bill does not disrupt the Nation's antitrust 
laws and does not change the Justice Department's role in policing 
unfair competition and predatory pricing.
  Mr. President, most importantly this legislation illustrates that a 
Congress can make revolutionary change when it puts party labels aside 
and works together not as Democrats and Republicans but as Americans. I 
congratulate Senators Hollings and Pressler and all the members of both 
parties and both Houses who brought this complex piece of legislation 
together.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mrs. BOXER. I would like to congratulate Senator Exon and the other 
members of the conference on bringing this very important conference 
report to the floor today. However, I would like to bring their 
attention to one section that is very troubling to me.
  Section 507 amends a preexisting section of the Criminal Code, 18 
U.S.C. 1462, and applies to the Internet. Now, it is my understanding 
that your intent behind adopting this provision was to place reasonable 
restrictions on obscenity on the Internet. I support this goal. 
However, a section of this act may be construed to curb discussions 
about abortion. It seems to me this provision would certainly be 
unconstitutional.
  Mr. EXON. I appreciate the Senator's raising the issue of this 
provision. I certainly agree with her that any discussion about 
abortion is protected by the first amendment guarantee of free speech. 
I certainly agree that nothing in this title should be interpreted to 
inhibit free speech about the topic of abortion.
  Further, she is quite right that our interest in adopting this 
provision was to curb the spread of obscenity--speech that is not 
protected by the first amendment--from the Internet in order to protect 
our children.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, with that assurance, I feel comfortable 
supporting this bill. And I hope that my colleagues who were also 
concerned about this provision will now feel comfortable supporting 
this bill. Once again, I thank the Senator for clarifying this point, 
and for his hard work on this bill.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, those who have fought all efforts to bring 
some level of decency to the Internet have employed all sorts of 
rhetorical devices to defeat the Communications Decency Act.
  The latest attack comes from those who suggest that amendments 
originally in the House bill to title 18 section 1462 somehow revive 
obsolete provisions of the Comstock Act--(related in information on 
abortion)--which courts have essentially determined to be 
unconstitutional. The amendments to title 18 merely clarify that the 
current laws which prohibit the importation, transportation, or 
distribution of obscene materials apply to computers.
  The conference committee went to great lengths in section 507(c) to 
underline that the changes to the Criminal Code are clarifying and do 
not change the substantive coverage of the current law. The Congress 
last amended section 1463 in 1994 by increasing penalties for 
violations of this section. Nothing in this legislation prohibits 
constitutionally protected speech and this legislation does not revive 
other-wise dead provisions of that law any more than the 1994 amendment 
revived those very provisions.
  I thank the Chair and I thank again those who put this act together. 
I am pleased that it is about to pass the 
U. S. Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we are on the verge of passing the most 
important piece of legislation in this Congress. By unleashing 
competition in the communications industry, America will have more 
jobs, a stronger economy, and more opportunity. It is a real economic 
stimulus package with one big difference: It relies on private-sector 
America, and not big government.
  Mr. President, this bill has been in the works for over a decade. It 
has stumped Congress after Congress. I know that because I introduced 
the first deregulation bill after the breakup of the old ``Ma Bell'' 
system back in 1986, 10 years ago.
  There is no doubt about it. This conference report was crafted in a 
bipartisan, I think nonpartisan, manner. It could not have been 
accomplished 

[[Page S719]]
without the hard work of Chairman Pressler and his staff. Senator 
Hollings has played a key role for years on this important issue.
  I want to say an additional word about Senator Pressler. I know the 
committee chairman sometimes gets a little anxious and comes to the 
leader quite often about, ``When are you going to take up my bill?'' 
And I can report that I did not get by one day without Senator Pressler 
asking me that at least two or three times.
  So I want to congratulate Senator Pressler for his dogged 
determination. I am very proud of the work he has done and the work of 
the other Members in the conference. We have some differences. We think 
there are still some things that should be addressed.
  I am satisfied with the letter which I have received from the FCC 
with reference to spectrum. I do not have any desire to put a roadblock 
in the way of the spectrum option. But I wish to make certain the 
taxpayers get their money's worth. If it is not worth anything, that is 
fine. Let us have public hearings. Let us get it all out in the open. 
Let us make a decision, and then let us make that determination.

  I am proud of the fact that this bill willl pass in a Republican 
Congress. It is no small feat. It was only 3 years ago Congress 
reregulated the cable TV industry. That is not to say that cable TV did 
not have its problems, because it certainly did. The difference is 
Republicans believe competition and not Government is the best 
regulator of the marketplace. Competition also means more choices for 
the American people. And choice provides the highest level of consumer 
protection.
  It has been a tough bill to put together and some issues were 
resolved and some were not resolved. Important issues like the foreign 
ownership provision that were dropped, they would have helped American 
corporations pry open foreign markets that have been closed for too 
long. Or maybe it was the relaxation of the broadcast ownership rule 
which would have given the little guy access to capital and thereby be 
a stronger competitor. There could have also been language included 
that would have forbidden the FCC from regulating the Internet. At the 
same time, we did take steps to help parents protect their children 
from indecent material that is prevalent on this new service.
  I do not mean to take anything away from the bill and how it will 
propel our country into the next century. Instead, I wish to point out 
there is still much to be done. I think everybody has agreed to that.
  I have also been openly critical of the provision in the 
telecommunications bill that would junk all television sets in the 
country and create a giant welfare program for television broadcasters. 
I have worked closely with Chairman Pressler, who has also been 
critical of this issue for some time, Senator McCain, the Speaker, and 
many others.
  So we have the letter. I am satisfied with it. They said, in any 
event, they would not be prepared until 1997, and it seems to me we are 
not going to retard progress in any way. We are just going to find out 
what the facts are. If it is worth $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 
billion, $70 billion, or zero, the public will know after public 
hearings. We think the American taxpayers are entitled to at least that 
assurance. When we are talking about reducing the rate of growth of 
certain programs--Medicaid, Medicare, welfare--we ought to make certain 
we are not going at the bottom and giving somebody at the top a 
windfall. And again maybe someday, if we live long enough, this may be 
covered by the networks, the spectrum. I doubt it. They will be 
covering Members of Congress who might be going overseas on important 
business. But it could be that they might cover this, how much it is 
worth to them and how much it is worth to broadcasting generally.
  I think it should happen. There should not be a double standard is 
what they keep telling us. I agree with them. So I expect we would have 
objective reporting on this particular issue.
  Today we secured a letter signed by all five Commissioners at the 
Federal Communications Commission. These Commissioners stood with me, 
despite intense lobbying to do otherwise. That is courage and we owe 
them our thanks.
  In that letter, these Commissioners committed to Congress,

       Any award of initial licenses or construction permits for 
     advanced television services will only be made in compliance 
     with the express intent of Congress and only pursuant to 
     additional legislation it may resolving this issue.

  I am determined to turn the FCC's commitment to us into a victory for 
the American taxpayer. But Congress will conduct hearings in the full 
light of day on this issue. We will follow through and address this 
issue. For those who think this is an idle threat, guess again. Because 
we will give this our utmost scrutiny.
  Now, those may sound like tough words, but, Mr. President, taxpayers 
deserve nothing less.
  In closing, let me also assure those skeptics that these letters are 
not--I repeat, are not--about saving face. It is about saving the 
American taxpayer billions of dollars and stopping a give-away, a giant 
corporate welfare program.
  Mr. President, despite this profound flaw, which we will fix, this 
legislation will create jobs and benefits that we yet cannot imagine.
  I ask unanimous consent that the FCC letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                            Federal Communications Commission,

                                 Washington, DC, February 1, 1996.
     Hon. Larry Pressler,
     Chairman, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, 
         U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Pressler: Thank you very much for your letter 
     this morning about the concerns expressed by Senate Majority 
     Leader Dole and others regarding the distribution of 
     additional spectrum to television broadcasters. We share the 
     determination of you, Senator Dole and others to protect 
     American taxpayers. As you know, under current law and 
     pursuant to the language of the Telecommunications Act of 
     1996 (should it become law), the Commission lacks authority 
     to auction, or charge broadcasters for the use of, the 
     spectrum that has been identified for the provision of these 
     broadcast services. In addition, given the many 
     administrative steps necessary to implement any assignment of 
     digital broadcast licenses, we would not be in a position to 
     issue those licenses any earlier than 1997.
       We recognize the serious policy questions involved, and 
     that you intend to hold hearings and enact legislation 
     dealing with this issue as part of an overhaul of policies 
     governing the electromagnetic spectrum. Any award of initial 
     licenses or construction permits for Advanced Television 
     Services will only be made in compliance with the express 
     intent of Congress and only pursuant to additional 
     legislation it may adopt resolving this issue.
           Very truly yours,
     Reed E. Hundt,
                                                         Chairman.
     James H. Quello,
                                                     Commissioner.
     Andrew C. Barrett,
                                                     Commissioner.
     Susan Ness,
                                                     Commissioner.
     Rachelle B. Chong,
                                                     Commissioner.

  Mr. PRESSLER. How much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Holling's time has expired, and the 
Senator from South Dakota has 5 minutes 58 seconds.
  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from 
Washington. I thank him very much for his work on this bill. It would 
not have happened without him.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in dealing with highly complex and 
technical legislation, two requirements seem to me to be essential. The 
first is that those who have an interest in the legislation and have 
conflicts among themselves over what is most desirable, express their 
views so that Members can evaluate conflicting arguments and attempt to 
reach the truth.
  Each of these interest groups gives lip service to the consumer 
interest and to competition, but it is only by testing the groups' 
competing ideas against one another that the consumer interest and 
competition can truly be served. That has clearly been the case in 
connection with the many year debate over telecommunications 
legislation. There were myriad interest groups. They had highly 
conflicting interests. I believe that we have reached good 
accommodations in connection with almost every one of those conflicts.

[[Page S720]]

  But the second and even more important requirement for dealing with 
legislation of this type is that the Members who deal with the issue in 
the committees, and particularly those who are in charge, keep the 
public interest as their objective. In this connection, I want to say 
how much that has been the case with the junior Senator from South 
Carolina [Mr. Hollings] during his leadership in this process. Most 
particularly, however, I offer my appreciation to Senator Pressler, who 
was willing to listen to everybody, but be the prisoner of no one, in 
arriving at the right answers in connection with this bill. He did so 
in the Senate proceedings, and he did so as chairman of the conference 
committee. The fact that we are here today passing, nearly unanimously, 
this important piece of legislation is a real tribute to him.
  Personally, Mr. President, I should like to note two aspects of this 
comprehensive legislation. I have a great interest in the competitive 
nature of the wireless industry, and I am gratified that most of my 
suggestions in that connection, to strengthen the industry's 
competitive position, have been accepted. I am also delighted that we 
were able to protect our American children and the power of our 
American parents through the V-chip provisions and through other 
provisions, which will give more authority to family members to 
supervise what their children see.
  Other details, obviously, cannot be gone into at the present time. 
This is a fine piece of legislation. As a result of the great work of 
our leaders, it will create employment for many tens of thousands of 
Americans, and ensure that telecommunications will be a cutting-edge 
industry in this country for many years to come.
  I would like to clarify, and express my understanding, of a somewhat 
confusing provision in the bill regarding uniform pricing of cable 
rates. The conference report changes the uniform rate requirement in 
two essential ways. First, section 301(b)(2) of the legislation sunsets 
the uniform rate structure requirement in markets where the cable 
operator faces effective competition.
  The second change to the uniform rate requirement is the addition of 
language that permits cable operators to offer bulk discounts to 
multiple dwelling units or MDU's. The language in this section permits 
cable operators to offer bulk discounts to MDU's, ``except that a cable 
operator of a cable system that is not subject to effective competition 
may not charge predatory prices to a multiple dwelling unit.''
  I understand that there has been concern that this somewhat awkwardly 
worded section implicitly condones predatory pricing once there is 
competition in a market, or for subscribers who do not live in MDU's. 
Clearly it is not the intent of Congress to supersede the Sherman Act 
by allowing cable operators to engage in predatory pricing at any time 
or under any circumstances. In fact, the legislation includes a general 
antitrust savings clause in section 601(b). This clause guarantees that 
antitrust concerns still will be addressed in the telecommunications 
industry.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I join in that praise of Senator Daschle and also 
Senator Dole.
  Mr. President, in closing this debate, let me say that we are passing 
a historic telecommunications bill that will have a sweeping impact. It 
is prospective, deregulatory, and it will affect every single American. 
It will have a great international impact. I know that our citizens 
will benefit greatly. There will be new devices and new technologies, 
and there will be lower prices. We are entering an era that is going to 
be like the Oklahoma land rush. There will be an explosion of new 
telecommunications opportunities for our citizens.
  I thank all the Senators. I have had the privilege of visiting with 
all 100 Senators about this legislation. I also pay tribute to 
Congressman Bliley, Congressman Fields, Congressman Markey, Congressman 
Dingell, and others, whom I have had a chance, as chairman of the joint 
House-Senate conference, to become acquainted with. I have come to 
appreciate the work of a House-Senate conference. I want to pay tribute 
to our House colleagues who worked so hard on this legislation.


                      Unanimous-Consent Agreement

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous-consent that, consistent 
with the law and the rules of the Senate Rules Committee, the maximum 
amount of copies of the Senate version of this conference report be 
printed and, if possible, that 50 copies be delivered to each Senator's 
office.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I want to thank everyone. I yield the 
remaining time to the Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the conference 
report accompanying S. 652. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The 
clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Texas [Mr. Gramm] is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] and 
the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Rockefeller] are necessarily 
absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 5, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 8 Leg.]

                                YEAS--91

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--5

     Feingold
     Leahy
     McCain
     Simon
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Dodd
     Gramm
     Rockefeller
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the 
conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. PRESSLER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


    conference report on s. 652, the telecommunications reform bill

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I congratulate the managers of this bill 
and the leadership of the House and Senate on bringing to the floor 
this complex, overdue effort to bring our Nation's telecommunications 
laws into the 21st century. Although this legislation does not receive 
the attention in the media as do issues such as the Federal budget and 
tax cuts, its importance to our economy, to the livelihoods of all 
Americans, and to continued technological progress cannot be 
overstated. In fact, it has been said that the telecommunications 
reform bill is the most important piece of legislation we will pass in 
this Congress.
  This bill recognizes that market forces and competition are the fuels 
that drive our Nation's economy. For too long, most sectors of our 
telecommunications industry, particularly the telephone industry, have 
been hamstrung by outdated laws that limit access to the marketplace. 
The great bulk of law in this area is actually some 61 years old. It 
should be obvious to everyone that communications technology has been 
revolutionized during these 61 years, and our laws ought to keep up 
with these changes in technology.
  Since the 104th Congress began consideration of telecommunications 
reform early last year, there have been 

[[Page S721]]
countless forces pulling the authors of this legislation is many 
different directions. There have been industry groups, individual 
companies, consumer groups, unions, think tanks, the administration, 
and many, many more all with an interest in this bill who have 
rightfully voiced their concerns as this process has gone forward. I 
admire the long hours of hard work performed by the Commerce Committee 
and its staff in sorting through the maze of this highly complex issue 
and producing this conference report. I certainly did not envy these 
individuals as they tackled this extraordinary difficult task.
  While, as I have said, we all respect the ability of the free market 
to produce jobs and foster economic growth, there are many in Congress 
who are reluctant to let the marketplace operate completely freely in 
all telecommunications industries. For example, many of my colleagues 
are concerned that the regional Bell companies will take undue 
advantage of their ownership of local telephone networks to compete 
unfairly in the long distance market. On the other hand, many other 
colleagues are equally adamant that we should place very few 
restrictions on Bell companies as they are permitted to offer long 
distance service.
  This debate over long distance represents just one of the many, many 
difficult balancing acts the managers of this bill struggled with. In 
short, my colleagues had to reconcile the views of those who wanted to 
let the marketplace more or less reign free with those who sought 
regulatory protection for industries and for consumers. And let me tell 
you, this was no easy task for the authors of this bill; I commend them 
for their legislative ability. No one is 100 percent happy with the 
final product, but I am confident that the benefits we will realize in 
enacting this bill in the way of job creation and technological 
progress are real. We can all be proud of the job done by the authors 
of this legislation.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wish to associate myself with the 
remarks made by the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island. Those of 
us who have worked with the distinguished chairman and ranking member 
on this bill wish to acknowledge the great credit for their leadership, 
and for our distinguished majority leader and the minority leader for 
their backup assistance.

                          ____________________