[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 532-533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            UPCOMING AGENDA

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, this morning we are continuing to negotiate 
the reorganization of the responsibilities in this Senate. Those folks 
who observe the Senate and the goings on on the floor probably think 
there is not a whole lot going on, but it is kind of like a duck. He 
looks pretty calm and serene on top of the water, but under the water 
there is a lot of paddling going on.
  As we work our way through this, it is hopeful we will come up with 
some kind of an agreement in the near future.
  That being said, this morning we announced our agenda for the 
upcoming session as far as the Subcommittee on Telecommunications. I 
will share with my colleagues how these issues will rank and their 
importance. Last year, we passed a ``can spam'' bill out of committee. 
The bill came to the floor at the tail end of the session and was up 
for consideration in a package with a lot of other legislation, but it 
did not make it. It is broadly supported by this body. There is a 
similar bill in the House of Representatives which has to do with spam.
  Spam is the unwanted mail that one gets in e-mail. Whenever one 
clicks on their e-mail, they see a lot of unwanted messages that are 
selling everything from shoelaces to whatever. This unwanted mail 
continues not only to plague our system and clog it, but in rural 
areas, especially like my State of Montana where some Internet users 
actually have to pay long distance fees to their server, it becomes 
quite expensive. In fact, American business is reporting that the cost 
of spam right now is going out of sight.
  Before Christmas of last year, it was thought that around 8 percent 
of the mail a person received in their Internet was unwanted mail or 
spam. By December of 2002, just before Christmas, that figure grew to 
40 percent of the mail a person found in their mailbox was unwanted. 
Another figure that sort of astounds all of us, it was estimated the 
average user of the Internet receives 2,300 pieces of unwanted mail in 
their mailbox.
  Spam messages sent increased nearly 300 percent between the years of 
2001 and 2002. This tells me it is time we pass this legislation and 
get it to the desk of the President. Junk mail sent will outpace other 
e-mail by at least the middle of this year, and 80 percent of the 
people online now say they find spamming very annoying.
  That being said, we must pass this legislation. It is the first 
agenda item on my priority list, and we can do it.
  I also remind Members, there are a couple of important meetings 
coming up this month and next that have to do with the Internet. 
February 12 is the Internet caucus. It is probably the most active 
caucus we have in the Senate. I am being told now some folks want to 
set up demonstrating units and vendors have to be turned away. That 
will be held in 902 of the Hart Building on February 12, starting at 5 
p.m. It will be highly attended. I think we had a larger number of 
people at the planning meeting the other day than was anticipated, so 
there is quite a lot of interest in that.
  The U.S. Asian Network kickoff will be January 27. Of course, that is 
just prior to the President's State of the Union Message that will be 
on January 28.
  The head of the ruling party, Mr. Hyun of South Korea, will be there. 
He is part of that network. This was founded about a year ago to bring 
together the countries in the Pacific Rim and the Far East, because we 
feel the free flow of communications and technologies is a key to 
stability in the Far East. We are in this situation now with North 
Korea, and we feel the free flow of information and those technologies 
will somewhat diffuse that if people are informed. It will also address 
key areas such as privacy and copyright. All of those issues are very 
important to the communications industry.
  A new caucus that was formed last year was the E-911 caucus. E-911 is 
enhanced 911, which is legislation that passed 2 or 3 years ago and was 
signed by President Clinton. I sponsored that bill, which was probably 
one of the better public safety bills we passed in Congress.
  When a person has an emergency and dials 911 from their home, from a 
wired line, the one who fields that call has an immediate trace on that 
call and they know exactly where the person is when they report an 
emergency.
  In the early days--and when I say early days, let's say around 1996 
or so--if someone was a cellular phone user, using wireless 
communications, they could dial 911 and the person at 911 who received 
the call really did not know where to go. A person was liable to get 
the 600 Cafe in Miles City, MT, and they might be in southern 
California. It just did not know where to take someone who called 911.
  We have dealt with that issue, making 911 the national emergency 
number, No. 1. No. 2, we want to put in place those technologies that 
when a person dials 911 from their cellular phone, they have the 
ability to be located.
  In my State of Montana, under certain emergency conditions, we lose 
lives because we have to deal with distances, and also we do not know 
where a person is located. To give an example of that, there was a man 
involved in an automobile accident. He was south of Missoula, MT, which 
is over in the western part of the State, in the Bitterroot Valley. 
When he dialed 911, his call came into a communications center. When 
they asked him where he was, he said he was south of town. The 
operator, we are happy to say, said: What town? He says, Missoula.
  Well, he had the operator in Miles City, and those two cities are 400 
miles apart.
  So working with Senator Clinton of New York, the cochair of the E-911 
caucus, we will have our first meeting on February 24. Any Member 
wanting to join that caucus because of their interest in 911, please 
join us to get this technology in place because it is superb 
legislation that helps us in our public safety.

[[Page 533]]

  This year, Members can also look for the debate to start on spectrum 
reform: How we handle our spectrum, how we allocate it, how we regulate 
it. It has been a long time since we have looked at spectrum allocation 
and management. There has been an agreement now between the Consumer 
Electronics Association and the television people that will advance or 
accelerate the deployment of high-definition television, or digital 
television, in the home. It was an industry problem they had to face. 
They faced it. The standards are now set in the private sector. The 
``plug in and play,'' as they call it, of buying a digital television, 
plugging into the cable, and it works, and the customer will have 
digital television or high-definition television immediately should 
bring down the cost to the consumers as more and more digital 
televisions are offered.
  We will have spectrum returned to the Government for reallocation. 
How we handle that spectrum, how we manage it, will be very important. 
There are a couple of studies completed and one more to complete. Mark 
my word, this will be an issue of high debate, although it will not be 
a front-page issue.
  Yesterday, Senator Baucus, my colleague from Montana, and I 
introduced a new broadband bill. Last year, I was privileged to work 
with Senator Rockefeller on the Commerce Committee as he had written a 
bill giving tax credit to those entities wanting to build out broadband 
technology, even in rural areas. In that bill, we used tax credit as an 
incentive. This differs a bit. I appreciate the efforts of my colleague 
from Montana in his position on the Finance Committee. This allows 50 
percent expensing on the buildout expenses the first year and then 
would be spread over the full years of depreciation the 50 percent 
balance. In other words, all investments in the buildout of broadband 
technology can be expensed.
  I urge my colleagues to look at this piece of legislation as it moves 
through the Congress. It is the key of the deployment of broadband 
technologies to every corner of the United States and availability to 
all consumers.
  In rural areas, we are doing things differently in two different 
categories. One of them is rural health. Broadband technology becomes 
very important. In fact, it is the cornerstone of telemedicine and how 
we serve our aging population in rural areas. I have 13 or 14 counties 
that have no doctors at all. They are being administered to by 
physician assistants and nurses. The ability of telemedicine to 
diagnose and to serve those people in rural areas becomes very 
important.
  Also, in the area of education is distance learning. A small school 
located on the prairies of eastern Montana should have the same 
learning opportunities as young people attending schools in a more 
urbanized area. Also, in the inner city where tax bases have been 
eroded, the quality of school has slipped, those young people attending 
school should be afforded the same learning opportunities.
  We must look at ICANN, the organization that assigns names and areas 
of the Internet. That has to be reformed. I heard when I was home over 
the holidays about wireless privacy. By 2005, it is estimated there 
will be over 250 million users of cellular telephones. Not only does 
this cause a backbreaking demand for spectrum, but it cries for 
privacy. Now there are scanners being developed with which people can 
eavesdrop on your telephone conversation from a wireless phone. That is 
unacceptable. It is unacceptable to the American people and to me.
  Regarding online privacy, we worked closely with Senator Hollings in 
his privacy bill which we passed out of committee. It should be passed 
by this body.
  Last but not least, we should look at universal service and reform. 
Universal service is that pot of money that allows companies to put 
telephones and communication devices into areas where they have very 
high expenses. It should be known to the consumer and also to the 
ratepayer how this is done. We also know that the fund is going down 
because of collections. I support strongly universal service. Of course 
it needs reforming. That will be on our agenda as we move through the 
year.
  That should bring my colleagues up on our agenda in the Commerce 
Committee. I am happy to say the Presiding Officer has been 
instrumental in moving good communications legislation in the House. We 
welcome him to the Senate. We also welcome him to the Commerce 
Committee. I hope he will take a look at the Subcommittee on 
Communications. His talents will be beneficial to that committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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