[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 16478]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     DTV TRANSITION ASSISTANCE ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 24, 2008

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I wish to express my strong support for 
the passage of S. 2607, the DTV Transition Assistance Act, which will 
aid rural communities by ensuring that low power translators get the 
funding needed for digital equipment upgrades. This bipartisan 
legislation is critical to rural Americans that rely on over the air 
broadcast television as their main conduit to entertainment, news and 
even lifesaving information in emergency situations. That is why I 
joined with Representatives Walden and Boucher, the Co-Chairs of the 
DTV Caucus, in introducing similar legislation.
   Under current law, $65 million has been set aside for the upgrade of 
low powered translators for the DTV transition. In Oregon alone there 
are over 400 stations that broadcast over these low powered 
translators. While this money has been set aside to assist in upgrading 
these translators, the wording of the statute did not allow the money 
to be spent until September of 2010, almost 2 years after the 
transition. This bill would make these funds available on the day of 
the transition in February of 2009. It would also give the NTIA the 
authority to use leftover funds from section 3008 of the Digital 
Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 for grants, 
contracts, and assistance programs to assist seniors, rural residents, 
and minorities.
   The Digital Television transition is the most sweeping and 
fundamental change to the television landscape since the advent of 
color. The advent of color television however, did not require millions 
of Americans to buy a new television or converter box or risk losing 
their picture. That fact alone makes the transition to digital 
television in February of 2009 a tectonic shift in broadcast 
television.
   While this bill is an important fix, many problems still remain. The 
auctioning off of the newly available spectrum being vacated due to the 
digital transition has made the government over $19 billion. Despite 
this massive collection of funds, the government has only allocated $5 
million to educate the public about the transition, which is less than 
0.03 percent of the $19 billion in revenue from the auction. The 
results have been as obvious as they have been preventable. A December 
2007 survey by Consumer Reports found that 36 percent of respondents 
were completely unaware of the transition. How can we tell our 
constituents that we did everything we could when we spent next to 
nothing on educating them about the transition?
   Instead the Bush Administration has privatized the outreach aspect 
of the transition, relying on private industry to inform viewers. The 
results have led to a jumble of different messages from different 
industries, all looking to benefit from the transition. There are 
examples of public service announcements supposedly made to inform 
consumers about the transition instead being thinly veiled 
advertisements for their own products.
   The problems do not stop there. With only a 90 day window to buy 
convertor boxes before their coupons expire, many rural customers are 
finding that many stores either do not carry any convertor boxes or 
they are not carrying a pass through capable converter box that the 
customer will need in order to get all of their channels. These 
customers should not be penalized because of where they live.
   Madam Speaker, this bill is an important step but it is only a step. 
We must do more to ensure that when Americans wake up on February 17th 
2009, they are not left in the dark.

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