Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the Nation's cable monopolies are trying to persuade the Congress to dismantle the rate regulation rules that have saved consumers over $3 billion since 1993. They are trying to break free from consumer protection rules before competition arrives to offer Americans an affordable marketplace choice. Cable consumers should be on red alert. What's in store for the American public if Congress goes along? What is the cable industry offering consumers? Free remotes? Special discounts? Unlimited channels? No. Although we might wish it were otherwise, without effective competition to give consumers a real choice, the cable industry is going to give us reruns. Reruns of the hyper-inflationary rate hikes that were the norm before Congress reined in the monopolies. Reruns of the exorbitant prices charged for equipment. A rerun of the same horror story for the American consumer. That's right. If cable consumers have a TV clicker in one hand, they better be holding onto their wallets with the other because the telecommunications bill moving through Congress is going to raise cable rates. The House bill would lift all rate regulation on cable programming, either immediately on small systems--representing about 30 percent of consumers--or 15 months after the date of enactment for the rest of the country. And when they're deregulated the cable monopolists will return to past practice and consumers will be forced to relive that past again. Many cable operators will use their newfound freedom to charge exorbitant rates. The new 18-inch Direct Broadcast Satellite dishes will not hold them back as long as it's a $700 alternative. And the telephone companies won't hold back cable rate hikes until they show up and start delivering the goods. And the cold reality is that no telephone company is currently offering cable service on a commercial basis in competition with a cable company. In fact, a recent front page story in the Wall Street Journal made it clear that the phone companies aren't coming soon. The article stated that the Bell companies are unlikely to reach 25 percent of the country with a competing video service until well after the year 2000. The chairman of one of the Bell company's multimedia group stated that simply aiming at the 25 percent mark in the next 7 years would be ``very optimistic.'' The hooplah many of us heard as recently as a few months ago about a video world with over 500 channels being offered to millions of consumers by the end of the year is pure fantasy. The high tech hype has confronted engineering reality. The phone companies are still figuring out how to make the technology work. To pretend, as H.R. 1555 does, that 15 months from now, this world will have suddenly changed to one of widespread delivery of commercially competitive cable service from a telephone company, is sheer folly. As in any industry, the cable world has its share of bad actors. They will see their unregulated monopoly opportunities, and they will take them. The blindly deregulatory provisions in the pending telecommunications bills will take us back to the recent past where from 1986 to 1989 the U.S. General Accounting Office found that, on average, the price of basic cable services rose more than 40 percent--3 times the rate of inflation over that time. As most of you know, things got so bad that in 1992 Congress had to act. The current law already stipulates that when a cable company faces effective competition the cable company's rates are deregulated. I believe we should stick with a competition-based telecommunications policy. Competition offers consumers choice. Competition will bring lower prices. Competition will drive infrastructure development and innovation. The Markey-Shays amendment will correct many of the anticonsumer, anticompetitive cable provisions of H.R. 1555. The Markey-Shays amendment will allow cable operators flexibility in the rates they charge for cable programming services, but will restrain operators from engaging in rate gouging. The Markey-Shays amendment says that until a cable operator faces effective competition in the marketplace, that operator must charge reasonable rates. Rates will be deemed unreasonable if they exceed, on a per channel basis, the percentage annual increase in the Consumer Price Index. Again, these limitations on how high cable rates can go are temporary provisions. The Cable Act of 1992 already has put provisions in the law that state that when a competitor reaches 50 percent of the homes in a franchise area and 15 percent take that alternative, the incumbent cable operator's rates are deregulated. H.R. 1555 also modifies the complaint threshold that must be met to review cable rates charged to ascertain whether they exceed legal limitations. The legislation requires that 10 consumers or 5 percent of all subscribers of a cable system, whichever is greater, must complain to the FCC to induce a rate proceeding. In other words, H.R. 1555 would require that in a cable system of 200,000 subscribers, that 10,000 consumers would have to complain. This is absurd. Moving the complaint level to 5 percent of subscribers is a clear attempt to create an impossibly high threshold in order to insulate cable companies from provisions originally designed in the Cable Act of 1992 for consumer protection and empowerment. Another anticompetitive provision in the bill is the repeal of prohibitions on predatory pricing. Not only does H.R. 1555 prematurely deregulate cable monopolies, it contains provisions that would snuff out fledging competitors before they can take wing in a community. It would allow cable monopolies to target unfairly a new competitor's customers for temporary lower prices and special offers. These lower prices and special offers to undercut a competitor would not be available to all subscribers in the cable systems' franchise areas. Rather, other subscribers would subsidize lower rates to undercut competitors. In this way, cable monopolies can crush competition in its cradle. Nascent competitors, such as wireless cable systems and direct broadcast satellite [DBS] systems, would suffer greatly from this anticompetitive provision. H.R. 1555 would significantly thwart the ability of consumers to reap the benefits of competition in the form of greater choice, higher quality, and lower price, if section 202(g) is retained in the bill. Not content simply to deregulate monopolies before competition arrives, H.R. 1555 frustrates, rather than promotes, the emergence of a competitive market. The current cable provisions constitute a glaring flaw in a bill whose ostensible purpose is to promote competition in the telecommunications marketplace. The Markey-Shays amendment will retain the uniform pricing rules on cable operators. Finally, the Markey-Shays amendment will scale back the sweeping definition of small cable system contained in the bill. As I have mentioned before, the bill deregulates rates for cable programming services for so-called ``small cable systems'' immediately upon enactment. These are systems which largely serve rural America. As a result, it will be consumers in rural America who see their cable rates rise first. H.R. 1555 deregulates any cable system which has less than 1 percent of all cable subscribers (approximately 600,000 subscribers) and is not affiliated with an entity that earns in excess of $250 million in gross annual revenues. According to the FCC, this provision would deregulate cable systems affecting 28.8 percent of all cable subscribers. The Markey-Shays amendment would define small cable systems as those that directly serve fewer than 10,000 cable subscribers in its franchise area and have in aggregate less than 250,000 subscribers. I believe that the cable provision of H.R. 1555 go far astray of a competition-based telecommunications policy. They are opposed by the administration. They are opposed by consumer groups. They should be amended to protect consumers until competition arrives to offer an affordable marketplace choice. markey broadcast amendment The drastic and indiscriminate elimination of mass media ownership rules proposed by this bill would eviscerate the public interest principles of diversity and localism. Instead, H.R. 1555 will concentrate great wealth and media power in the hands of a few. It allows for the concentration of television, radio, cable and newspaper properties in a way that will make Citizen Kane look like an underachiever. The mass media provisions of H.R. 1555, which were adopted in the form of an amendment offered by Mr. Stearns (R-FL), are sweeping in scope. The network duopoly rule is repealed. The broadcast-cable crossownership rule is repealed. The network-cable crossownership rule is repealed. The broadcast rule is repealed. The broadcast-newspaper crossownership rule is repealed. National limits on radio station ownership are repealed. Limits on local ownership of radio stations are also eliminated. The one-to-a-market rule is repealed, allowing for the creation of television duopolies in local markets. Finally, the national audience reach limitation for television networks is allowed to double from 25 percent of the country to 50 percent. The aggregate effect of these changes are to move telecommunications policy back to the 1930's. They will encourage the rapid consolidation of mass media ownership in this country and the elimination of diverse sources of opinion and expression. They are a powerful toxin to democracy and a death knell for community control of its own media. H.R. 1555 will ensure that mass media outlets increasingly became beholden to policies and programming originating in New York and Hollywood. The bill encourages the hoarding of media power to truly nightmarish proportions; in a particular town one large company could control 2 TV stations, an unlimited number of radio stations, the only newspaper in town, the town's only cable system, and in small towns the local phone company. Such control over the local media marketplace would give the owner a huge advantage in dictating the terms for advertising. More importantly, it also furnishes this local media potentate with dramatic power to influence coverage and public opinion on hundreds of issues of concern to the citizens of that local community. The bill repeals local media cross-ownership rules between television stations, cable systems and newspapers, allows for unlimited AM and FM radio ownership on both the national and local levels, allows the national television networks to consolidate and to double their audience reach, and permits people to own 2 television stations within a community. Rather than promoting a forward-looking media policy for a 21st century economy, these provisions return us to the 1930's-era when there were very few media owners in most communities. The current rules, which have successfully created a level of media diversity in this country that is the envy of the world, were not the sole creation of liberals. They were implemented on a bipartisan basis by both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, to mitigate against media concentration and to promote competition and diversity. Such media concentration was not a theoretical possibility. During the 1930's, NBC had a Red and a Blue television network. In 1941, the FDR administration barred dual network ownership and required NBC to divest itself of its Blue network. That network became the American Broadcasting Co. After waiting decades for the emergence of a fourth competing network (FOX), the House bill would allow FOX to buy CBS and permit NBC and ABC to merge back together again after a 50-year hiatus. This ill-advised proposal will lead to less choice, less diversity, less competition. On the local level, powerful conglomerates in the 1960's and 1970's were amassing multiple ownership of media outlets. At the time, in the top 50 television markets (comprising 75 percent of the Nation's television homes), 30 markets had one of the local TV stations owned by a major newspaper in the same market. By 1967, some 76 communities had only one AM radio station and only one daily newspaper, with cross- ownership interests between the two. Fourteen communities had one AM radio station, one television station, and only one daily newspaper, all commonly owned. Moreover, in 1968 it was reported that the infant cable industry was already seeing a trend toward media concentration, with 30 percent of cable systems controlled by broadcasters. Across the country, media moguls were assembling what was called a Royal Flush: one person or company would own a local television station, an FM station, an AM station, the daily newspaper and the cable system. And who stepped in to implement rules to prevent the unhealthy accumulation of media power? Why, it was the Nixon and Ford Administrations that found the trend so disturbing they decided to take action. The Republican-led FCC in that era, reflecting main street, small town sensibility on media concentration issues, adopted restrictions on mass media ownership to further the twin goals of diversity and competition. Now who is threatened by the communications cannibalism in media properties that would be unleashed by the current House proposal? Local television affiliates and independent TV stations, small radio stations with innovative but niche programming formats, family-run newspapers struggling to remain independent are endangered species in a new digital Darwinism where only the communications colossi can survive. Every local town and hamlet runs the risk of becoming real life Pottersville, the mythical town that Jimmy Stewart prevented from existing in the 1946 classic ``It's a Wonderful Life.'' The House bill would allow for the aggregation of mass media power that far exceeds the Royal Flush in local markets. Such a historic public policy reversal poses grave repercussions for democratic government. Since the time of Jefferson, access to a diversity of information and opinions on the important issues of the day was considered essential to the workings of democracy. In an era when we are searching for ways to break down monopolies and provide consumers with greater choice, the telecommunications bill returns us to a bygone era and resurrects the possibility that the emerging multimedia milieu will be dominated by a few communications cartels. My amendment addresses two key issues in the bill. repeal of the broadcast-cable crossownership rule This rule prevents TV-cable combinations within local markets. Adopted by the FCC during the Nixon administration, this rule helps to protect fair competition in the local media marketplace and safeguards diversity in mass media outlets within local communities. Simply put, this rule prevents a cable system from acquiring a local TV station in the same city. Television broadcasters today rely upon so-called must carry rules to ensure their carriage on local cable systems. These rules are currently subject to litigation in the courts. If the court invalidates these rules, the broadcast-cable crossownership repeal contained in H.R. 1555 could have adverse consequences. For example, if a cable company has a financial interest in one of the TV stations within the local market (or 2 TV stations if it is one of the new local duopolies permitted by H.R. 1555), some or all of the remaining broadcasters may be refused carriage or discriminated against in such carriage. Without safeguards, repeal of this rule would allow a local cable system-local television combination to utilize the bottleneck of cable system access to stifle media voices and distort the advertising market. Yet even without any judicial decision with respect to the status of must carry obligations, repeal of this rule will have anticompetitive consequences. H.R. 1555 does not extend must carry rights to any new channels offered by broadcasters. In developing new section 336 of the Communication Act of 1934, the authors of H.R. 1555 stipulate that if the Commission decides to award additional licenses for advanced television services, the supplementary services or channels that a broadcaster may develop utilizing digital compression are not granted must carry rights on cable systems. Although numerous broadcasters in a locality might be using digital compression technology to create 3, 4, or 5 additional TV channels each, the cable system is not obligated to carry these additional channels. This is a competitively neutral provision only if all the local television stations are treated by the cable system in similar fashion. With repeal of the broadcast-cable crossownership rule, however, the local cable system could immediately favor the television station in which it had a financial interest. The cable system could do this simply by carrying the additional or supplementary channels and services of that TV station and denying such opportunity to the other broadcasters within the same community. deregulation of the national tv audience reach limitation The bill would lift the current cap limiting television networks to 25-percent coverage of the Nation to 35 percent immediately. It would then be lift the cap to 50 percent 1 year later. I believe that the relationship between networks and television affiliates has served our country well. H.R. 1555 does more than tip the balance between TV networks and their affiliates toward the networks. It completely disrupts that balance. Local broadcasters in communities across the country are fighting to remain local broadcasters in this legislation. Increasing the national audience caps to 50 percent puts localism in jeopardy. The doubling of the audience cap will hurt diversity. The nature of the network-affiliate relationship today is that networks must count on their affiliates to air national programming while affiliates count on the networks to provide national news, sports and entertainment to add to a mix of local news and independently- produced programming. tilting the balance too much toward the networks will create a concentration of nationally-produced programming and a corresponding loss of locally-oriented programming. If networks can own stations that cover the largest markets in the country, we lose the tradition--and the capability--of having local affiliates pre-empt network programming to bring viewers important local news, public interest programming, and local sports. As Ed Reilly, president of McGraw Hill Broadcasting Co. said in testimony before the Committee: A network-owned station almost never pre-empts a network program to cover a local sports event or to air a local charity telethon. Because American society is built upon local community expression, the policy favoring localism is fundamental to the licensing of broadcast stations. Localism permits broadcasters to tailor their programming to the needs and interests of their communities. Moreover, as trends toward national homogenization of the media grow--for example, cable channels and direct broadcast satellite service-- localism increases in importance. Expansion of national media outlets increases the need for local media outlets with the locally ubiquitous reach of broadcast television stations. In short, relaxation of the national audience caps is an anti- competitive proposal. Deregulation of the audience cap will intensify concentration in the hands of the vertically-integrated, national television networks. Once they are permitted to gobble up additional local stations, these mega-networks will have an increased ability to sell national advertising by controlling local distribution. No one will argue that, in general, it is not more efficient to simply make local broadcast stations passive conduits for network transmissions from New York. Localism is an expensive value. We believe it is a vitally important value, however, and like universal service, it is a principle of communications policy rooted in the Communications Act of 1934. It should be preserved and enhanced as we reform our laws for the next century.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing into the Record the Markey-Moran-Burton-Spratt amendment on parental blocking of TV shows that harm children as submitted to the House Rules Committee. We are introducing this amendment on behalf of a diverse coalition of parents, teachers, elementary school principals, school psychiatrists, churches, pediatricians, doctors, and civic organizations working to combat violence in our homes, our schools, and on the streets. Our request is their request--that the rule for consideration of H.R. 1555 make in order the Markey-Moran-Burton-Spratt amendment to promote the health and welfare of children by including in TV sets technology that parents can use to manage and reduce the flood of violent, sexual and indecent material delivered to young children over the television set. This request is bipartisan, as you will note from today's witnesses and from the signatures on the letter we have delivered to you, Mr. Chairman, in support of this amendment's consideration by the full House of Representatives. The subject of this amendment has received extensive consideration by the House of Representatives during five hearings on television violence held in the House Telecommunications Subcommittee in the last Congress and a similar number in the Senate. When I first began pressing this technological defense against TV violence in 1993, I introduced a bill with the support of 4 Republicans and 10 Democrats. [[Page E 1566]] When Mr. Moran, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Spratt and I introduced a new bill in this Congress, 4 Republicans and 25 Democrats joined us. When a similar proposal was offered by Senator Conrad in June as an amendment to the Senate counterpart to H.R. 1555, it received the support of 32 Republicans and 41 Democrats, passing 73-26. On July 10, the President of the United States endorsed this approach, calling the V-chip ``a little thing but a big deal''. And as you know, the letter we delivered today includes 19 Republicans and 23 Democrats. So this is a subject of intense interest receiving broad support from both parties. It is supported by huge majority of the American public, with some polls and reader surveys putting support as high as 90 percent. Mr. Chairman, its time has come. The average American child has seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence by the time he or she leaves elementary school. Parents know what's going on. I have held five hearings over the last 2 years on the subject of children and televised violence. In every hearing I have heard both compelling testimony about the harmful effects of negative television on young children, and about the efforts of industry to reduce gratuitous violence. But parents don't care whether the violence is gratuitous or not. When you have young children in your home, you want to reduce all violence to a minimum. That's why parents are not impressed with the temporary promises of broadcast executives to do better. Parents know that the good deeds of one are quickly undermined by the bad deeds of another. The pattern is familiar. Parents plea for help in coping with the sheer volume and escalating graphics of TV violence and sexual material. Congress expresses concern. The industry screams first amendment. The press says they're both right, calling on Congress to hold off and calling on industry to tone things down. Meanwhile, parents get no help. Until parents actually have the power to manage their own TV sets using blocking technology, parents will remain dependent on the values and programming choices of executives in Los Angeles and New York who, after all, are trying to maximize viewership, not meet the needs of parents. Mr. Chairman, here is what the amendment would do: First, we will give the industry a year to develop a ratings system and activate blocking technology on a voluntary basis. If they fail to act, then the legislation will require the FCC to: First, form an advisory committee, including parents and industry, to develop a ratings system to give parents advance warning of material that might be harmful to children; Please note that the government does not do the ratings. Second, require that any ratings implemented by a broadcaster be transmitted to TV receivers, and Third, require TV set manufacturers to include blocking technology in new TV sets so that parents can block programs that are rated, of block programs by time or by program. We want both the House and the Senate on record as favoring this simple, first amendment friendly, parent-friendly, child-friendly solution to this ongoing problem. You will hear arguments from some that this technological way of dealing with the problem of TV violence is akin to Big Brother. It's exactly the opposite. It's more like Big Mother and Big Father. Parents take control. And we know this technology works. In this country, the Electronics Industries Association has already developed standards for it. In Canada, a test in homes in Edmonton proved that it works and works well. This is not a panacea. It will take some time for enough new sets to be purchased to have an impact on the Nielsen ratings and, therefore, an impact on advertisers. But its introduction in the cable world through set-top boxes is likely to be much more rapid. The cable industry has said that it is prepared to move forward with a V-chip approach as long as broadcasters move forward as well. And the Electronic Industries Association has already agreed to introduce the technology into sets that would allow up to four levels of violence or sexual material to be rated. Only the broadcasters have remained adamant in their opposition. They are opposed because the V-chip will work so well, not because it won't work. It will take only a small number of parents in key demographic groups using the V-chip to test the willingness of advertisers to support violent programming. Parents will have the capacity to customize their own sets--to create their own private safe harbor--to protect their own children as they see fit. I urge my colleagues to support this important initiative.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Program. We must find a way to fund such a valuable program that has affected teachers and students in every State and territory. While I understand these are tight budgetary times, I think we owe it to the seven astronauts who gave their lives for our country to maintain this tribute. The astronauts of the Challenger mission gave their lives to our country; our memory, and ability to pay tribute, must not be so short-lived. We are approaching the tenth anniversary of the Challenger shuttle explosion which struck the hearts of children and adults throughout the world. Seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher-astronaut, gave their lives in this devastating tragedy. In honor of those who gave their lives on this mission, the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Program was established. This program serves not only as a living tribute to these brave astronauts, but also supports a unique and valuable program for teachers that recognize and develop excellence in teaching. It personifies the hope evident in Christa McAuliffe's statement about her teaching in Concord, NH, ``I touch the future, I teach.'' It would be a tremendous dishonor to their lives and memory to eliminate funding for this fellowship. However, it is now being criticized as ``too small to be effective on a national level.'' The Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Program has received approximately $2 million per year in Federal funding since 1987. Approximately 60-75 fellowships are awarded each year to outstanding teachers throughout the country. There have been over 600 participants in this program since its inception in 1987; 38 of these past fellows have gone on to receive Presidential awards. These fellows complete semester or year- long projects to enhance their own teaching skills and broaden the horizons of education. Their activities help students to experience subjects such as math and science in a fun way. These math and science skills are extremely important in our increasingly high-tech world. This high-tech world will result in a society of technological haves and have-nots unless our schools are able to teach our children effectively in these most important subjects. These teachers have developed many exemplary projects that provide for more benefit than their costs. This fellowship, and other small, directed programs such as this, have a huge ripple effect; awardees of these programs donate much of their own time, energy and resources towards the development of their projects and they also share information between teachers, students, and Challenger Centers located throughout the Nation. This fellowship program inspires not only those familiar with the outstanding local achievements of past fellows, but also those who visit the network of Challenger Centers located throughout the U.S. and Canada. These Centers provide hundreds of thousands of children and teachers with unique educational experiences such as high-tech spaceflight simulators, satellite teleconferences for schools, and hands-on teachers' workshops. Framingham State College, Christa McAuliffe's alma mater, has established a McAuliffe Center to honor Christa's life and her commitment to teaching. The mission of the Center is to carry out educational activities and research that will support teachers in their work, improve educational practice, offer students goals and incentives to enhance their development, and strengthen community support for public education. The Center also serves as the archive and distribution center for the teachers' award winning projects. In addition, Framingham State College is the site of one of the Challenger Learning Centers. The Christa McAuliffe Center and all its activities are a fitting tribute to our Nation's first teacher-astronaut. Christa hoped her participation in the Challenger mission would encourage students and teachers to pursue their own dreams, explore exciting educational opportunities, and unleash their own imagination and creativity. As the network of the Challenger Centers expands and links teachers and students across the country, the legacy of Christa and the other Challenger astronauts continues to endure. We must now restore our bipartisan commitment to education, a fundamental building block of a competitive economy. Now, even more than ever, opportunity in the global economy depends on skills and education. Education and advanced training are the key to economic growth. It is programs such as the McAuliffe Fellowship that help our Nation provide the education we need to continue to compete in the world economy and to provide our children with the knowledge and skills they will need to be productive and successful adults.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to cuts in the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program which are part of the Appropriations bill for Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies. The bill reduces funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by $5.6 billion, or 23 percent below the 1995 level. It cuts funding for important programs which have important and beneficial impacts on the lives of many elderly and low-income Americans. I cannot turn my back on these people, so I want to bring some facts about these programs to the attention of the House. While all Members of the House would claim to be opposed to the sale and use of illegal drugs, funding for the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program is zeroed-out in this bill. This program funds effective locally-run efforts to eliminate drugs. It is a key tool to help local housing authorities combat crime in public housing communities in Massachusetts and through-out the country. The Drug Elimination Program received $290 million in fiscal year 1995. This money is used to fight drug distribution and abuse by reimbursing local law enforcement agencies, by employing security personnel and investigators, by providing physical improvements designed to enhance security, and by supporting tenant patrol groups. Along with making communities safer, it also funds the creation of innovative youth programs, offering young people and adults positive alternatives to drug use. This money is a very cost-effective expenditure. The costs of drug use include higher security and law enforcement costs, a lower quality of life, lower educational attainment, and higher healthcare costs. Compared to the terrible costs which drug use imposes upon individuals and communities, this program is a bargain, and it is essential. In my district, several housing authorities were recipients of drug elimination funds in 1995, including Medford ($240,000), Chelsea ($175,000), Woburn ($50,000), and Malden ($250,000). The end of funding for these programs would significantly hamper efforts to lessen drug use and improve the quality of life in these communities. Mr. Chairman, I call upon the House to put taxpayers' money where their commitments are, and to continue funding for the Drug Elimination Program. The House recently funded $553 million as the down payment to build two additional B-2 bombers that the Pentagon didn't ask for or want. Let's stop wasting money on unwanted planes and start saving wasted lives.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation which condemns the Government of Iraq for failing to comply with U.N. resolutions adopted at the end of the gulf war. These U.N. resolutions require Iraqi authorities to provide full and complete disclosure of all weapons-related activities and make significant improvements in the area of human rights. Because Baghdad has not satisfied the requirements contained in these resolutions, strict sanctions on the export of commodities to, and the import of commodities by, the Government of Iraq remain in place. However, despite Iraq's continued noncompliance, some of our allies still are eager to lift the sanctions in anticipation of completing business contracts with the Iraqi authorities. I am pleased that Representatives Solomon, Lantos, and Porter have joined me in this bipartisan legislation, which we hope will send a strong message to the U.N. Security Council and to our allies that commercial interests must not be placed above vital security needs and fundamental human rights principles. Restoring trade relations with Iraq before a full picture has emerged of Baghdad's past research, development, and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction could be a disastrous, and potentially deadly, mistake. When it comes to obeying international security rules, Saddam Hussein has an abysmal track record. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], in the past Baghdad has violated its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty by attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. In an April IAEA report to the United Nations, the IAEA stated that, while it is confident essential components of Iraq's past clandestine nuclear program have been identified and disposed of appropriately, some of the documents detailing the nuclear weapons program have been taken from IAEA inspectors by Iraqi authorities and not returned. According to the U.N. Special Commission, which is responsible for monitoring Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile activities, Iraq has not provided a full and comprehensive explanation of its past military biological program or accounted for items and materials acquired for that program. With Iraq's failure to account for the use of these items and materials for legitimate purposes, the Special Commission has concluded that there is a high risk that these items have been purchased and used for a proscribed purpose, specifically the acquisition of a biological warfare agent. In addition to the lingering doubts about Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction, human rights conditions in Iraq remain intolerable. By any objective standard, the provisions established in U.N. Resolution 688 have not been satisfied. As specified in the U.N. resolution, the Security Council condemned Saddam Hussein's repression of the Iraqi civilian population and demanded that Baghdad immediately end this repression, which threatens peace and security in the Middle East. Iraq has murdered Kurdish civilians by employing chemical weapons in a brutal and systematic campaign of terror and has executed a large-scale military operation against civilians living in the southern marshes. In light of Iraq's failure to comply with all relevant U.N. resolutions, the international community must not in any way condone Baghdad's conduct in the name of commerce or mitigate their misdeeds for the sake of money. I am pleased that Representatives Solomon, Lantos, and Porter have joined me in introducing this resolution and welcome the support of our colleagues.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Government, and the defense industrial companies through which it operates, has established itself as the arms supplier of choice for many of the world's rogue states. We have granted China most-favored-nation status, and Beijing has responded by becoming the most eager vendor in the international nuclear marketplace. While we, in Congress, have been appropriating billions of dollars to encourage peace and security around the world, Beijing has been selling weapons of mass destruction to the highest bidders, regardless of the consequences. Over the past several years, the Chinese Government has: Delivered missile guidance systems to Iran; sent M-11 ballistic missile technology to Pakistan and aided Pakistan's efforts to develop a covert nuclear weapons program; sold Silkworm missiles to Iraq; and provided nuclear technology to Algeria. In addition to sending sensitive technologies to outlaw nations, China continues to increase its military muscle at home by: Pursuing a secret program to develop biological weapons; continuing its underground nuclear test explosion program despite an international testing moratorium in effect since 1992; and conducting military exercises in the East China Sea just north of Taiwan. Mr. Speaker, Beijing has a rapsheet that would make any thug proud. But instead of getting 10 to 20, the Chinese Government keeps getting billions of dollars worth of tax breaks which have helped it run up a massive trade surplus with the United States. Over the years, I have stood in the well of the House to speak out against a Chinese regime which ignores international security rules, systemically oppresses it own people, and demands preferential trade status while refusing to provide equal access to its own market. Since last year, the Chinese Government record has deteriorated even further: American citizen Harry Wu has been detained, political prisoners are still being held in a Chinese ``Gulag Archipelego'' stretching across the country, and China's trade and proliferation policies remain dismal. I stand here today in support of H.R. 2058, the China Policy Act of 1995, which I believe will send a message to Beijing's ruling clique: We're watching you. We'll be checking your progress in the nonproliferation, trade, and human rights. And it's time to clean up your act. I still however, support a complete cut-off of MFN status for China because I don't believe we should label as ``most favored'' the regime operating in Beijing. I hope that this bipartisan bill serves as a wake-up call for China's dictators.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, this deals with the very specific issue that the gentleman from Mississippi was interested in. It avoids the trap of having the broader repeal of all of the other energy efficiency laws that affect every other appliance. I think that the chairman of the committee is wise in accepting this amendment. It is in fact a very fair compromise that deals with a very specific issue that had been raised by the gentleman from Mississippi. I would hope that the amendment would be accepted.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, you know, this amendment is really the Luddite amendment of 1955 thus far. In this one amendment, we embody all of the lost lessons of the 1970's in our country. While the Japanese and Germans and others move to a much more energy efficient culture, we continue to pretend that we do not have to make our society more energy efficiency. In 1987 and 1988 and 1990 again, we passed laws to push the appliance industry, to push these other industries, toward making their appliances, which would in fact otherwise demand we import more oil from the Middle East, to a standard which could meet competition from overseas. We have saved and will continue to save 4 billion barrels of imported oil from the Middle East because of these standards, which have increased the efficiency of every light bulb and every stove and refrigerator in our country. That is all oil fired electricity is, is nothing more than every light bulb and air conditioner being turned on. If we want to roll back the clock, we can just ignore this morning's news that we have had a dramatic increase in crude oil imports this morning, which resulted in the largest trade imbalance number we have seen for a long time, and we can pretend we live on an island, we can pretend that we do not need to import oil, we can pretend that the Middle East is not in a huge crisis, and we can pretend somehow or another by denying the Federal Government the ability to do it and preempting the States simultaneously, we are not going to fall back into the same trap we had in the 1970's and early 1980's again. that is why this amendment goes right at the heart of the question of whether or not this Congress has learned the lessons of the crisis in the 1970's in our country. We save on imported oil 4 billion barrels. We in fact make these appliances much more environmentally benign, so we are not polluting as much, and we reduce costs and the need to deal with the Clean Air Act. We in fact create more jobs, which is why Honeywell, Whirlpool, Owens Corning, Firestone, and all the rest of the companies oppose the Parker amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is aptly named. Strategic comes from its military importance to our country. The reason that we need the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is that it calms our economic, our financial and our energy marketplaces during military crisis, during crises in the Middle East. It gives the United States time to think. It allows our financial markets the time to be able to absorb the shock which is coming out of the Middle East. More important than the B-2 bomber, more important than the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a modern world, where most of the risks are going to come from places that we can identify that send shocks throughout our system, it is needed in order to give us the time to think. It tells our enemies that they cannot panic our economy the way in the 1970's we were panicked. Let us vote not to reduce it. If we need to spend the money, let us find it from the other defense items which are less important than the role which the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has played over the last 20 years in telling our enemies they cannot spook us.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today, Representatives Jim Moran, Dan Burton, John Spratt, and I, along with a long list of bipartisan cosponsors from every region of the United States, are introducing the Parental Choice in Television Act of 1995. We are introducing this bill with the intention of offering it as an amendment when the telecommunications bill comes to the House floor in July. It is supported by a broad coalition of groups from the PTA to the AMA. It is supported by 90 percent of the American public. In short, its time has come. In my view, there is no more compelling governmental interest in the United States today than providing families a healthy, safe environment in which to raise healthy, productive children. The fact is that television is one of the most important influences on our children's lives. We might wish it were different, but that won't bring us back to the 1950's when children watched relatively little TV. Today they watch 4 to 7 hours every day. ``Electronic teacher'' for many children, but what it teaches to young children is scary. The average American child has seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence by the time he or she leaves elementary school. Parents know what's going on. I have held six hearings over the last 2 years on the subject of children and televised violence. In every hearing I have heard both compelling testimony about the harmful effects of negative television on young children, and about the efforts of industry to reduce gratuitous violence. But parents don't care whether the violence is gratuitous or not. When you have young children in your home, you want to reduce all violence to a minimum. That's why parents are not impressed with the temporary promises of broadcast executives to do better. Parents know that the good deeds of one are quickly undermined by the bad deeds of another. The pattern is familiar. Parents plea for help in coping with the sheer volume and escalating graphics of TV violence and sexual material. Congress expresses concern. The industry screams ``first amendment''. The press says they're both right, calling on Congress to hold off and calling on industry to tone things down. Meanwhile, parents get no help. Until parents actually have the power to manage their own TV sets using blocking technology, parents will remain dependent on the values and programming choices of executives in Los Angeles and New York who, after all, are trying to maximize viewership, not meet the needs of parents. In 1993, a USA Today survey found that 68 percent of its readers supported mandating the inclusion of V-chip technology in new TV sets. By 1996, a similar survey found that this number had risen to 90 percent. Clearly the public is clamoring for solutions which make it easier to control their own TV sets. That is why we in the House intend to move forward with the V-Chip. We will give the industry a year to develop a ratings system and activate blocking technology on a voluntary basis, but if they fail to act, then the legislation will require the FCC to: First, form an advisory committee, including parents and industry, to develop a ratings system to give parents advance warning of material that might be harmful to children; Second, prescribe rules for transmitting those ratings to TV receivers, and Third, require TV set manufacturers to include blocking technology in new TV sets so that parents can block programs that are rated, of block programs by time or by program. [[Page E 1437]] We want both the House and the Senate on record as favoring this simple, first-amendment friendly, parent-friendly, child-friendly solution to this ongoing problem. You will hear arguments from some that this technological way of dealing with the problem of TV violence is akin to ``Big Brother.'' It's exactly the opposite. It's more like ``Big Mother'' and ``Big Father.'' Parents take control. And we know this technology works. In this country, the Electronics Industries Association has already developed standards for it. In Canada, a test in homes in Edmonton proved that it works and works well. This is not a panacea. It will take some time for enough new sets to be purchased to have an impact on the Nielsen ratings and, therefore, an impact on advertisers. But its introduction in the cable world through set-top boxes is likely to be much more rapid. The cable industry has said that it is prepared to move forward with a V-chip approach as long as broadcasters move forward as well. And the Electronic Industries Association has already agreed to introduce the technology into sets that would allow up to four levels of violence or sexual material to be rated. Only the broadcasters have remained adamant in their opposition. They are opposed because the V-chip will work so well, not because it won't work. It will take only a small number of parents in key demographic groups using the V-chip to test the willingness of advertisers to support violent programming. Parents will have the capacity to customize their own sets--to create their own private safe harbor--to protect their own children as they see fit. I urge my colleagues to support this important initiative.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Clearly, there is an internal contradictory position which the committee has taken within its own document. Page 81, they make it quite clear that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the Nuclear Waste Policy of 1982 and of 1987 each have authorized the waste management system, and then within their own document they negate that conclusion by the arbitrary statement that the nuclear waste disposal fund is not authorized. Clearly, there is right now an ongoing excavation at Yucca Mountain. Clearly, there is an ongoing collection of funds from all the nuclear electric utilities in the United States, and clearly the whole subject of this debate is premised upon the authorized 1982 and 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Acts. The statement by staff in a committee report later on that this is not, in fact, authorized only seeks to make possible the point of order which the gentleman is making right now, but clearly the earlier part of this legislation that is the committee report had to be stated this way in order for the committee to proceed at all. So, any ruling by the Chair, notwithstanding the objection by the gentleman from Indiana, has to reflect the actuality that this committee has stated clearly, that the legislation has been--that this has been authorized and, in fact, has been authorized going back to 1982, with continuing legislation in 1987, and the Chair in ruling, I think, should reflect the history of this entire area plus the very statement of the committee in their own document with regard to the authorizing of these funds.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, on page 81 of the committee report, committee states itself quite clearly that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 1987 authorize a waste management system for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from commercial and atomic energy defense activities. These laws establish the nuclear waste disposal fund to finance disposal activities through the correction of fees from the owners and generators of nuclear waste. The committee recommends $226 million to be derived from the fund in fiscal year 1996, et cetera, et cetera. Clearly, the underlying Nuclear Waste Policy Act has authorized, and the Waste Policy Act of 1987 have authorized the money. That is the platform legislation which we are using for discussion in this debate, and any ruling to the contrary would negate the long historical legislative record in this area that clearly makes the amendment which I have before the House in order this evening.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. I wait for the Chair's ruling with great anticipation.

Mr. MARKEY. I would like, Mr. Chairman, to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me the time. I very much compliment him on the making of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, this is really to a very large extent the critical debate that we are going to have out here on the floor. Renewable energy now provides 10 percent of the energy in our country. But it is still in its nascent stage. Whether it be solar voltaic, which has dropped dramatically from upward of 26 cents a kilowatt hour down to 8 or 9 cents a kilowatt hour just over the past decade; wind, which has dropped from 30 cents a kilowatt hour down to 4 or 5 cents a kilowatt hour in the last 10 years, we are seeing dramatic changes in the way in which electricity and energy are generated in this country. Unfortunately the bill as it is presently constructed still tilts dramatically toward the older technologies. There is $236 million in this budget for fission technology. This is a 40-year-old technology that is already out in the marketplace with one of the wealthiest industries in the United States, the electric utility industry, perfectly capable of doing all additional research on that technology. In addition, there is $230 million in here for fusion technology. Money is here for coal research. Money is here for all kinds of research on the older technologies. Now, I really would not mind if the committee cut out all the money for solar and all money for wind if they cut out all the money for fusion and fission. I really would not care. Then it would be a fair fight out in the marketplace. I would feel a lot better about it. But if you are going to continue the subsidies for the mature industries, it is wrong to have a 43-percent cut for the nascent competitors of solar and wind and geothermal and conservation. That is what disturbs me most about this whole debate. It has either got to be one way or the other, an amendment to cut out all subsidies or an amendment to keep comparable subsidies for all the competing energy technologies. There is a good reason for it. We are so overly dependent upon imported oil. Sixty percent of the oil is imported. If we are going to break our dependence on that, we have to have these domestic, indigenous sources of energy developed. Those are going to be the renewables. We need ways in which we are going to lower the cost of energy. Only by having competing technologies do we reduce the overall likelihood we are going to see increases in the traditional fossil fuel or nuclear power generated electricity. We need to reduce the smog in order to reduce the global warming phenomenon, in order to reduce the acid rain problem. These are benign technologies that reduce our need to have more intrusive environmental laws which pass here on the floor of Congress. So for all of those reasons, the Klug amendment takes us in the right direction. The history, however, out here on the floor of the House is if it does not glow, it gets no dough. The nuclear budget continues to be enhanced. The reason we need this is like the fax machine or telephone, while they may have a nascent discovery and application, it takes 20 and 30 years to finally get them to the marketplace. That is what we have found, and that is why I support the Klug amendment. parliamentary inquiry

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my support for development aid for Africa, and to register my concern over the deep cuts in development assistance to that continent that are being considered as part of current proposals to cut foreign aid. For example, H.R. 1561, the American Oversees Interests Act, cuts funding for the development fund for Africa [DFA] by over $170 million from the $802 million requested by the administration for this important program. As we continue to review our foreign assistance budget, DFA stands to lose even more of its funding. Curtailing assistance to Africa--aid that has saved lives, promoted democracy, and created hope--is a bad decision. Since its inception, United States development aid to Africa has been a foreign policy success story. The DFA, funded at less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. budget, has helped bring about great change. Since the 1960's, infant mortality rates in Africa have fallen by one- half, average life expectancy has risen by 17 years, and more than 24 countries on the African continent have graduated from foreign aid dependents to U.S. trading partners. Yet still more than half of Africa's population--54 percent--lives in abject poverty, and as high as that number is, it is projected to grow by 50 percent by the turn of the century if African development efforts are deserted. If we abandon this cost-effective and successful program, our conflict resolution efforts, microenterprise, agriculture, and health care projects will be undermined. Forsaking the sustainable development programs that have made such a difference in the lives of Africa's poor and hungry will open the gates for hopelessness and despair to come rushing right back in. Assistance to Africa enjoys widespread support among Americans. Two- thirds of the American people believe that the United States has a moral responsibility to help indigent nations. Over 60 percent deem it in our economic interest to aid developing countries. And over 75 percent feel we have a responsibility to aid starving people regardless of whether other foreign policy objectives will be promoted in the process. Now, one sentiment that my colleagues are well aware of is the public's view that our Nation spends too much money on foreign aid. In a public opinion poll conducted in January 1995, participants asked to estimate the share of the Federal budget devoted to foreign aid responded, on average, that 15 percent of the budget went overseas. When asked what they thought the percentage should be, the average answer was 5 percent, and when informed that foreign aid amounts to less than 1 percent of the budget, fewer than 20 percent still thought we were spending too much. The reality is that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget is spent on foreign aid to Africa. The reality is that U.S. exports to developing countries have more than doubled in the past decade, and that every additional $1 billion in exported goods creates an estimated 20,000 U.S. jobs. The reality is that the bulk of the money we budget for foreign aid is actually spent on goods and services in the United States. The reality is that assistance promoting self- help development and crisis prevention is cost-effective. And the reality is that a stronger Africa is in the long-term interests of America. I agree that we need to balance the budget. But balancing it on the backs of Africa's impoverished is clearly not the way to do it. Mr. Chairman, we have a chance to help Africa become a self- sufficient, prosperous, democratic continent. We have the opportunity, we have the ability, and we have the moral obligation to do so. Let us rise and meet the call.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. It is a pile as high as the Moon because ultimately this technology will never produce any final product which was an unfortunate experience which we had with the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. It never resulted in a final product.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, just so everyone can understand what it is that we are debating out here on the floor, this is basically a baby breeder reactor. The name has been changed to protect the guilty, but it is just the next generation of the breeder reactor, that whole debate we had about the Clinch River Breeder Reactor and all of that. I say to my colleagues, ``If you remember, this miracle technology is [[Page H 6808]] going to produce electricity too cheap to meter, and it is also going to solve our reprocessing problem, if such existed.'' The problem with it was that it created two problems. One, it, in fact, cost more than anyone had ever imagined that it could cost to generate electricity; and, second, it blew a hole right through our nonproliferation policy because, as we began the process of constructing a technology to reprocess plutonium, we were sending a signal to North Korea, and Iran, and Iraq, and Libya, and every other country around the world that was contemplating the use of this technology to extract nuclear-weapons-grade fuel and telling them, ``Don't listen to what we say. Don't in any was believe that we are sermonizing on the subject. Just look at this huge amount of money that we are willing to spend on the same technology that we are telling you that you should not in fact invest in.'' So the $18 million which the gentleman from Wisconsin seeks to cut out of this budget goes right to the heart of this debate. One, we should not be subsidizing once again private-sector technology which is supposed to ultimately reuse this spent fuel for other purposes. That would be wrong. Eighteen million dollars for the nuclear utility industry would be about $100,000 in electric utility per year. If they think it is such a wonderful technology for a hundred thousand bucks apiece, the wealthiest industry in America should be able to finance it. But second, we all have to ask whether or not our 20-year-old policy of turning our back to this reprocessing technology which blows a hole into our nonproliferation regime is something we want to destroy. Now they can use this new term of pyral processing, but, if we are pyromaniacs here, we are basically going to burn up 18 million bucks and burn up our nonproliferation policy simultaneously out here on the floor this evening. The vote, the correct vote, is to insure that the private sector funds this if in fact it is deemed to be worthy as a generator of a new era of nuclear powerplant fuel, and second, we should understand that the $18 million we spend absolutely makes us look like hypocrites on the world stage, and we try to convince North Korea and others that the nonproliferation regime of the United States has any credibility.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment because I wanted to be part of this historic debate. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Klug] has put together, in my opinion, the historic trifecta, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, all supporting the position of the gentleman from Wisconsin; in addition, the National Taxpayers Union, the Friends of the Earth, and the National Academy of Sciences, a combination of truly all-star proportions, all gathered together to kill one technology. Now, why does this technology deserve to be killed? Very simply, it is the second generation of the same technology. And it is not basic research that we are talking about, it is applied research. That is, it is the point at which they are building this monstrosity for commercial purposes. Now, ordinarily if you are talking about a nascent industry, one that is just beginning to get off the ground, it would be one thing; and we can debate out here what the proper role is of the Federal Government in subsidizing a new industry. This, however, is one of the oldest industries in the United States and one of the two or three wealthiest industries. We are talking about the electric utility industry of the United States. Every one of us, all 275 million Americans, has a wire that goes into our home. And every one of us has an electric utility that every time we turn on a light bulb or have our toast pop up, gets ready to send us another bill to charge us for. This multi-hundred-billion dollar a year industry makes an enormous amount of money from doing that. We are grateful to them for the wonderful service which they provide for us and do not really begrudge them [[Page H 6803]] the incredible profits which this industry receives. However, when they then turn to the very same 275 million people, as taxpayers, and say, by the way, we do not want to actually pay for the next generation of our electric utility generating capacity; we would like you, the taxpayers, to put up the money for that as well, well, this is the point at which the American taxpayer and Adam Smiths all begin to spin wondering what is going on with the capitalist system. As we know, this technology is competing with oil and gas and geothermal and conservation and the new wheeling technologies and interconnection capacities which are reducing the need for electricity inside of our country or generating them in 20 and 30 megawatt size plants, using the new laws which we passed in 1992 to wheel that power to where it is needed around the country. Now, the problem with the technology is that it goes back to an earlier era, the late 1970's and the early 1980's. During that period of time, the electric utility industry testified before Congress that we would need 500 more 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants by the year 2000 or else we would face blackouts of electricity across the country. And that was, I am sure, their sincere testimony before the Congress in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It resulted in a lot of this basic research at least being invested in. Well, it is 15, 20 years later. We did not build a single new nuclear power plant in our country during that period of time. We have electricity surpluses across the country because we have, because of the law changes, so many smaller independent generators of electricity who are using the wires to produce electricity using nonnuclear sources. So as we hit the middle of the 1990's, we have a fundamental question to ask ourselves. Should we, as the Representatives of the taxpayers of the United States, be subsidizing the very wealthiest mature industry in the United States in applied research, as we build the reactor for them, when in fact the most that we can elicit from these electric utility executives are letters of support for us to spend taxpayers money? The capitalist system demands that in the free market that private sector companies, especially those as well-to-do as the electric utilities of this country, make the investment in the new technologies. If they do not, they must step aside and allow these newer, smaller generators of electricity to continue to do the job for our country which they have over the past several years. The gentleman from Wisconsin has an amendment which must be embraced, if capitalist, free market principles are to endure in the electricity marketplace of our country. I hope that all understand the importance of this amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the violence chip received the endorsement of the President of the United States. This is a watershed moment in the fight for balance between parents who feel overwhelmed by the 200-channel television world of the future, and those who believe that the first amendment denies government any role in managing television. Parents can set their sets to block out violent shows, and the V-chip does the rest. Any show carrying a rating that the parent wants to keep out, gets blocked. For those of you who can't program the clock on your VCR, this is easier. If you want, you can set it once and not reset it until your kids are grown. In the meantime, a parent knows that at least in his or her living room, there is an oasis of peace and quiet, free from the guns and beatings and mayhem and sexual material that is so frequently used to attract TV audiences. This is nothing more or less than an on-off button, modernized for today's world. Parents can't be home all day, so technology will block shows until parents get home. It is not censorship, it is parental choice. It is not content regulation, it is parental mobilization. It is not big brother, it is big mother and big father. Ninety percent of parents polled want it. Within the next couple of days the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt], the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter], the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Dickey], and I will be introducing legislation to advance this cause.