[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 96 (Tuesday, July 13, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8035-S8037]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. McCAIN:
  S. 2645. A bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to authorize 
appropriations for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Public 
Broadcasting Reauthorization Act of 2004. This legislation is designed 
to reauthorize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB or ``the 
Corporation'') through 2011 to carry forth its mission to support the 
Nation's public broadcasting system. This private, non-profit 
corporation has not been reauthorized since 1996.
  In 1967, Congress created the Corporation, declaring, ``It is in the 
public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio 
and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for 
instructional, educational and cultural purposes.'' Today, the primary 
function of the CPB is to receive and distribute governmental funds to 
stations, develop national programming, and maintain universal access 
to public broadcasting's educational programs and services through 356 
public television stations and almost 800 public radio stations.
  In addition to authorizing the Corporation, the bill would explicitly 
provide public broadcast stations the ability to use CPB funds to 
produce local programming. An April 2004 General Accounting Office 
(GAO) report noted that 79 percent of the public television stations 
surveyed found that the amount of local programming they currently 
produce is not sufficient to meet local community needs. Eighty-five 
percent of the stations surveyed stated that they do not have adequate 
funds for local programming or that they would produce more local 
programming if they could obtain additional sources of funding. The 
bill would provide the Corporation the explicit authority to award 
grants for the production and acquisition of local programming and 
allow stations to use CPB funds supporting the digital transition to 
produce local digital programming.
  Furthermore, the bill would expand the definition of public 
telecommunications services to capture the services public broadcasters 
are now providing through their web sites and through digital 
multicasting. The bill would also allow CPB to recoup some federal 
funds provided to a public broadcast station if the broadcaster sells 
the station to an entity that does not offer public broadcasting 
services.
  Reauthorization would allow the CPB to continue carrying out its many 
responsibilities. I look forward to working with my colleagues to 
expeditiously move this measure through the legislative process.
  Today the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 
held a hearing on public broadcasting. Mr. Ken Burns, a filmmaker, 
spoke eloquently at the hearing on the benefits public broadcasting 
provides to local communities. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 
that Mr. Burns' testimony and the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                S. 2645

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Public Broadcasting 
     Reauthorization Act of 2004''.

     SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       (a) Corporation for Public Broadcasting.--Section 396(k)(1) 
     of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 396(k)(1)) is 
     amended by striking subparagraphs (B) through (F) and 
     inserting the following:
       ``(B) There is authorized to be appropriated to the Fund, 
     for each of the fiscal years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, 
     an amount equal to 40 percent of the total amount of non-
     Federal financial support received by public broadcasting 
     entities during the second fiscal year preceding each such 
     fiscal year, except that the amount so appropriated shall not 
     exceed--
       ``(i) $416,000,000 for fiscal year 2007;
       ``(ii) $432,000,000 for fiscal year 2008;
       ``(iii) $450,000,000 for fiscal year 2009;
       ``(iv) $468,000,000 for fiscal year 2010; and
       ``(v) $487,000,000 for fiscal year 2011.
       ``(C) In addition to any amounts authorized under any other 
     provision of this or any other Act, there are authorized to 
     be appropriated to the Fund, (notwithstanding any other 
     provision of this subsection) specifically for transition 
     from the use of analog to digital technology for the 
     provision of public telecommunications services and for the 
     acquisition or production of digital programming of local, 
     regional, and national interest--
       ``(i) $50,000,000 for fiscal year 2005;
       ``(ii) $50,000,000 for fiscal year 2006;
       ``(iii) $40,000,000 for fiscal year 2007;
       ``(iv) $30,000,000 for fiscal year 2008; and
       ``(v) $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2009.
       ``(D) Funds appropriated under this subsection shall remain 
     available until expended and shall be disbursed by the 
     Secretary of the Treasury for obligation and expenditure as 
     soon after appropriation as practicable. The Corporation 
     shall distribute funds authorized by subparagraph (C) and 
     allocated to public broadcast stations under this subsection 
     as expeditiously as practicable when made available by the 
     Secretary of the Treasury, and in a manner that is 
     determined, in consultation with public radio and television 
     licensees or permittees and their designated 
     representatives.''.
       (b) Public Broadcasting Interconnection System.--Section 
     396(k)(10) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 
     396(k)(10)) is amended by striking subparagraphs (B) and (C) 
     and inserting the following:
       ``(B) There are authorized to be appropriated to the 
     Satellite Interconnection Fund $250,000,000 for fiscal year 
     2005. If the amount appropriated to the Satellite 
     Interconnection Fund for fiscal year 2005 is less than 
     $250,000,000, the amount by which that sum exceeds the amount 
     appropriated is authorized to be appropriated for fiscal 
     years 2006 through 2008 until the full $250,000,000 has been 
     appropriated to the Fund. Funds appropriated to the Satellite 
     Interconnection Fund shall remain available until expended.
       ``(C) The Secretary of the Treasury shall make available 
     and disburse to the Corporation, at the beginning of fiscal 
     year 2005 and of each succeeding fiscal year thereafter, such 
     funds as have been appropriated to the Satellite 
     Interconnection Fund for the fiscal year in which such 
     disbursement is to be made.''.
       (c) Public Telecommunications Facilities Program Grants.--
     Section 391 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 391) 
     is amended--
       (1) by striking ``$42,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 
     1992, 1993, and 1994,'' and inserting ``$50,000,000 for 
     fiscal year 2005, $52,000,000 for fiscal year 2006, 
     $54,008,000 for fiscal year 2007, $56,240,000 for fiscal year 
     2008, $58,490,000 for fiscal year 2009, $60,820,000 for 
     fiscal year 2010, and $63,250,000 for fiscal year 2011,''; 
     and
       (2) by striking ``facilities'' each place it occurs and 
     inserting ``facilities, including analog and digital 
     broadcast facilities and equipment,''.

     SEC. 3. RECOUPMENT OF FUNDS BY CORPORATION.

       Section 396(k) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 
     396(k)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(13) Funds may not be distributed pursuant to this 
     section to any public broadcast station unless it agrees 
     that, upon request by the Corporation, at such time as it 
     ceases to provide public telecommunications services or 
     transfers or assigns its broadcast license or permit to an 
     entity that will not provide public telecommunications 
     services (as defined in section 397(14) of this Act), it 
     will--
       ``(A) return any or all unexpended funds for all grants 
     made by the Corporation; and
       ``(B) with respect to grants made by the Corporation during 
     the prior 5 years for the purchase or construction of public 
     telecommunications facilities, return an amount that is no 
     more than an amount bearing the same ratio to the current 
     value of such facilities at the time of cessation of public 
     telecommunications service as the ratio that

[[Page S8036]]

     the Corporation's contribution bore to the total cost of 
     purchasing or constructing such facilities.''.

     SEC. 4. REDEFINITION OF PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES TO 
                   INCLUDE NEW TECHNOLOGIES.

       (a) Transition and Programming Authorization.--Section 
     396(k)(1)(C) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 
     396(k)(1)(C)), as amended by section 2(a) of this Act, is 
     further amended by striking ``public broadcasting services,'' 
     and inserting ``public telecommunications services,''.
       (b) Public Telecommunications Services To Include New 
     Technologies.--Section 397(14) of the Communications Act of 
     1934 (47 U.S.C 397(14)) is amended to read as follows:
       ``(14) The term `public telecommunications services' means 
     noncommercial educational and cultural--
       ``(A) radio and television programming or other content; 
     and
       ``(B) instructional or informational material (including 
     data) transmitted electronically.''.

     SEC. 5. LOCAL CONTENT, PROGRAMMING, AND SERVICES.

       Section 396(k)(7) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 
     U.S.C. 396(k)(7)) is amended by striking ``to the production 
     and acquisition of programming.'' and inserting ``to the 
     support of content, programming, and services, especially 
     those that serve the needs and interests of the recipient's 
     local community.''.

       Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: It is an honor 
     for me to appear before you today on behalf of PBS. I am 
     grateful that you have given me this opportunity to express 
     my thoughts. Let me say from the outset--as a film producer 
     and as a father of two daughters increasingly concerned about 
     the sometimes dangerous landscape of our television 
     environment--that I am a passionate, life-long supporter of 
     public television and its unique role in helping to stitch 
     our exquisite, diverse, and often fragile culture together.
       Few institutions provide such a direct, grassroots way for 
     our citizens to participate in the shared glories of their 
     common past, in the power of the priceless ideals that have 
     animated our remarkable republic and our national life for 
     more than two hundred years, and in the inspirational life of 
     the mind and the heart that an engagement with the arts 
     always provides. It is my wholehearted belief that anything 
     that threatens this institution weakens our country. It is as 
     simple as that.
       For more than 25 years I have been producing historical 
     documentary films, celebrating the special messages American 
     history continually directs our way. The subjects of these 
     films range from the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and 
     the Statue of Liberty to the life of the turbulent demagogue 
     Huey Long; from the graceful architecture of the Shakers to 
     the early founders of radio; from the sublime pleasures and 
     unexpected lessons of our national pastime and Jazz to the 
     searing transcendent experience of our Civil War; from Thomas 
     Jefferson and Lewis and Clark to Frank Lloyd Wright, 
     Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mark Twain. I even made a film on 
     the history of this magnificent Capitol building and the much 
     maligned institution that is charged with conducting the 
     people's business.
       In every instance, I consciously produced these films for 
     national public television broadcast, not the commercial 
     networks or cable.
       As an educational filmmaker, I am grateful to play even a 
     small part in an underfunded broadcasting entity with one 
     foot tenuously in the marketplace and the other decidedly and 
     proudly out, which, among dozens of fabulously wealthy 
     networks, just happens to produce--on shoestring budgets--the 
     best news and public affairs programming on television, the 
     best science and nature programming on television, the best 
     arts on television, the best children's shows on television, 
     and, some say, the best history on television.
       When I was working more than 15 years ago on my film about 
     the Statue of Liberty, its history and powerful symbolism, I 
     had the great good fortune to meet and interview Vartan 
     Gregorian, who was then the president of the New York Public 
     Library. After an extremely interesting and passionate 
     interview on the meaning behind the statue for an immigrant 
     like him--from Tabriz, Iran--Vartan took me on a long and 
     fascinating tour of the miles of stacks of the Library. 
     Finally, after galloping down one claustrophobic corridor 
     after another, he stopped and gestured expansively. ``This,'' 
     he said, surveying his library from its guts, ``this is the 
     DNA of our civilization.''
       I think he was saying that that library, indeed, all 
     libraries, archives, and historical societies are the DNA of 
     our society, leaving an imprint of excellence and intention 
     for generations to come. It occurs to me this morning, as we 
     consider the rich history of service and education of PBS, 
     that we must certainly include this great institution in that 
     list of the DNA of our civilization. That public television 
     is part of the great genetic legacy of our Nation. And 
     that cannot, should not, be denied us or our posterity.
       PBS has consistently provided, with its modest resources, 
     and over more than three tumultuous decades, quite simply an 
     antidote to the vast wasteland of television programming 
     Newton Minnow so accurately described. We do things 
     differently. We are hardly a ``disappearing niche,'' as some 
     suggest, but a vibrant, galvanic force capable of sustaining 
     this experiment well into our uncertain future.
       Some critics say that PBS is no longer needed in this 
     multi-channel universe, that our government has no business 
     in television or the arts and humanities, that we must let 
     the marketplace alone determine everything in our cultural 
     life, that a few controversial programs prove the political 
     bias of the public television community. I feel strongly that 
     I must address those assertions.
       First let me share a few facts that might surprise you: As 
     a result of media consolidation, public stations are 
     frequently the last and only locally owned media operations 
     in their markets. Despite the exponential growth of 
     television options, 84 million people a week watch PBS--more 
     than any cable outlet. It is the number one choice of video 
     curriculum in the classroom and its non-violent, non-
     commercial children's programs are the number one choice of 
     parents. Indeed, as commercial television continues in its 
     race to the bottom for ratings, PBS has earned the Nation's 
     trust to deliver programs that both entertain and educate and 
     that do so in a manner that the public consistently rates as 
     balanced and objective.
       But above and beyond these facts that demonstrate the ways 
     in which PBS is more important than ever in helping to 
     address the public's needs today, there is a larger argument 
     to be made--one that is rooted in our Nation's history.
       Since the beginning of this country, our government has 
     been involved in supporting the arts and the diffusion of 
     knowledge, which was deemed as critical to our future as 
     roads and dams and bridges. Early on, Thomas Jefferson and 
     the other founding fathers knew that the pursuit of happiness 
     did not mean a hedonistic search for pleasure in the 
     marketplace of things, but an active involvement of the mind 
     in the higher aspects of human endeavor--namely education, 
     music, the arts, and history--a marketplace of ideas. 
     Congress supported the journey of Lewis and Clark as much to 
     explore the natural, biological, ethnographic, and cultural 
     landscape of our expanding Nation as to open up a new trading 
     route to the Pacific. Congress supported numerous 
     geographical, artistic, photographic, and biological 
     expeditions to nearly every corner of the developing West. 
     Congress funded, through the Farm Securities Administration, 
     the work of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange and other great 
     photographers who captured for posterity the terrible human 
     cost of the Depression. At the same time, Congress funded 
     some of the most enduring writing ever produced about this 
     country's people, its monuments, buildings, and back roads in 
     the still much used and admired WPA guides. Some of our 
     greatest symphonic work, our most treasured dramatic plays, 
     and early documentary film classics came from an earlier 
     Congress' support.
       With Congress' great insight PBS was born and grew to its 
     startlingly effective maturity echoing the same time-honored 
     sense that our Government has an interest in helping to 
     sponsor Communication, Art and Education just as it sponsors 
     Commerce. We are not talking about a 100 percent sponsorship, 
     a free ride, but a priming of the pump, a way to get the 
     juices flowing, in the spirit of President Reagan's notion of 
     a partnership between the government and the private sector. 
     The Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant I got for the 
     Civil War series attracted even more funds from General 
     Motors and several private foundations; money that would not 
     have been there had not the Corporation for Public 
     Broadcasting blessed this project with their rigorously 
     earned imprimatur.
       But there are those who are sure that without public 
     television, the so- called ``marketplace'' would take care of 
     everything; that what won't survive in the marketplace, 
     doesn't deserve to survive. Nothing could be further from the 
     truth. Because we are not just talking about the commerce of 
     a Nation. We are not just economic beings, but spiritual and 
     intellectual beings as well, and so we are talking about the 
     creativity of a Nation. Now, some forms of creativity thrive 
     in the marketplace and that is a wonderful thing, reflected 
     in our Hollywood movies and our universally popular music. 
     But let me say that the marketplace could not have made and 
     to this day could not make my Civil War series, indeed any of 
     the films I have worked on.
       That series was shown on public television, outside the 
     marketplace, without commercial interruption, by far the 
     single most important factor for our insuring PBS's 
     continuing existence and for understanding the Civil War 
     series' overwhelming success. All real meaning in our world 
     accrues in duration; that is to say, that which we value the 
     most--our families, our work, the things we build, our art--
     has the stamp of our focused attention. Without that 
     attention, we do not learn, we do not remember, we do not 
     care. We are not responsible citizens. Most of the rest of 
     the television environment has ignored this critical truth. 
     For several generations now, TV has disrupted our attention 
     every eight minutes (or less) to sell us five or six 
     different things, then sent us back, our ability to digest 
     all the impressions compromised in the extreme. The 
     programming on PBS in all its splendid variety, offers the 
     rarest treat amidst the outrageous cacophony of our 
     television marketplace--it gives us back our attention and 
     our memory. And by so doing, insures that we have a future.
       The marketplace will not, indeed cannot, produce the good 
     works of PBS. Just as the

[[Page S8037]]

     marketplace does not come to your house at 3:00 a.m. when it 
     is on fire or patrols the dangerous ground in Afghanistan and 
     Iraq. No, the marketplace does not and will not pay for our 
     fire departments or more important our Defense Department, 
     things essential to the safety, defense and well-being of our 
     country. It takes government involvement, eleemosynary 
     institutions, individual altruism, extra-marketplace effort 
     to get these things made and done. I also know, Mr. Chairman, 
     that PBS has nothing to do with the actual defense of our 
     country, I know that--PBS, I believe with every fiber of my 
     being, just helps make our country worth defending.
       The meat and potatoes of public television reaches out to 
     every corner of the country and touches people in positive 
     ways the Federal Government rarely does. Recent research 
     suggests that PBS is the most trusted national institution in 
     the United States. Indeed, it would be elitist itself to 
     abolish public television, to trust to the marketplace and 
     the ``natural aristocracy'' that many have promised over the 
     last two hundred years would rise up to protect us all--and 
     hasn't. Those who labor in public television are not unlike 
     those in public service who sacrifice job security, 
     commensurate pay, and who are often misunderstood by a media 
     culture infatuated by their seemingly more glamorous 
     colleagues.
       With regard to my own films, I have been quite lucky. The 
     Civil War series was public television's highest rated 
     program and has been described as one of the best programs in 
     the history of the medium. But that show, indeed all of my 
     films produced over the last quarter of a century, are only a 
     small part, a tiny fraction, of the legacy of PBS. If public 
     television's mission is severely hampered or curtailed, I 
     suppose I will find work, but not the kind that ensures good 
     television or speaks to the overarching theme of all my 
     films--that which we Americans all hold in common. But more 
     to the point, where will the next generation of filmmakers be 
     trained? By the difficult rigorous proposal process of CPB 
     and PBS or by the ``gotcha,'' hit and run standards of our 
     commercial brethren? I hope it will be the former.
       The former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt 
     Gingrich spoke eloquently and often of an American people 
     poised for the twenty-first century, endowed with a shared 
     heritage of sacrifice and honor and the highest ideals 
     mankind has yet advanced, but also armed with new 
     technologies that would enable us to go forward as one 
     people. I say to all who would listen that we have in public 
     television exactly what he envisions.
       Unfortunately, some continue to believe that public 
     television is a hot-bed of thinking outside the mainstream. I 
     wonder, though, have they ever been to a PBS station? I doubt 
     it. PBS is the largest media enterprise in the world, 
     reaching into the most remote corners of every state in the 
     Union and enriching the lives of people of all backgrounds. 
     It is also the largest educational institution in the 
     country--because of national and local services that help 
     build school readiness, support schools, provide distance 
     learning, GED prep and essential workplace skills. Local 
     public television stations are essentially conservative 
     institutions, filled with people who share the concerns of 
     most Americans and who reflect the values of their own 
     communities. And Mr. Chairman, I know many people who 
     criticize us as too conservative, too middle of the road, too 
     safe.
       And in a free society, the rare examples of controversy 
     that may run counter to our accepted cannon, or one group's 
     accepted cannon ought to be seen as a healthy sign that we 
     are a nation tolerant of ideas, confident--as the recent tide 
     of geo-political history has shown--that the best ideas will 
     always prevail.
       One hundred and sixty-six years ago, in 1838, well before 
     the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln challenged us to consider the 
     real threat to the country, to consider forever the real cost 
     of our inattention: ``Whence shall we expect the approach of 
     danger?'' he wrote. ``Shall some transatlantic giant step the 
     earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe 
     and Asia could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River 
     or make a track in the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand 
     years. No, if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be 
     its author and finisher.'' As usual, Mr. Lincoln speaks to us 
     today with the same force he spoke to his own times.
       The real threat always and still comes from within this 
     favored land, that the greatest enemy is, as our religious 
     teachings constantly remind us, always ourselves. Today, we 
     have become so dialectically preoccupied, stressing our 
     differences; black/white, left/right, young/old, in/out, 
     good/bad, that we have forgotten to select for the mitigating 
     wisdom that reconciles these disparities into honest 
     difference and collegiality, into a sense of belonging. And 
     we long, indeed ache, for institutions that suggest how we 
     might all be bound back to the whole. PBS is one such 
     institution.
       The clear answer is tolerance, a discipline sustained in 
     nearly every gesture and breath of the public television I 
     know. We are a Nation that loses its way only when we define 
     ourselves by what we are against not what we are for. PBS is 
     that rare forum where more often than not we celebrate what 
     we are for; celebrate, why, against all odds, we Americans 
     still agree to cohere.
       On the other hand, we in public television must not take 
     ourselves too seriously. Sometimes our greatest strength, our 
     earnestness and seriousness, has metastasized into our 
     greatest weakness. Usually a faithful and true companion, 
     that earnestness and seriousness is sometimes worked to 
     death. And Lord, how we sometimes like to see our mission as 
     the cure. I remember once, after giving an impassioned 
     defense of what we do at PBS, a man came up to me and said 
     simply, ``It's not brain surgery, you know.'' He was right, 
     of course, but sometimes we do effect subtler changes; help 
     in quotidian ways.
       Not too long ago, on a perfect spring day, I was walking 
     with my oldest daughter through a park in a large American 
     city on the way to her college interview. We were taking our 
     time, enjoying the first warm day of the year, when a man of 
     about thirty, dressed in a three piece suit, approached me.
       ``You're Ken Burns.'' he asked. I nodded. ``I need to talk 
     to you about Baseball,'' he said under his breath. ``Okay.'' 
     I hesitated. Then, he blurted out: ``My brother's daughter 
     died.'' I took a step backward, stepping in front of my 
     daughter to protect her. ``Okay,'' I said tentatively. I 
     didn't know what else to say. ``SIDS.'' he said. ``Crib 
     death. She was only one.'' ``I'm so sorry,'' I said. ``I have 
     daughters.''
       ``I didn't know what to do,'' he said in a halting, utterly 
     sad voice. ``My brother and I are very close. Then I thought 
     of your film. I went home to our mother's house, got our 
     baseball mitts, and went to my brother's. I didn't say a 
     word. I handed him his mitt and we went out into the backyard 
     and we played catch wordlessly for an hour. Then I went home. 
     . . . I just wanted to thank you.''
       Maybe it is brain surgery.
       Mr. Chairman, most of us here, whether we know it or not, 
     are in the business of words. And we hope with some 
     reasonable expectations that those words will last. But alas, 
     especially today, those words often evaporate, their 
     precision blunted by neglect, their insight diminished by the 
     shear volume of their ever increasing brethren, their force 
     diluted by ancient animosities that seem to set each group 
     against the other.
       The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has said that we 
     suffer today from ``too much pluribus, not enough unum.'' Few 
     things survive in these cynical days to remind us of the 
     Union from which so many of our personal as well as 
     collective blessings flow. And it is hard not to wonder, in 
     an age when the present moment overshadows all else--our 
     bright past and our unknown future-- what finally does 
     endure? What encodes and stores that genetic material of our 
     civilization, passing down to the next generation--the best 
     of us--what we hope will mutate into betterness for our 
     children and our posterity.
       PBS holds one clear answer. It is the best thing we have in 
     our television environment that reminds us why we agree to 
     cohere as a people. And that is a fundamentally good thing.
       Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of 
     continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a 
     vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of 
     home, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does this 
     great system which honors me by counting me a member one of 
     its own.
                                 ______