[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 11098]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         IN SUPPORT OF H.R. 850

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 13, 2006

  Mr. JOHNSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, in the course of my excused 
absence from official duties on Thursday, June 8, 2006, I regrettably 
missed the vote on the question of consideration of H. Res. 850, 
providing for consideration of the bill H.R. 5252, the Communications 
Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006. A point of order 
arose on the grounds that the bill included unfunded mandates as 
defined by the Congressional Budget Office, CBO.
  It was argued that based on supposed intergovernmental mandates 
identified by CBO, the threshold required under the rule for 
identifying the unfunded mandate had been met, and thus was subject to 
a point of order. CBO stated that in implementation of the COPE Act, 
new entrants along with incumbent cable providers, while engaged in a 
national franchise as proposed by the bill would be required to pay 
each franchise authority six percent of their gross revenues as a fee 
to support use of local rights-of-way and local Public Education 
Government channels. This payment was seen as an unfunded mandate.
  However, under all franchise agreements across the country, companies 
are required to pay this type of fee in some form. It is not something 
newly mandated. I believe that the bill merely continues, and in most 
estimates, could exceed, the current flow of money from cable providers 
to local franchise authorities. In doing this, I believe the bill's 
authors intended to make sure that cities would not lose revenue they 
counted on from local franchise agreements, and I fully support that 
cause.
  Due to this, I would have supported the opportunity to consider H.R. 
5252, so that a true debate could continue on the underlying provisions 
of the bill.

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