[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 28424-28425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           A PRODUCTIVE WEEK

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, there will be no votes tomorrow. We have 
announced long since that we would have no votes Monday. We have a lot 
we are going to do Tuesday, the first of which is to complete the work 
on the important Amtrak legislation. There has been great progress made 
on that today.
  I think we have had an interesting week. We may not be happy with the 
results--I say that because some are happy, some are not--but it has 
been a productive week. It has been a week in which, in spite of the 
divisiveness of the issues before us, they have been handled in a very 
collegial way. There have been strong feelings expressed on both sides, 
but it has been done, I think, in a way that brings credit to the 
Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, just briefly, a couple of other 
observations, I would say that I know it is the position of the Senator 
from New Hampshire--of course, he can speak for himself, but it is the 
position of the Senator from New Hampshire, myself, and many others 
that we make this moratorium permanent. I think that still ought to be 
our goal in the future.
  With regard to the week that is now coming to a conclusion, I would 
have to state it has been quite a good week, with a number of 
achievements that are important for the Senate and, in particular, the 
confirmation of Judge Southwick, which was not only important to the 
State of Mississippi but important to this institution, the Senate, in 
terms of how we are going to treat nominees in the future.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, let me add a couple comments with respect 
to the legislation we just passed by unanimous consent.
  The adoption of this legislation comes after a very tough negotiation 
that goes back not just a couple days or a couple weeks or a couple 
months but literally years, almost a decade. In tough negotiations, not 
everyone is happy. But I think the American people basically want us to 
figure out how to get work done. The American people look for us to set 
aside partisan differences, and they want to see some results.
  My hope is, for the most part, they come to understand what we have 
done here tonight and realize the House still has to speak on this 
matter. The American people will, if not applaud the actual results, 
some of which are not easily understood, at least say: Well, on this 
matter, at least, the U.S. Senate figured out how to work together. A 
couple guys from small States got together, along with the help of a 
bunch of others, including Senators Alexander and Enzi and Voinovich. I 
am grateful to them for all their good work on this too.
  I think among the most important results that flow from the adoption 
of this legislation are, No. 1, we preserve the intent in the 1998 
initial Internet moratorium legislation. What we wanted to do in 1998 
was not to allow additional States and additional local governments to 
place a tax on access to the Internet, if you will, a tax on our AOL 
bills. That was part of the 1998 legislation that said for a handful of 
States--nine or so--that were already doing that, they were allowed to 
continue to do so but nobody else could pile on.
  This legislation today makes sure we are not going to be allowing 
additional access taxes or additional taxes by State and local 
governments for access to the Internet. That protects the consumers, 
but it also does it in a way that I think is fair to the States. 
Because 3 years before the 1998 legislation was passed--3 years prior--
in 1995, this same Congress passed legislation saying that the unfunded 
mandates were a bad idea, and that the Federal Government was not going 
to tell State and local governments how to spend their money without 
providing that money, the Federal Government was not going to take away 
the ability of State and local governments to raise money without 
providing for funds to make up for the shortfall.
  What we have done is we have protected the States that are already 
deriving revenues from access taxes on the Internet. We said we are not 
going to allow, as we go forward with new innovations--for, if you 
will, telecom companies, telephone companies--we are not going to allow 
them to bundle services and begin to offer those bundled services--
traditionally taxed by State and local governments, in some cases--and 
ship them over on the Internet to avoid all State and local taxes. So 
the States have spoken loudly: Do not take away our revenue base. We 
have been responsive to that.
  As a Governor for 8 years in my State, and as, at one time, the 
chairman of the National Governors Association, I never liked it when 
the Federal Government came in and said: Spend your money this way or 
that way, without giving us the money. I never liked it when the 
Federal Government came in and said: We are going to take your ability 
to raise money away without providing for the shortfall. I think we are 
consistent here and true to the concerns that have been raised by State 
and local governments on that score.
  The third thing we have done--I sort of alluded to it--the technology 
in this area continues to change dramatically. I like to kid, but I say 
5 years ago I could not even spell VOIP, Voice Over Internet Protocol, 
which basically means sending telephone services over the Internet.
  Actually, 5 years ago, the idea of being able to do that was, I 
think, a gleam in somebody's eye. Today it is common practice. Not only 
that, we have the ability to send something called IPTV, Internet 
Protocol TV, to send television signals over the Internet. In my State, 
we do not necessarily raise our revenues this way. But some places do. 
They raise some of the revenues for educational purposes, for 
paramedics, for fire services, for police services. They raise their 
revenues by taxing telephone services and cable services. It is 
inappropriate for us to come and say: You cannot do that, even as those 
services are somehow transferred and transmitted over the Internet.
  So what we have done, by not making the moratorium permanent, is we 
have made sure we are going to come back and revisit this issue 
somewhere down the line. We say 7 years. The House says 4 years. We 
will have the opportunity and the requirement to come back and revisit 
this issue. If the technology changes--and it will. I can tell you one 
thing for sure, the technology that is in place today is not going to 
be same in 4, 5, 6, 7 years, just as it was not 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 years 
ago. It has continued to change. By virtue

[[Page 28425]]

of this legislation, we will be better prepared for that change.
  Again, I close with this: When I talk to people in our State, and in 
other States as well, when I hear about the low regard people have for 
the Congress and, frankly, for the administration--but we will stick 
with us right now--one of the things that people are most unhappy about 
is our seeming inability to work together, to hang in there, until we 
have been able to carve out, find a middle ground that is responsive to 
the concerns of most people. We have done that. It has not been easy, 
but we have been persistent, and I think ultimately--at least tonight, 
today--successful.
  I am pleased to have been a part of this effort and to have had a 
chance to work with our Senators Alexander, Stevens, Inouye, McCain, 
and Senator Sununu.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to stand up 
tonight, after Senator Carper, which is very appropriate, to talk about 
this success. The Senator from Delaware has described, I think very 
clearly, the strength of this legislation, the value of the 
legislation, and the importance of the legislation.
  We really do have a responsibility to act in our role as a Congress 
to prevent Internet access taxes. Because this is a national--and, in 
fact, global--communications network. It is a national and global 
network for commerce and business as well. That is our responsibility 
under the Constitution to make sure there are not unnecessary, undue 
burdens on interstate commerce and trade.
  So what we have done tonight is to take legislation that was passed 
in the House and really improve it dramatically. Senator McConnell 
indicated we have nearly doubled the length. We added clarification 
language as to what could and could not be taxed, and how the 
grandfathered States that were taxing prior to 1998 would be treated.
  We also added explicit language to make sure that Internet services, 
such as e-mail and instant messaging, could not be taxed. This is an 
important issue for me and many others, particularly Senator Wyden from 
Oregon, who spoke about it today on the floor of the Senate.
  It is important that consumers know that Internet access is not going 
to be taxed, first and foremost, because taxes raise the price of 
something. I do not think Congress wants to be in the position of 
allowing the price and the cost of Internet access for every consumer 
in America to go up. We do not want to be in the position of raising 
the cost of Internet access as well because it would affect the pace of 
investments and the incentives to make investments.
  Anytime you tax something, you are going to get less of it. This ban 
on Internet taxes is extremely important. I would like to make the ban 
permanent. I think the time has come to make it permanent. After 
passing it in 1998, and extending it in 2001 and 2004, to look at yet 
another short-term extension does not seem to make as much sense to me 
as making the ban on access taxes permanent. But at the same time, we 
need to recognize that a 7-year extension is the longest extension we 
have ever had, and that alone I think should make us very proud of the 
work that was done, and it was bipartisan.
  A lot of members of the Commerce Committee worked very hard on this 
issue. Senator Carper certainly spent a lot of time on this issue. We 
haven't always agreed on every aspect of the legislation, but we can 
agree, and we have agreed, on this 7-year extension tonight.
  I do want to make special mention of Senator Inouye, one of the 
Senators who was mentioned earlier as well. He is the chairman of the 
Commerce Committee. It was very frustrating to me that we never had a 
chance to vote on this legislation in the Commerce Committee, but he 
and his staff didn't stop working on the issue, and they put in a 
tremendous effort today to work through all of the details that are 
required. Even if it only takes the Senate 32 seconds to make a 
unanimous consent request to pass the final product, that 32 seconds 
has behind it hours and hours of work by many Members of the Senate and 
many more staff members. So I appreciate Senator Inouye's work and the 
work of the staff as well.
  I am pleased we are sending this to the House tonight, but also 
pleased to note that we are doing it before the expiration of the 
current moratorium. The last extension was passed in 2004 and expires 
on November 1, or next Thursday. It is not that often, unfortunately, 
that Congress does something in a fairly timely way. So to pass this 
legislation tonight in advance of that expiration date adds a little 
bit more satisfaction, knowing we did the right thing, and that we did 
it on time. I am pleased to support the legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, let me take one more minute on this 
subject to also extend my thanks and compliments to our staffs. On my 
staff, Bill Ghent and Chris Prendergast worked long and hard for many 
hours. Our Commerce Committee staff, both Democrat and Republican, did 
a terrific job under the leadership of Senator Inouye, and we are 
deeply grateful to him and to Senator Stevens' staff for the wonderful 
work they did. The Commerce staff works in a way I wish every committee 
staff and subcommittee staff would--Democrat, Republican, majority, 
minority--it is almost seamless the way they approach almost every 
issue, including this one. I think one of the things that happens when 
you work like that is you get something done. While it is not unanimous 
acclaim for what we have done here, I think for the most part it is 
good work.
  If we live to see what happens over in the House, hopefully we will 
be able to resolve our differences with them.

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