Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. The reason we are making this recommittal motion is so that we can have one clear vote on the competition and consumer position on all of these issues. We were not going to have a vote out here on the floor on those issues. The Bell companies do not want a clear vote on the hundreds of other companies out there competing with the four of them. So this recommittal motion is the Conyers-Cannon amendment that we were not going to be allowed to have a vote on, that gives every one of us that clear chance to decide which side of this fence we are on, monopoly or competition. And I think everyone should understand it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon). Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, my parliamentary inquiry is this. So that there can be a clarification for the Members as to the procedural process that the House finds itself in at this point in time, I have made a motion to recommit forthwith the bill which we are now considering. It is my understanding that that means that the bill actually does not go back to the committee but just goes to the desk here and is immediately then inserted into the bill forthwith and that there is absolutely no delay in the procedure at that point and we move forward with that new substance added to the bill, is that correct?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. MARKEY. Yes.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARKEY. I am opposed to the bill in its present form, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself my remaining 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I am a friend of telecommunications competition. I know telecommunications competition. This bill is not a friend of telecommunications competition. In fact, what has happened since 1997, after the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed, was that broadband deployment went across the country at such a rapid pace that now somewhere between, depending upon how we look at it, 70 to 80 percent of all Americans now have access to broadband. That did not happen by accident. It happened because we had a vigorous competitive telecommunications policy. That is why the Bells do not like it. But it has ensured that upwards of $60 billion of investment that otherwise would not have been made was put out into the marketplace. We do not want to change that. The bill in 1996 was a paranoia- inducement act. This bill is meant to be a sedative, a calming influence, so the Bells do not have to feel that paranoia any longer. If we do that, we will be looking at the future through a rearview mirror.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), there was a piece of erroneous information which was given to the gentleman, which was that the Committee on the Judiciary's portion of this debate would take place subsequent to the conclusion of the Committee on Energy and Commerce portion. As a result, he went back to his office. I am reliably informed he is on his way back over here in order to claim that time. This is not something that is being done in any way to undermine the normal procedural order out here, but rather just a piece of information which was given to him personally; and he is on the way back over here because he does want to participate in this debate.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the importance of this debate can only be understood by looking at history. If the monopolies had their way, we would still have one phone company. We would have one company providing cellular phone service. We would have one company providing Internet service. That was their vision in 1980, 1982, 1984. But our country decided that our great opportunity was to unleash the technological and entrepreneurial skills of our country. We believed that hundreds of companies could compete in this telecommunications sector, that it did not have to just be a story about one company. We can look at analogies. We had one long distance phone company. In all of our families when we were younger, it was a big day when someone was on the phone calling grandma because somebody would be yelling in the background, ``Remember, that call is long distance. Hurry up and finish,'' because those calls were so expensive. The Bells said it was impossible to have low-cost long distance, but once MCI and Sprint and dozens of other companies got in, we reached a point where it became so inexpensive to make long-distance calls that now everyone thinks it is normal just to call to another State. In cell phones, we had a situation where there were only two companies in the cell phone business, and they were both analog. Only at the point at which the third, fourth, fifth and sixth company got in and went digital did the telephone companies, who had the original license, decide they were going to go digital, too. This is not ancient history, this is 1984, 1985. We are not deep into this revolution. The Bells invented these technologies, but they had not deployed them because they did not have any competition. The essence of what we tried to do in 1996 and in each of those earlier big moments was to induce massive paranoia in the incumbent company so they had to move faster than they would have otherwise. In this digital, Darwinian world, that is the key to American success. It is not a story tied to one company whose picture is always on the cover, one company whose picture is always on the cover of Fortune or Forbes. It is the story of a country that is on the cover, number one looking over its shoulder at numbers two, three, and four in the world because we have so many companies we do not know all of their names. That is where we are in cell phones today in terms of the multiple choices which Americans have. That is where we are in long distance. The revolution that we are talking about here today is a revolution of Internet service providers. There are hundreds of them out there. It is a revolution of smaller competitive local exchange companies. There are dozens of them out there. That is the revolution. The Bells invented DSL. Had they deployed it before the 1996 Act? No, they had not. It was still sitting in their laboratories. Once the other companies were out and moving, did they start to deploy? Members better believe that they started to deploy. Scores of companies were created. And all of the other companies ultimately were the key to the Bells finally beginning to move. This is a story that we are seeing over and over and over again. A vision of one company, or a vision of so many companies we cannot know their names. Something that was called the NASDAQ. That is what happened after 1996. So I ask each Member to please understand how central this is to a vision of where the children in the country today are going to be working 5 and 10 years from now. It is getting the skill sets to work in these competitive companies, and not just to get a job with Ma Bell. That is not a vision for the future; it is a vision looking in a rearview mirror. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). (Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. We have really changed our country, and the rest of the world has been following us over the last 20 years. We had one phone company. One. And they had 1.2 million employees. But we decided that it was stultifying innovation. Technology, prices, service, everything was tied to that one company. So our country broke up AT&T. Out of it came Sprint, MCI, Lucent, and dozens, scores of companies, because it created a competitive environment. That is what the 1996 Telecommunications Act sought to do for the local market as well, to break it up; to say to the local bells, those four companies in the United States, each of us has one who is a monopoly in our hometown, ``If you give up your local monopoly, we will let you into long distance with MCI, with Sprint, with AT&T. That was the deal. This amendment today breaks that deal and sends the American public back to the past, where the choices would be limited rather than unlimited. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, what I would like everyone to do is to think of the rule which we are debating as a metaphor, a metaphor for the way that the Bell companies view all competitors and competitors' ability to be able to reach the consumer. The Committee on Rules has structured a rule that allows for all the votes the Bell companies want on their amendments, but it is going to wall out all the competitors, all the consumer groups, all the public utility commissioners from having a straight up or down vote on what they think is the important formula that would be put in place in order to protect consumers and competitors in the country. A metaphor, because that is exactly what the substance of their bill does. It wants to wall out the competitors, wall out their ability to be able to reach consumers, wall out this pressure, this paranoia, that was induced in the Bells finally that they had to start moving on this new technology because they had other people out there. That is where this whole revolution came from, from the paranoia in the four companies. So you have four companies, and, by the way, all of us only have one of them in our district, one, and then you have hundreds of other companies, Internet service providers, competitive local exchange companies, all out there. We call it the NASDAQ, if you are wondering why you never heard of it before 1997. It is all these companies that got created because of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. So, this is a terrible rule. It does not allow anybody who is on the other side of the issue to get a straight up or down vote for consumers and for competitors. It is deliberately structured that way. It is a metaphor for how the monopoly sees all this issue. Not only do they have every American home wired, they have got the Committee on Rules wired. They are going to wall everybody else out. You cannot get in. And then there is this kind of pretend, oh, we will be fair, though. We will be fair. Where is the evidence we are not fair? Well, of course, all the competitors are going to be posthumously vindicated, maybe someday in a court suit that is finally rendered, 5 years from now in bankruptcy court they will win something, but they will be out of existence, which is the dream of the Bells. Now, I love these people that work for the Bells, they are good people, but that is an old way of looking at the world. They should be able to compete. They should be glad their competitors are there, because they have been forced to deploy tens of billions of dollars of new DSL technology. Vote ``no'' on this rule. It will only take an hour to send it back up to the Committee on Rules, 1 hour. Then they will put our amendment in place so that all the competitors and consumers have a shot at it. One hour is all this it is going to take, and make it fair. Everyone here has listened to Dingell-Tauzin, Dingell-Tauzin, for a year and a half; and the day of reckoning arrives, and the Bells do not want us to vote on the other side of the issue. So everyone here has already taken all the contributions from everybody on both sides. Now it is time to learn what the issue is, and the Committee on Rules has made it impossible to have a real debate. Vote ``no'' on this very unfair rule.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object in order to make this point to Members, which is that we have reached a juncture here whereby two amendments, the one made by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), and the one made by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), each have a right, in my opinion, to have a vote on the House floor. The way the rule is structured is there will not be a vote on the Cannon-Conyers amendment. What we are trying to do through this device is to have a straight up or down vote on the amendment, which all the competing companies in America want to have as their up or down vote; and then everyone is free to vote with the Bells or all the competitors. One vote, that is all they want; pick sides, straight up or down. We are not allowed that under the rule that came out of the committee last night. So that is all we are trying to set up right now. We hope by the end of this process, and on the vote on the previous question, by the way, Members will have that chance to decide, one way or another, to come down forever on competition or with this old monopolistic view.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Regis College of Weston, Massachusetts on its 75th anniversary. Founded in 1927 by the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston, Regis College is one of the leading Catholic liberal arts and sciences college for women. With more than 10,000 graduates world wide, the Regis college curriculum provides an intellectual base from which its students can acquire the values, ideas, techniques and habits which allow continual self-education. Regis College is committed to exploring the needs and problems of the changing world and thus shapes the liberal arts curriculum to assure graduates an excellent foundation for future success. As a women's college, Regis is devoted to building awareness of women's roles in society and provides a solid structure for women to develop into leaders of the future. I commend Regis College on its successes and its 75th anniversary.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to my colleagues' attention the Final Declaration of the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The document follows. Annex--Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (New York, 2001) Final Declaration 1. Fully conscious of the responsibilities which we assumed by signing the comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty, pursuant to article XIV of that Treaty, and recalling the Final Declaration adopted by the Conference, held in Vienna, from 6 to 8 October 1999, we the ratifiers, together with the States Signatories, met in New York from 11 to 13 November 2001 to promote the entry into force of the Treaty at the earliest possible date. We welcomed the presence of representatives of non-signatory States, international organizations and non-governmental organizations. 2. We reaffirmed our strong determination to enhance international peace and security throughout the world and stressed the importance of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty as a major instrument in the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in all its aspects. We reiterated that the cessation of all nuclear-weapon test explosions and all other nuclear explosions, by constraining the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and ending the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons, constitutes an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in all its aspects and thus a meaningful step in the realization of a systematic process to achieve nuclear disarmament. We therefore renewed our commitment to work for universal ratificaiotn of the Treaty, and its early entry into force as provided for in article

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my concern over recent reports that the administration is considering the development of so-called ``low-yield'' nuclear weapons. While these mini-nukes are allegedly being considered to promote a longstanding nonproliferation goal of destroying buried stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, testing these weapons would break a 9-year moratorium on nuclear testing and would have grave implications for nonproliferation. This action would continue to undermine the future of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is already under assault in this administration. The CTBT is the culmination of a series of incremental efforts to stop the threat of nuclear war following the explosion of two nuclear weapons during World War II. The radioactive fallout from hundreds of test explosions in the 1950's and the near catastrophe of the Cuban Missile Crisis strengthened support for a cessation of nuclear explosions. These events led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibited all nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in space, and under water. Next came the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974, which limited the explosive force of underground tests, and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976, which extended that limit to nuclear explosions for ``peaceful purposes''. These two treaties were ratified in 1990 but fell short of limiting all nuclear explosions. The end of the Cold War and the thawing of U.S.-Russia relations reinvigorated efforts to seek a total ban of nuclear test explosions. In 1994, I cosponsored H. Con. Res. 235, which lauded the President for maintaining a moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and for being supportive of a comprehensive test ban. With strong international support, the CTBT was finally opened to signature in September 1996 and was promptly signed by the President. The ball then moved to the Senate's court. In September 1997, I cosponsored H. Res. 241, which urged the Senate to give its advice and consent to ratification of the CTBT. Despite certification by the President that there were no safety or reliability concerns about the nuclear arsenal that required underground tests, consideration of the Treaty was held hostage by politics and, in 1999, was rejected by the Senate. Now we come to the present day when 162 States have signed the treaty and 87 have ratified it. The Treaty has still not entered into force, however, and the United States is not among the ratifiers. The current administration has emphatically refused to consider a comprehensive test ban and did not even send a representative to the Conference. The administration's rejection of the CTBT and withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty send the wrong message to the international community about our commitment to nonproliferation. Our whole nonproliferation stance is linked to the CTBT, since it signals our intention to meet the expectations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the NPT, nuclear weapons States pledged to work in good faith toward total disarmament in exchange for an agreement by non-nuclear weapons States to limit their use of nuclear technology to peaceful applications. Cessation of testing new weapons is a vital part of any serious disarmament plan. If the United States won't even agree to consider a test ban, and is clearly signaling its intention to go forward with development of nuclear missile defense, how can we possibly persuade other nations to forego their weapons programs? In this age of heightened concern over terrorist threats we need the CTBT now more than ever. Much work remains to be done to reduce the threat of terrorists obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction. A ban on all nuclear explosions limits the ability of terrorists to develop their own nuclear weapons or to acquire them from hostile nonnuclear weapons States. The CTBT should be an integral part of our anti-terrorism efforts and I urge my colleagues to support its ratification. When the President comes to Congress to get the 1994 ban on the development of new nuclear weapons lifted I urge my colleagues to vote no to the President's request.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this Administration has Arms Control Amnesia. The President has decided to unilaterally withdraw from the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty. He and his administration do this without really fully understanding what the response from China will be. In fact, if we decide that we are going to attempt to deploy a system, by the way, one on which we have already spent $50 billion without any real success, then there is a very high probability that there will be a dramatic increase in Chinese expenditures on their missiles that will be pointed at the United States. We have already been through that arms race for generations. It is time for us to end that race. The ostensible justification for pulling out, however, is September 11. That event was not caused by the absence of a missile defense; it is because we did not have a policy of thinking about thoroughly the terrorist threats that could in fact jeopardize the lives of ordinary Americans.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act of 2001. This strong bipartisan effort increases funding for important public health response in the event of a bioterrorist attacks, and ultimately will help thousands of lives beyond those potentially threatened by bioterrorism. Today bioterrorism calls us to arms--but let us not forget that improving the public health system serves to protect against the more common but equally devastating threat of infectious disease--these illnesses end the lives of thousands of Americans daily and continue to be the third leading cause of death in the United States. This bill is a positive step forward in addressing this ongoing problem by improving our currently underfunded public health system. I am especially pleased that the bill includes provisions aimed at increasing stockpiles of potassium iodide as a public health response in the event of a successful terrorist attack on or accident at a nuclear power plant as well as provisions establishing new registration requirements and new rules limiting access to, and improving usage procedures for ``select agents.'' Potassium iodide is to radiation exposure of the thyroid what Cipro is to Anthrax. Since potassium iodide must be taken within a few hours of exposure to radioactive iodine to be effective, it needs to be easily obtained by the people who live close to a nuclear reactor. While this provision doesn't go as far as I would personally prefer, it represents a good first step towards distributing stockpiles of this substance to local public health officials without requiring a formal request from the States. I look forward to improving this provision as this bill moves through the legislative process. Under the compromise provision I worked out with the sponsors of this bill, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be required to make potassium iodide available to State and local governments for stockpiling and distribution to public facilities, such as schools and hospitals, within 20 miles of every nuclear power plant in the United States. Potassium iodide has been proven to protect the thyroid gland from diseases caused by exposure to radioactive iodine released during a nuclear catastrophe. Children are most vulnerable to radiation- induced thyroid diseases because their thyroid glands are very active. To receive the drug, State and local governments must submit a plan for distribution and utilization of the tablets in the event of a nuclear incident. While I personally would like to see much larger stockpiles that would cover populations even further from the reactor, funding limitations and other factors did not make that possible at this juncture. I remain hopeful, however, that we can build on this first step so that we have a strong, public-health based program in place that assures that all citizens that may need potassium iodide in a crisis will be able to get it in a timely fashion. I also applaud the inclusion of other provisions amending a 1996 bioterrorism law I had co-authored which required facilities that transfer potentially lethal biologic agents to register with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Today's bill expands the requirements for registration with the CDC by requiring all facilities that possess any one of a series of select agents to register with the CDC and establishes new criminal offenses involving the handling of these agents. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Act of 2001 is a strong, bipartisan step towards protecting the public from the threat of bioterrorism or nuclear terrorism. I urge your support of this bill.