[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E82]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E82]]
    THE FOUR YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996

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                         HON. MICHAEL G. OXLEY

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2000

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, on the fourth anniversary of the passage of 
the Telecommunications Act, the benefits of deregulation are plainly 
evident. Consumers are paying the lowest prices in history for 
telecommunications services and enjoying new technologies that were 
unimaginable just 4 years ago. The deregulation that resulted from the 
act has provided tremendous stimulation to the telecommunications 
industry and the American economy.
  Unfortunately, future progress is being held hostage by a Federal 
agency resistant to change. The telecommunications industry now moves 
on Internet time but is regulated by an FCC that relies on Depression-
era rules and regulations. The FCC is too big, too powerful, and too 
unresponsive to the mandates of the law, congressional intent, and the 
needs of the American consumer.
  Congress thought it deregulated the telecommunications industry 4 
years ago, and to a large extent we did. What we didn't know was the 
extent to which the FCC would subvert congressional intent and 
implement its own agenda. The prologue of the 1996 act states that its 
goal is to reduce regulation. What we now know is that the only way to 
do so is to sharply curtail the power of the FCC.

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