J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I have viewed the amendment and the company documents and listened to the Senator from Maine. I must say, he is entirely consistent with what this legislation, at its best, proves in a couple of ways. We will have the opportunity to discuss and debate this later. It says that if consumers have a competitive choice--and by that, I mean that if I do not like what I got, I go someplace else. The distinguished occupant of the chair has been in business and understands what choice is. If you have a product that your customer wants to buy, your customer buys it. If you do not, if the price or quality is wrong, he goes somewhere else. And in that kind of environment it tends to focus the mind. It tends to say to you, ``I better figure it out and give that customer the right price.'' The customer says to me, ``I do not like black, I like blue, and if you do not give me blue, I will go down the road here where they are manufacturing it in blue.'' That is the kind of competitive choice that produces the kind of quality and the kind of choices that in fact we have seen in other sectors of our economy and that we are trying to do with this particular piece of legislation. I understand the opposition to it. I understand certain sectors of the industry are worried about what is going to happen in a competitive environment. But let us not say to our citizens, as we are going through this debate as we are, that we are going to try to use competition to give you something that you currently do not have right now and then kind of pull back, which is what we would do if we do not accept this amendment, in my judgment. I understand there are some concerns about what sort of impact this might have upon rural cable or smaller cable operators. I am prepared to surface that kind of concern. We just did that, in fact, with the Snowe-Rockefeller amendment in education. [[Page S7995]] If you have a particular problem where somebody is not able to survive, if you can make a good case where there ought to be some direct subsidy to enable them to survive, let us do it. But let us not take the entire sector, this piece of the electronics market, and shut down development of it, which in my judgment we are about to do unless we allow competitive choice to occur as we again are trying to produce a piece of legislation that pretends to be in favor of competition as a way to make the U.S. economy and this sector of our economy not only more productive but satisfy the needs of the consumers at the other end. As I said in some earlier comments--and I will try not to run beyond my 10 minutes; you can hammer me down when I have gotten to the end point--on previous occasions, this piece of legislation we are considering, S. 652, is not a small bill. It is a big bill. It is going to have a major impact on every household in America. From my experience with the divestiture in 1984, I remember for the first 2 or 3 years people were not happy. They were upset. They did not like all the choice. They were confused about it. We have to make sure, if there is a philosophy here that we believe will produce lower prices and higher quality, we have to be sure we will stick with it. But if we do not stick with it, what is going to happen is you are going to continue to have artificial separations that make it difficult for those entrepreneurs to come to our households and say, ``I am prepared to sell you a packaged service. Here is my price and what I will give you. And if you do not like it, there are lots of other people who will come here and try to nail down your business.'' That is the environment we are trying to create, and if we do not create it, consumers will say to us, our citizens will say to us as consumers, that we have gotten a good deal out of this thing. It has been good for us. If we preserve any sort of monopoly out of concern, ``I am not sure what is going to happen here, maybe I better hedge my bet a little bit,'' it seems to me we are going to find ourselves wondering why we supported this legislation. I make it clear, even with this amendment adopted, I need to have some additional changes in this before this bill is going to get my support. But this particular amendment is entirely consistent with what I think this legislation needs to do before we enact it.

Mr. KERREY. I object.

Mr. KERREY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. KERREY. I appreciate that. What I would propose is that I make my statement. We have been led to believe there are a couple of other people who would like to speak, but if they do not make it down to the floor by that [[Page S7985]] time, we might be able to set a time relatively quickly after I get done talking. I just do not know whether there will be other Members actually getting down, having said they are coming. Senator McCain asked earlier. I said it could be 6 or it could be 8. I think we pretty well heard most of the arguments on this particular proposal.

Mr. KERREY. I object to that.

Mr. KERREY. Before the Senator from Montana leaves, I appreciate the statement. I must say, Mr. President, I appreciate very much that Senator from Montana included a couple sections of language in this legislation on my behalf, section 304. It does deal with education. We added elementary and secondary schools for advanced telecommunications incentives. That is the connection. That is the fiber that would go to the school. It does not cover affordable rates and does not get some of the other things section 10 does, but last year when S. 1822 passed, the vote was 18-2. The Senator from Oregon, Senator Packwood, and the Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, voted against it, but last year section 104 that the Senator from Montana supported did provide preferential rates. Section 104 says the purpose of this provision--a new provision of the 1934 act to provide for public access actually much broader than what 310 does: disseminate noncommercial, educational, cultural, civic, and charitable, so the public has access to telecommunications network--the purpose of this provision is to ensure that these entities may be able to obtain, at preferential rates, advance services and functionalities for all their communication needs. The chairman of the committee voted for it last year--last year's ranking member, this year's chairman. All members of the committee, not just Republicans, but all members of the committee, voted for that last year with the exception of the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Oregon. I know there is a good explanation as to what happened between last year and this, but last year, preferential rates were part of the bill, and this year they are some kind of a slippery slope.

Mr. KERREY. The Senator has included S. 1822, some special comments that indicate which provisions of S. 1822 he did not particularly like, and I have read that and I do not find any objection to providing the preferential rates to the various institutions. My focus is the K-through-12 institutions.

Mr. KERREY. Those Members concerned about higher rates, I point out that the managers' amendment, that I am quite sure will be accepted, has some changes that allows for universal funding to be used to provide these preferential rates, which avoids the necessity for any kind of concern for rate increase. Again, I close briefly, the Senator from Maine was kind earlier to vitiate a tabling motion. I am prepared to end this in this debate. I say in summary, for me, we are making progress out there right now in States precisely because we have an opportunity to negotiate with telephone companies because they are trying to move from a rate-based system of regulation to a price cap system. This legislation takes away that leverage by saying that all States will move to price cap regulation. The progress we see being made out there will stop. This piece of legislation with section 310 intact, this particular section intact, will give every single Member [[Page S7990]] who votes to retain this section in there, I guarantee, an awful lot of pride. I promise, from personal experience and visiting schools that are using computer technology, those schools that use this provision--and they will, there will be very few schools that do not find themselves saying this is a way to leverage the purchase of computers, the purchase of software, to begin to use the technology for math scores, reading scores, and writing scores--all the things that have been frustrating, as citizens, will allow Members to get quite excited. I hope that Members will not support this well-intentioned motion to strike the section and allow section 310 to remain in S. 652. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I would like 10 minutes to speak in favor of the Cohen amendment.

Mr. KERREY. This manager's amendment allows the FCC to modify those provisions of the modified final judgment (MFJ) that are not overridden or superseded by the bill. Does this provision of the Manager's amendment allow the FCC to change the provisions regarding the entry of the Bell operating companies into long distance or manufacturing?

Mr. KERREY. Did the Senator want to respond?

Mr. KERREY. The manager's amendment changes the definition of ``telecommunications service'' by deleting a sentence concerning the transmission of information services and cable services. My question is whether the deletion of this sentence will affect the scope of many of the bill's substantive provisions. For example, section 254(a) preempts State entry restrictions on the provision of ``telecommunications services.'' Does the new definition mean that States would be allowed to restrict entry into the business of transporting information services? Section 254(b) ensures that States can preserve universal service for ``telecommunications services.'' Does the new definition mean that States could not preserve universal service for the transmission of any information services? The bill provides detailed requirements that must be satisfied before the Bell companies may offer interLATA ``telecommunications services.'' Does the deletion of that sentence mean that the Bell companies may provide interLATA transmission of information services without complying with the requirements of this legislation?

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I have no objection to the unanimous consent to set a time for this debate.

Mr. KERREY. I am still speaking for the amendment.

Mr. KERREY. I wish to speak more generally about the bill.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, the Senator from North Carolina is getting ready to speak. I yield the floor. Mr. FAIRCLOTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I do not know whether or not this might be the appropriate time for us to have a rollcall vote on the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. Prior to making some comments about that amendment, I point out to my colleagues that many of the things that the Senator from Arizona said in his statement I said last night and again today. It might surprise some to hear me say this, but I, in fact, might embrace a lot of the things that the Senator from Arizona is trying to propose. I do think if you are going to move to a competitive environment the quicker you can get there the better off in many ways, and that to hold this thing back might make it difficult for us to get consumers to understand how it is we are going to adjust because there is going to be substantial adjustment to the changes we are proposing in a regulatory structure. I must say again, as I have said a number of times, I am not getting a lot of complaints from citizens saying, ``Gee. I do not like the way this is thing is working.'' I do not get a lot of people coming to me talking about enhanced services and all of that. I do not hear people say the current regulation makes it difficult for technology to be deployed. And I happen to be a relatively high-end consumer. I must tell you I have not been struggling to get existing technology, and hearing the companies say that it is not cost-effective. We are not going to provide you the kind of services that existing technology allows under variety. It really is not that the regulation prevents them from doing it. They just are not doing it. So in a competitive environment, if they do not provide it to me, I will go someplace else. I will get somebody else to provide the service for me. As I see this legislation it is attempting to move us to a point where I at the local level--and I know competition, by the way. Let me stop here a little bit and define it. Competition for me means I choose. If I do not like what you are giving me, I will go someplace else. In my particular business, if my customers do not like what I put on the table in front of them, they have a lot of choices, lots of places they can go. To me, the idea of competition is not AT&T competing with MCI or Bell Atlantic competing with CTI and all that sort of stuff. Those are big companies coming into a competitive environment. What I think of competition is potentially a whole generation of entrepreneurs who are not here lobbying, by the way, that are not talking to us, that are not asking for anything. In fact, if you look at the jobs created in the State of Nebraska in technology, they are created by businesses that have not even contacted my office. They are created by people who are not even aware of S. 652. When I am at home on the weekend, and I say what do you think about S. 652, is it going to help or hurt? They say what the heck is that? I have to ship it to them and show them what it is all about. The new entrepreneurs that are coming in for services with the ones that are likely to have customers are saying, boy, this is working; this is terrific. I say, as I envision competition, there are four big areas where people are going to be able to compete, if we transition this thing properly. One is people are going to come in and say to me as a consumer you do not have to buy dial tone separately; you do not have to buy video separately; you do not have to buy all your information separately. I have about $70 or $80 for local and long-distance telephone service. I have about $40 or so for cable--I do not know the exact dollar amount--and about $30 for other sort of published accounts, published documents, newspapers, and magazines that are coming in. I have $150 a month. If we deregulate properly, entrepreneurs coming knocking on my door or contacting me through E-mail or however they want to get to me say, Bob, you are spending 150 bucks a month, we can do it for $89.95, and we can give it to you in a different form, faster, clearer, and better than what you are getting right now. In that kind of an environment--instead of buying dial tone separately, cable separately, and all these other sorts of services separately, I buy them in a package--I believe the consumers will be excited about it, because I believe price will go down and quality will go up. Second, we are going to have competition in switching. By that I mean people say, well, gee, the phone is the one that is doing all the switching. It is not true. There are a lot of entrepreneurs coming online today that are doing switching, that have the technology, that have the gear, that have [[Page S7959]] the hardware, the software in a remote location and they are switching long-distance calls, and they can do it cheaper and do it faster and better. There is going to be competition in switching. You have this idea that you have somebody down in an office still sort of either doing it manually or digitally, moving these packets about. Well, that can be done in lots of different locations in lots of different ways and there is going to be competition, the second area of switching, of getting whatever information you got, whatever bundle of goods and services you want to move from point A to point B. They are going to get those bundles wherever you want and retrieve whatever you desire to retrieve in a most competitive fashion. Third, there is going to be competition in content, if we do it right, if we do not yield to people who say, as the Senator from Arizona was saying, I really like competition but could you just kind of protect me a little while until I figure out how I am going to compete with somebody who has 2 people working in his office instead of 2,000. How do I compete against an entrepreneur that understands that he has to keep his salary down and his fringe benefits down and other sorts of things down in order to be able to compete. The fourth area is there is going to be a tremendous amount of competition in a whole range of services. As I said, I consider myself relatively high in, but this stuff still confuses me an awful lot, and I am going to be paying people to tell me how to connect this hardware with that hardware and how to get on this network and that network, how to make it work inside my office or make it work inside my home--all kinds of questions that I am going to have on all kinds of new services. There will not be one company that comes when you have a problem in your home to call up and say, gee, I have a question here. And the company says, well, I can get to you next Thursday or next Friday or, gee, we do not really get into that kind of thing, Bob. We are not involved with that kind of thing. That whole world, if we write the language of this law correctly, can create a competitive environment that I think will benefit consumers and I think prices will go down and quality will go up. So I share many of the concerns the Senator from Arizona raised and I declare it right up front. It may be there is potential for compromise where it may not be so obvious that there is potential for compromise between myself and the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Oregon, who have an amendment. Unfortunately, I have not seen that one. We are talking about this one smaller amendment that deals with the universal service fund, and I would like to talk about that now. The universal service fund that we have right now is rather complicated. I will not even pretend to describe it to you because frankly I do not understand it. But I do understand one thing, and that is that we do have subsidies going on to people who are not using them quite right. Sometimes it is used to keep the price of residential service artificially low. You can go to some places in America today, they are paying $6, $7, $8 for basic residential service where you go to a city with no universal service fund where they are paying $14. The business rates are substantially lower and the technology has not been upgraded. In many cases the universal service fund is not being used in a fashion that you think of when you hear it described. You say, well, gee, I need the universal service fund because I have people out there who cannot afford it. Well, that is terrific; if they cannot afford it, let us help them get it. The idea of a voucher may have merit. In fact, it may have merit to go in that direction rather than having this very, very difficult to administer thing and very difficult for us to understand from our vantage point. In fact, there are an awful lot of us who, up until the last 2 or 3 years, were not even aware that there was a universal fund being administered and checks written and redistributed out throughout the country, and they come and tell us such things as the entire State of Georgia as I understand it is a universal service fund. I do not know if that is true or not, but I was told recently that is the case. Well, I mean that just indicates how difficult it is to sit here in Washington, DC, with a good idea in mind; little people cannot afford to buy the local or residential service, making sure they are able to buy the product. It is a terrifically good idea to help somebody be able to communicate out of their home that otherwise might not be able to communicate. But it is difficult for us with that good idea to put it in practice. And I think if we were to have a lengthy debate about how the current universal service fund operates it might inform an awful lot of us as to why this system needs to be changed. We are basically accepting the status quo, and I declare and disclose, I participated with the farm team as we tried to keep this universal service idea alive. As the Senator from Arizona cited, some corporate entity that he discussed this issue with, they said, well, we do not like it, but you know the politics of it; we have to keep it in place, and we sort of presumed the same thing. It may be there is the mobility of altering the way we operate that universal service fund, but let us presume for the moment that we are going to keep the universal service fund the way it is. As I said, I am open to suggestions of ways to do it differently. Presuming that is the case, if you look at the language of this bill, what it is attempting to do--and I now turn to my friend from Arizona because I really have a question as to how he sees this thing working. The idea that we have in subsection (c) on page 40 of the act, which is referenced in this amendment, is that if you are going to have a universal service fund, I mean if that is the idea that we are going to keep this universal service fund concept alive and use that method of funding, what is going to happen is you are going to get new telecommunications companies coming into the arena. The idea is they should make a contribution as well; that it should not be just the phone companies or should not just be the existing entities that are making a contribution to the universal service fund; that, in fact, it should be everyone who is now providing these new information services should be making a contribution. As I see this--maybe the Senator from Alaska, who understands this well, can comment--as I see what this does, it actually provides an opportunity for a reduction in the assessment that the established carriers are paying into a universal service fund because it broadens the base of contribution. That is the idea of subsection (c). I do not have strong feelings against this amendment. I do not mind having the FCC notify. I think it makes genuinely good sense. It was blank on my copy of the amendment. As I understand it, it is 120 days. The Senator from Arizona in his amendment is saying from the time notification of the committee occurs and the time the assessment can occur there will be a 120-day period lapse?

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I restate at the beginning what I said last evening; that is, I believe the distinguished chairman, the Senator from South Dakota, and the distinguished ranking member, the Senator from South Carolina, have done an awful lot of work on this, a lot of good work. I appreciate the work they have done. They allowed me to be involved in many of these steps. But I say for emphasis, I cannot support this bill. I do not believe it provides the kind of protection for consumers that needs to be provided. I believe many of the statements that have been made thus far overestimate the impact upon the economy and underestimate the disruption that will occur to households throughout this country. No Member should doubt this. Any Member who doubts the impact of this legislation should go back and read clippings from 1984, when William Baxter and Judge Greene signed a consent decree, or when the U.S. Government and AT&T signed a consent decree in Judge Greene's court. Talk to consumers and talk to households and citizens in 1984 and 1985, and you will find an awful lot of those folks will say, ``Why don't you put the phone company back together?'' I believe that action was good. That action was taken by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. I say that for emphasis. Justice is given a consultative role in this legislation. But they were the prime mover in breaking up the monopoly that many people cite as the reason for wanting to go even further today. Second, you will hear people come to the floor and say and act as if somehow the regulations are really tying up American business. I intend to come to the floor and bring profit and loss statements and to bring economic analysis. Where do you go in this world to find better phone service? Where do you go in this world to find better cable? Where do you go in this world to find businesses doing better than American businesses in telecommunications? It may be in fact it is true that our regulations need to be changed. But please let us not come down here and act as if we have these corporations all handcuffed as if they are not making any money, sort of hamstrung and cannot move and cannot reach the customers they want to reach to generate the revenue they are trying to generate. This piece of legislation will touch roughly half of the U.S. companies in America and every single American household. Citizens who wonder how it is going to affect them need to pay careful attention to the 146 pages of legislation that is before this body today. The law matters. The law determines how people behave. This law governs the behavior of American corporations in nine basic communications industries. If you are a household or a citizen who is affected by the broadcast industry, this legislation affects you because this legislation affects the broadcast industry. If you are a home or a citizen who has cable coming into your household, this affects you. This legislation affects the regulations governing the cable industries of America and the telephone coming into your household. This 146 pages in S. 652 affects you because this deregulates the telephone industries in America in a very dramatic and I believe generally constructive fashion. If you are a person who goes to the movies, or you are a person who buys CD-ROM's or buys records of any kind, this affects you because it affects Hollywood, and it affects the music recording business. It is written into this law. If you have a newspaper coming into your household, or you subscribe to magazines or electronic publishing of any kind, it affects you because this legislation affects American publishers as well. If you buy a computer or use a computer in the workplace, it affects you again. If you purchase consumer electronics or are a consumer of wireless services or satellite services, all the nine basic communications industries, all growing relatively rapidly, all affect each and every single American citizen in their homes and in their workplace. Let no Member of this Senate underestimate the impact of this legislation. We had a great debate over the budget resolution. I know from my own personal experience with that legislation that there was a great deal of concern. Gosh, what if you vote for it, is it going to be a problem? Are people going to get angry with you? There are changes in Medicare, and cuts in programs. Are people going to get unhappy because we finally are asking them to pay the bills of the Government? The answer is probably yes. Probably they are going to get a little bit upset. This piece of legislation is more dramatic than the budget resolution. This piece of legislation affects Americans far more intimately than that budget resolution. There is not an American citizen that will not be affected by this piece of legislation. Last night on the floor of the Senate the distinguished Senator from South Dakota said: The recent hearing process which informed the Commerce Committee and led to the development of S. 652 began in February 1994. In 1994 and 1995, the Commerce Committee held 14 days of hearings on telecommunications reform. The committee heard from 109 witnesses during this process. The overwhelming message we received was that Americans want urgent action to open up our Nation's telecommunications market. Mr. President, I challenge that statement. I challenge the statement that we can conclude from the hearing process that ``Americans want urgent action to open up our Nation's telecommunications market.'' Tell me who it was that in a town hall meeting stood up and said, ``Senator Gregg, would you go to Congress and make sure you get down there and change the laws to help our telecommunications market?'' Where do we have polling data that shows what the people of South Dakota or Nebraska or South Dakota or New Hampshire or elsewhere say about this particular piece of legislation? Were they heard in the hearing procession? If you look, in fact, at the hearings held on this bill, on January 9, 1995, the committee had their first hearing. They heard from the distinguished majority leader, the Senator from Kansas, Senator Dole. They heard from the chairman of the House full Committee on Commerce, Congressman Bliley. They heard from the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Jack Fields. That was panel No. 1. Then on the 2d of March, the committee held another hearing. They heard from Anne Bingaman, who is the Chief of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. They heard from Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary of the National Telecommuncations Information Administration in the Department of Commerce, which is being proposed to be abolished, an interesting witness; Kenneth Gordon, representing NARUC, a State regulatory agency. That is panel No. 2 on the 2d of March. Also, on the 2d of March another panel, Peter Huber, senior fellow from the Manhattan Institute; George Gilder, senior fellow from the Discovery Institute; Clay Whitehead with Clay Whitehead & Associates; Henry Geller from the Markle Foundation; John Mayo, professor at the University of Tennessee; Lee Selwyn, professor of economics and technology. Then on the 21st of March the committee met again. This is the third hearing on this particular piece of legislation. On that day there were three panels. Panel No. 1: Decker Anstrom with the National Cable Association; Richard Cutler, Satellite Cable Services; Gerald Hassell, Bank of New York; Roy Neel, U.S. Telephone Association; Bradley Stillman, Consumer Federation of America. [[Page S7944]] Then the second panel: U. Bertram Ellis, Ellis Communications, Inc.; Edward Fritts, National Association of Broadcasters; Preston Padden, Fox Network; Jim Waterbury of NBC Affiliates. Panel No. 3: Scott Harris from the FCC, not on behalf of the FCC but his own personal testimony; and Eli Noam, Communications Institute for Teleinformation. That was the third set of hearings. On the 23d of March, the full committee had their markup, and the bill was reported out 17 to 2. I would like to put on my glasses and read the small print of some of the things that were said in these hearings. Just again, the idea here is I am respectfully challenging what I think is a very important statement, a very important statement that lots of others are going to make as well; that is, that the overwhelming message we received was that Americans ``want urgent action to open up our Nation's telecommunications market.'' Keep that in mind. What do the households in your State want? What do the citizens of your State want? What do the people who elected you and sent you here to the U.S. Congress want? What do they want? Let us see what they wanted as we look at the hearings that were held. They said: First, there were the three Members of Congress. Senator Dole advocated quick passage of telecommunications legislation. He noted that rural Americans are concerned about telecommunications legislation, as it offers tremendous opportunities for economic growth. He testified that legislation should underscore competition and deregulation, not reregulation. Chairman Bliley stated that the goals of telecommunications legislation should be to: one, encourage a competitive marketplace; two, not grant special Government privileges; three, return telecommunications policy to Congress; four, create incentives for telecommunications infrastructure investment, including open competition for consumer hardware; and, five, remove regulatory barriers to competition. Chairman Fields stated telecommunications reform is a key component of the legislative agenda of 104th Congress. He chastised those who speculated that Congress will be unable to pass telecommunications legislation this year. He asserted that the telecommunications industry is in a critical stage of development, and that Congress must provide guidance. I did not hear any of those three witnesses come and say ``Americans want urgent action to open up the telecommunications market.'' They are talking about American corporations. They are talking about American industry and advising them that they want to do things that they are currently unable to do because the regulations say they are prohibited from doing it. That is what this bill is about, businesses that want to do something that they are currently not allowed to do. That is what it is all about--change in the law. All of these various businesses do something that they currently cannot do. In many cases, I support it. But I am not getting calls from people at home saying, ``Gee, Bob, I hope you are really getting there because we want to make sure that our Nation's telecommunications markets get opened, there is a very urgent need to do it.'' Listen to panel No. 1, second hearing: Anne Bingaman testified that the administration favors legislation that is comprehensive and national in scope, opens the BOC local monopoly, and provides for interconnection at all points. She claims that local loop competition will bring consumers the same benefits that long distance competition brought consumers when the Justice Department broke up AT&T. I believe that Anne Bingaman is right, but I caution my colleagues it took 7 or 8 years before the consumers gave you a round of applause. There was a long period of time after 1984 when people, at least in my State, were saying what in the Lord's name is going on here? All of a sudden I cannot get a phone into my house; I have to go to a different provider; I have competition; I have choice. What the heck is going on? What was wrong with what they had? they were saying to me. I said, well, stay with this thing. It is going to work. We are going to open up the long distance market. We are going to have competition. It is going to be good. Trust me. I trust it is going to be good. And it has worked. It was not coming from home, Mr. President. It was not coming from households and citizens who said, Gee, Governor, would you write a letter to the Justice Department, old Bill Baxter back there, and see if he can get together with AT&T and file a document down in Judge Greene's court because we would really like to see the RBOC's spun off, and all that sort of thing. It has worked. Anne Bingaman is correct that it worked. But it took years before we understood that citizens began to see the benefits. Larry Irving agreed that opening telecommunications markets will promote competition, lower prices, and increase consumer choice. He stated that the government must maintain its commitment to universal service. He stated the administration's concern that private negotiations may not be the best way to open the local loop to competition. He also asserted that a date certain for elimination of the MFJ restrictions will hurt efforts to negotiate interconnection agreements with Bell operating companies. Kenneth Gordon stated the State regulators, including those in Massachusetts, were once a barrier to competition, but are now at the forefront of promoting competition. He said that States must also retain control of universal service. And he goes on to make some other additional comments. But these three witnesses are beginning to talk about the consumers. They are beginning to talk about the impact upon the American people. They are beginning to express, particularly the last witness, Larry Irving, they are beginning to express concern for what happens when deregulation and competition come in. But, again, no overwhelming testimony here. None of them comes in and says we have to do this because the American people are banging down our doors and urging us to do this; no statement that has the overwhelming support of the American people; merely saying that we think it is right to deregulate; we think it will be good to deregulate; we think this will be good for the people. Now, how many of us understand the 1994 election? A lot of us here have heard people come down to the floor and say it was this, that, and the other thing. I agree with an awful lot of it. Most of us understand one of the things that was going on in 1994, people said we do not think you people in Congress understand. We do not have any power. We are disenfranchised. We do not feel a part of this process. Mr. President, they have not been a part of this process, in my judgment. This is about power. Corporations should do things they currently cannot do. They are telling us it is going to be good for the American people. They are telling us it is going to be good for consumers. They are telling us it is going to be good for jobs. They are telling us it is going to be good for the people. It is not the people telling us it is going to be good for them, Mr. President. Then on that same date, on the second panel, Peter Huber noted that a date certain for entry is necessary because the FCC and the Department of Justice are very slow to act. And this is a very important issue. We have to get the witnesses coming in and saying that the FCC is a terrible regulatory body and they are very slow. This is all language to give you the impression that somehow American communications businesses are burdened down by these nasty bureaucrats over at FCC. Peter Huber said he advocated swift enactment of legislation with a date certain for entry into restricted lines of business. Then George Gilder, the greatest advocate of deregulation of all, also advocated swift congressional action, claiming that telecommunications deregulation could result in a $2 trillion increase in the net worth of U.S. companies. He said the U.S. needs an integrated broadband network with no distinction between long haul, short haul, and local service. Clay Whitehead comes in and says: Congress should not try to come in and chart the future of the telecommunications industry but should try to enable it. He also advocated a time certain for entry into restricted lines of business. Then Henry Geller comes in. He agrees with the previous speakers that Congress should act soon. He said that a time certain approach would work for the ``letting in'' process, allowing competition in the local loop, as well as the ``letting out'' process. Geller advocated that the FCC should allow users of spectrum the flexibility to [[Page S7945]] provide any service, as long as it does not interfere with other licensees. John Mayo testified that the spread of competition in other markets over the last decade supports the opening of the local loop. He said that the interLATA telecommunications competition has been a success and Congress should follow the same model for local exchange competition. Lee Selwyn asserted that there will be no true competition in the local loop unless all participants are required to take similar risks. Selwyn also testified that premature entry by the Bell operating companies into long distance could delay the growth of competition for local service. I frankly do not know who all these individuals are. I do not know whether they are consultants for one company or another. I suspect that all of them have a fairly defined sense of view, defined either by the companies or encouraged by the companies as a result of previously reached conclusions. Again, I do not hear individuals coming in and saying, do you know what it is like out in the households today trying to get cable service, trying to keep phone service? Do you know what consumers are saying out there today? Do you know what individuals are saying when all of these entities have downsized over the last 4 or 5 years? Any expression of concern for what technology does to families on the underside of that two-edged sword? Any expression of concern from any of these highfalutin individuals that are paid a lot of money to provide us with their advice about what is going on out there in America? No, just swift action, by God. Let us get the laws out of the way, get rid of the regulations. Let these companies do whatever they see fit, whatever they decide is best for the bottom line. Whatever they decide is best for the shareowners will in the end be better for their customers. Then on March 21, Mr. President, three panels come before the committee. This is getting a little lengthy. I do not think I will read every single one of these. Decker Anstrom, from the cable industry, they support telecommunications legislation because the cable industry is ready to compete. Roy Neel agreed with Anstrom. He is with the U.S. Telephone Association. He agrees that cable regulation repeal would allow for investments incentive. Richard Cutler testified that the 1992 Cable Act had a devastating effect on small cable operators. Bradley Stillman said that the 1992 Cable Act resulted in lower programming and equipment prices for consumers. Weighing in that in fact the Cable Act of 1992 did work. Gerald Hassell stated that true competition will only develop if both cable and telephone survive and flourish. I happen to agree with that. I think if we are to have competition at the local loop, we have got to make sure we have two lines coming in. One of my problems with this legislation is it allows acquisition of cable in the area by the telephone company. You folks out there right now in your households, you have a cable line coming in; you have a phone line coming in. You may not have both for long. You may have one line and only one opportunity to choose. That is not my idea of competition. Panel No. 2. Bertram Ellis testified that the local ownership restrictions no longer serve the public interest. He said that allowing local multiple ownership will permit new stations to get on the air that would not otherwise be able to survive. He also stated that local marketing agreements-- joint venture between broadcasters-- Et cetera, et cetera. Open it all up. Let us get rid of the restrictions. I do not care if they own 50 percent of the market, 100 percent of the market. I do not care who controls. Just let the flow of the cap determine the public interest. There is no public interest here involved any longer. We do not care who controls the information, who controls the stakes, who controls the radio, the newspaper. Mr. President, again, as I said at the start, this is about information. It is about communication. And it does matter who controls it. It does matter if we have one single individual controlling a significant portion of the local market, controlling our access to information. It does matter. There is a consumer interest. I am an advocate of deregulating the telecommunications industry. I do not know that I am, but I may be the only Member of Congress who can stand here and say that I signed a bill in 1986 that deregulated the telecommunications industry in Nebraska, that removed the requirement of them to go to the local public service commission for rate increases because I thought, and believe still, it would free up capital and they were in fact just spending a lot of money on lawyers and not really serving the public's interest requiring the companies to come forward. So I am an advocate of deregulation. But I also believe there are times when we need to declare and protect the public interest. And I do not believe in many cases this piece of legislation does that. I have already heard people come to the floor and say the best regulator is competition. That is not true, Mr. President. If you want to get goods and services delivered in the most efficient fashion, competition does that. That is true. If you are trying to get goods and services at the highest quality and lowest price, competition is the best way to get the job done. However, competition is not the best regulator. The only time we should be regulating is when we say we have the public interest in doing this. There is no other way of getting it done. The market is not going to be able to accomplish it. We agree there is going to be cost on businesses to do it. We believe it is a reasonable cost. We measure the cost. We assess the cost. We do not go blindly and say there is no cost to this deal. We understand the costs going in. But we say the public interest is so great that we believe it is necessary to do that. That is the purpose of regulation. Competition is not the best regulator. It is the best way to get goods and services delivered in a highly efficient fashion. But competition, unless you believe, unless you are prepared to come down to the floor and say American public corporations performing for their shareowners and American CEO's performing for their shareowners, worrying about what the analysts are going to say on Wall Street about the value of their stock, facing a decision of laying off 1,000 people that would improve the value of their stock--and make no mistake about it, analysts love cold blooded CEO's. You read it in the paper all the time. Some CEO just takes over a company, reduces the force by 20 percent. What do the analysts say? ``Buy the stock; this guy is doing the right thing.'' So they are rewarding the downsizing, they are rewarding the cutting of the employee base. Does it improve the productivity of the company? Absolutely. Does it make the company more competitive? Absolutely. Make no mistake, it has a devastating impact upon those families, upon those individuals who work for the company. We do not find, I think, any evidence that CEO's are heartless, but when they are out there trying to perform for their share owners, they are not trying to satisfy some public interest, they are trying to satisfy the interest of people who own shares in their stock. On that same day, Preston Padden advocated deregulation; Jim Waterbury said retain some ownership rules; on panel three they had Scott Harris testifying on behalf of himself, not the FCC, and Eli Noam, an expert in telecommunications. The two individuals debated a section of our telecommunications law called 310(b), which is foreign ownership. That is enough. That should give people some sense of what went on. There were three hearings--three hearings, Mr. President. Three hearings that were held, four if you include the statements made by the majority leader, the chairman of the House Commerce Committee, and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications. There were three total hearings, and I do not believe that the sum and substance of those hearings justifies the conclusion that the American people overwhelmingly back this particular piece of legislation. Mr. President, I was on a trip this past week, a trip with the Intelligence Committee on narcotics. We went to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. One of the places I went was down in the Amazon River Basin on the Ucayali River. I went to church on Sunday, to mass actually, more appropriately, a Catholic [[Page S7946]] church in Pucallpa, Peru. It just happened that Sunday was celebration of Pentecost. Being a good Christian man, I go to church regularly, but I must confess, I did not remember all the details of what Pentecost meant. I listened carefully. Just by coincidence, the service, the Pentecost is about communication. The prayer of Pentecost is that we appeal to the Holy Spirit to come and fill our hearts with his love. That is the appeal. The priest that Sunday said to the congregation that the tongue is the most powerful organ in the human body, that it delivers the word and a word can unite us, it can divide us, it can cause us to love one another, it can cause us to hate one another. The word coming from God can change our life. The word coming from human beings can inform us, change us and can cause us to reach all kinds of conclusions. That is what this debate is about, Mr. President. You can turn on the news tonight, you can pick up the newspaper in the morning, and you watch and read what is going on. These people have the control over what they are going to put on the air, what they are going to put in the newspaper, what they are going to have in the form of serving up information to you and me. It is about power, Mr. President, power to do what they want to do. Again, I am not against deregulation, I am not against changing the 1934 Communications Act, but this piece of legislation is being driven by a desire of corporations to do things that they currently are not allowed to do. I also brought down here this morning some additional things. I do not know if the managers want to speak. I will be glad to yield or keep going and read some things that the press has said about this whole process. I am not an apologist of the press. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. Form your own impression. This is people observing this whole process, and this is what they say about it. Let us see if you hear anything about the American people coming here in airplanes and buses and demonstrating out front with placards, ``Deregulate the telecommunications industry.'' Here is one from Ken Auletta, ``Pay Per Views,'' in the New Yorker, June 5, 1995. Mr. Auletta says: The hubris was visible at the House Commerce Committee briefings, on January 19th and 20th. Held in the Cannon Office Building, they were closed to the press and to the Democrats. At dinner the first night, Gingrich was the featured speaker, and he took the occasion to attack the media as too negative and too biased, and even unethical. After the speech, Time-Warner's CEO, Gerald Levin, rose and gently rebuked Gingrich for being too general in his remarks. Surely Gingrich did not mean to tar all journalists with the same brush--to lump, say, Time in with the more sensationalist tabloid press? ``I hope you don't mean all of us,'' Levin concluded. ``Yes, I do,'' Gingrich is reported to have replied. ``Time is killing us.'' And, according to several accounts, he went on to say that he had been particularly incensed by Time's account of his mother's interview with Connie Chung, of CBS . . . [O]thers found it chilling that the Speaker would press the CEO's to have their journalistic troops hold their fire. ``We're at greater risk now of that kind of pressure having an impact.'' The interviewee went on to say: ``Traditionally, there has been a separation between news and corporate functions. Given the consolidation, you may have more instances where the top business executives, who have many corporate policy objectives, may find it tempting to impose control over their news divisions to advance corporate objectives.'' . . . Another observation is from ``The Mass-Media Gold Rush,'' Christian Science Monitor, Jerry Landay, reporting June 2, 1995: The players are limited to the cash-rich: The regional phone companies, networks and cable companies, and conglomerates such as Time-Warner. Smaller ownership groups, such as local television stations, are distressed. They expect the balance of power to swing to the cash-rich networks, which will gobble up many of them . . . It goes on to say: To influence the House legislation, legions of lobbyists swept across Capitol hill, with bags of campaign cash. Over the past 2 years the communications industry has handed out some $13 million. Republican lawmakers literally invited industry executives to tell them what they wanted. They're getting most of it. The next one is from Congressional Quarterly Weekly. The headline is: ``GOP Dealing Wins the Votes for Deregulatory Bill.'' After doling out legislative plums to broadcasters, phone companies and carriers, top Republicans on the House Commerce Committee won bipartisan backing for a bill to promote competition and deregulation in the telecommunications industry. The committee's leaders--Chairman Thomas J. Bliley, Jr., R-VA, and Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee Chairman Jack Fields, R-Texas--engaged in a lengthy give-and- take with committee members and telephone company lobbyists over the bill's rules for competition in local and long- distance phone markets. . . . The intra-industry horse trading left consumer advocates feeling frustrated and ignored on the sidelines. . . . The biggest winners at the markup were broadcast networks, media conglomerates and cable companies. The next one is from the New York Times, Edmund L. Andrews. Headline: ``House Panel Acts to Loosen Limits on Media Industry.'' Dateline, May 26, 1995: Rolling over the protests of several Democrats, the House Commerce Committee voted today to kill most cable television price regulation and lift scores of restrictions on the number of television, radio and other media properties a single company may own. . . . ABC, NBC and CBS and other large broadcasters like the Westinghouse Electric Company, the Tribune Company and Ronald O. Perelman's New World Communications Group all lobbied for sharply increasing the number of television and radio stations a company could own nationwide. . . . But industry lobbyists have seldom met more receptive lawmakers. Committee Republicans have held numerous meetings with industry executives since January, some behind closed doors, at which they implored companies to offer as many suggestions as possible about the ways Congress could help them. Next, an article that appeared in the Washington Post, a longer article that I will take pieces from, written by Mr. Mike Mills on the 23d of April, 1995: The Bells--the folks who bring you local phone service-- like to play political hardball, and they have been remarkably successful at it. This year, the Bells stand a very good chance of winning most of the prize they've sought for the last decade: Freedom from U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene. . . . If they get what they want, the Bells can claim a place among history's most powerful Capitol Hill lobbyists, ranking them with the oil industries of the 1970's and the steel trusts of the turn of the cen- tury. . . . All that lobbying costs money. According to the Federal Communications Commission, the Bells' individual phone companies spent $64 million on State and Federal lobbying expenses in 1993 and $41 million in 1992. Bell lobbyists themselves say their annual budget for influencing Congress has been $20 million a year in recent years, but has dropped to half of that this year. . . . It goes on and on: ``Right now, the doors to the candy stores are wide open,'' said Brian Moir, who heads a coalition of business telephone users fighting the Bells. These are the customers, Mr. President, make no mistake about it. These business users are the customers. These are not the companies providing the service. These are people using the service. This man says, ``. . . the doors to the candy store are wide open.'' It continues:. The Bells figure, ``Why focus on one thing? Just go in with a frontloader.'' They're covering the waterfront. And why not? Moir estimates that if States' regulatory powers are limited, the Pressler bill will raise the typical Bell residential telephone bill by $3 to $6 a month. For the companies, that would raise it at least $24 billion over 4 years. An editorial in the Baltimore Sun called ``Communicating Again,'' April 3, 1995: Still, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, and the lobbying is as fierce as Washington has seen in many years. Though the rivals like to make their cases in terms of what's best for the consumer, the quarrel is really over who gets a head start in capturing market share. No one can deny that that is true. Edmund L. Andrews, ``Big guns lobby for long-distance; insiders are trying to influence bill,'' Raleigh News & Observer, March 28, 1995: With so much at stake, and so little to pin on labels of right and wrong, the various factions are seeking a personal edge by throwing into the fray as many people with friends in high places as possible. All of which made telecommunications as much of a bonanza for lobbyists this year as health care was last year. ``Everybody in this town who has a pulse has been hired by the long-distance coalition or the Bell operating companies,'' said Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, a member of the Commerce Committee. ``It's just amaz- ing. . . .'' Michael Ross with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 20, 1995. Headline: ``Gingrich Defends Book Deal; [[Page S7947]] GOP Beats Murdoch.'' I am sorry I brought in all this. This article is talking about this bill: Besides Murdoch, there were 10 other executives at the Capitol session, including Thomas Murphy of Capital Cities/ ABC; Robert Wright, NBC; Howard Stringer, CBS; Bill Korn of Group W; and John Curley of Gannett. Gingrich was to address a private dinner last night for the communications firm chiefs in the Cannon House Office Building. . . . Gingrich said the meeting yesterday was closed because ``we want their advice on how the United States can be the most competitive country in the world, and we would just as soon not have them give advice with the Japanese and Europeans listening.'' I do not believe it is the Japanese and the Europeans they were trying to keep out. GOP organizers sought to keep the meeting secret, excluding notice of the events from the official daily calendar. But word leaked out from the executives, prompting protests from consumer advocates and from the committee's former Democratic chairman, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, now the ranking minority member. The last one is a piece that appeared in the Washington Post, again Mike Mills: Consumer advocates yesterday protested plans by House Republicans to hold 2 days of private meetings with top communications executives that will feature a dinner with House Speaker Newt Gingrich. . . . Media will not be present so Members and chief executive officers of various companies. . . . have honest and informative discussions.'' Boy, if that is not a keyword to telling you to hang on to your billfold I have not heard one. ``What policies can the Congress promote or repeal that would help your company to be more competitive and successful domestically?'' the letter asked. ``And, second, what obstacles does your company face when trying to do business abroad?'' I do not mind in general saying to any company in America, is there anything we are doing we should not be doing, anything we are doing with regulations or rules that do not make any sense at all? Lord knows, we have lots of things we do to small business and big business alike that add no value at all to the public interest, that you really cannot defend it all, have been around a long time, and you scratch your head trying to figure out why they are even there. But that is not this invitation. This does not say after you established what the public interest is, is there anything here you would like to get out of the way that makes no sense at all; is there any nonsensical regulation? This did not add any qualifier in the public interest. This merely says is there anything out there adding cost to your business that you would like to get rid of? It would be like me saying, ``I would like to drive about 90 miles an hour, would that be OK? Can you get the law of Nebraska to let me drive my automobile 90 miles an hour? I find that a major inconvenience. I like to drive fast. Why don't you have a meeting and ask people driving automobiles what they think about that? Maybe we can change the rules and regulations to accommodate them as well.'' Mr. President, I will wrap this up by quoting from an article, I believe it was David Sanger of the New York Times. The article describes the conflict between the United States of America and the Japanese over automobiles. It was assessing the impact of, I think, the correct decision by the Trade Representative to say to the Japanese, ``It is time to open up your market and let our parts, in particular, be sold and loosen the restrictions so we can begin to sell automobiles in Japan.'' It was trying to measure the impact. It interviewed a man who was the trade minister from Indonesia, I believe. You know, we are worried about Japan and the United States. They are the big ones. They are the big elephants in this jungle. And they have a saying in Asia. They say that when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. But even worse, they said, is when the elephants make love. That is what we have here, Mr. President. We have a real lovefest going on. Corporations have basically all signed off on this deal. They have had the opportunity to look at the language. They have had the opportunity to examine the details, and they are saying it looks pretty good to them. I say it is time for us to come to the floor to debate this. I hope we are, in fact, able to enact legislation. I intend and expect to support it. I cannot support it in its current form, but I want the American consumer to be heard on the floor of the Senate. I want the interests of American households to be considered and the interests of the average American citizen to be considered when this piece of legislation, which is important, is being debated. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY. Madam President, I have no objections to this amendment. I would like to point out, the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, as well as the chairman and ranking member and the distinguished Senator from Alaska and others, worked very hard to try to craft this particular title and this particular section of title I so as to make certain that areas that are not likely to benefit from competition will continue to be served with the same high quality service that they are currently receiving. This particular provision is a recognition, and I think most do recognize, that competition all by itself will not work and that we do have to allow competition to determine many things. But this particular section I think has been very carefully put together, and it indicates how an essential carrier is designated. It describes the obligations of that particular carrier. It describes how we set up a multiple essential carrier. It describes resale enforcement and interchange of principles. Madam President, earlier when I made a statement, my staff tells me that I made a mistake at the beginning. If I did, I apologize. I was pulling a quote from the chairman, and I do not know if I said Senator Hollings or Senator Pressler, but it was the chairman's quote last night, and I do not again mean to be intentionally confrontational when I say that statement that says, ``The overwhelming message we received was that Americans want urgent action to open up our Nation's telecommunications markets,'' what we are doing, in fact, is what the distinguished Senator from North Dakota described and the Senator from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, described as well. We are trying, with this law, to work our way into a competitive environment and create a structure that will enable competition to occur in a fashion that is minimally disruptive, but it will be disruptive. Title I describes not just the transition to competition in the universal service, but it lays out all the various interconnection requirements. It describes separate subsidiary safeguard requirements. That is a structure that is offered as a protection. I believe the Senator from South Carolina in particular has been concerned about that. It describes foreign investment and ownership reform, and infrastructure sharing. Title I describes the removal of restrictions to competition, describes how that is going to occur, how we remove entry barriers. There is limitation on local and State taxation of satellite services. I might point out that for those concerned about putting a mandate upon the State, indeed, we are intervening with the State regulatory mechanism. This legislation intervenes and says--and I know the Senator from Alaska understands that we are intervening, and we are saying you cannot do rate-based rate of return regulation; you are going to go to price caps. You have a range of motion under price caps. But we all need to understand what price caps do. It essentially moves us in a direction where the market will determine what the price is going to be. It is a much different kind of regulatory scheme than we have right now. There are many States, I guess 10 or so, on a price cap system of regulation. This would take the other 40 along. I do not object to that. I think it is a fair and reasonable thing to do. But it is a relatively dramatic action to come to the State level and say that we are going to require you to regulate in this fashion, and we say there is a limitation on how you can tax your satellite services, and so forth. Title I, as we remove the restrictions to competition, does lots of other things that I will look forward to describing at a later date. Madam President, as I said, I do not object at all to the change asked for in this amendment.

Mr. KERREY. Will the Senator from Alaska comment? Am I right, are we not trying in subsection (c) to say we are broadening the contribution base? If I had new companies coming on-line providing service at the local level, they should make a fair share contribution to the universal service fund? As I say, I am not trying to oppose this amendment, I want to make sure we do not get something in here that ends up coming back to haunt us. We are trying to actually broaden the base of the universal service fund contribution which should for telephone ratepayers result in a reduction of the levy that they currently have for a universal service fund payment.

Mr. KERREY. I would, in fact, love to have the FCC provide in notification some explanation of how this fund works. I would not mind that at all, if I could understand the thing once and for all. The question I have is really the 120-day period. Notification is not a problem for me. The question is, does this delay? Would this have the impact, do you believe, of delaying an opportunity for reducing the levy on other carriers?

Mr. KERREY. The language of the amendment says ``may not take action to impose universal service contributions under subsection (c), or take action to increase the amount of such contributions, until--''. Subsection (c) is an attempt to broaden the base of contributions, to get new providers of services who are currently not contributing to the universal service fund to make a contribution to the universal service fund. My concern is that if that is what we are trying to do, we could delay the actual reduction that is currently being imposed on other carriers. I do not know if that is right or not. I just raise the question.

Mr. KERREY. It most assuredly does. I appreciate the change made, and I believe it is an improvement. I have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska. I rise in opposition to the amendment. The most difficult thing to have happen in the law that we are deliberating here is the competition at the local level. That is the most perplexing and most difficult part of all. By competition, I do not mean competition for phone service. I do not mean competition for cable service. I do not mean competition for information businesses that want to preserve this kind of line of business distinction. I mean competition to package information services, not coming from the big guys that we talk to all the time in this town, but from that new entrepreneur that hires their lawyers at $50 an hour, not by the dump truck load, who need to make certain they will have an opportunity to compete. This checklist, such as it is, I do not know if the checklist is going to work. There are 14 things on the checklist. Take a look at it. You tell me. One of the problems that I have in this whole mechanism is that it says the FCC is supposed to determine whether or not we have competition. How do I determine? Well, I have a checklist. Then I have one final test that, by the way, has been litigated many, many times over the course of time. The Supreme Court has spoken many times on this issue. They understand the intent with a lot more clarity than meets the eye in this area. This is an effort to make certain that in fact we do get competition at the local level. I assure my colleagues, if we do not get competition at the local level, our consumers, our citizens, households are not going to be happy because their rates will not come down for overall information services. Their quality will not go up. Only in the competitive environment will that happen. Only if the provider of services knows that the customer can walk and go someplace else is there going to be a competitive environment, and only if the law encourages and allows new entrepreneurs and startup companies, as I believe the language in this bill allows, and that the amendment will strike. Mr. President, I yield the floor.