Larry Pressler

Mr. PRESSLER

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Montana.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, how much time does each side have?

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding the previous order, at 12:30 I be recognized to make a motion to table the Thurmond amendment 1265, as modified and, if the amendment is tabled, amendment 1264 be automatically withdrawn.

Mr. PRESSLER. Amendment 1264 be automatically withdrawn. That will be the Senator's underlying amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. That is correct. I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the previous order, at 12:30 I be recognized to make a motion to table the Thurmond amendment, as modified and, if the amendment is tabled, amendment 1264 be automatically withdrawn.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, this has been a long debate and many speakers have come to the floor on each side. I strongly believe that we should vote to table the Thurmond amendment because it creates a new role, an unprecedented, unnecessary role for the Department of Justice. Presently, there are many safeguards to consumers and to companies and to the public built into this legislation. This legislation was the result of meeting after meeting for over 3 months, every night and Saturday and Sunday among Republicans and Democrats, to come together to reach a bipartisan bill. We came up with a plan that the regulatory agency, the FCC, would be the decisionmaker while the Justice Department would still be involved. In the first step, when a company is applying, the State certifies compliance with a market-opening requirement. So that is a safeguard. Second, the FCC affirms public interest, necessity, and convenience. We had a vote here the other day on this floor preserving public interest, so the FCC can use the public interest standard. Third of all, the FCC certifies compliance with a 14-point checklist. I have the 14 points listed here in another chart. The point is that in the bipartisan meetings and building on the legislation of last year and building on efforts of many Senators--indeed, all 100 Senators were consulted during this process leading up to the markup in the Senate Commerce Committee--there was a question: Shall we use the VIII(c) test, which is a complicated test, or shall we use the Clayton 7 test, and we decided to come up with a checklist, a competitive checklist.

Mr. PRESSLER. Yes.

Mr. PRESSLER. That is correct. I welcome amendments. I welcome this amendment. I am giving a history of how we came to this checklist. I think the point I am making is that we have had a very bipartisan effort here, and we welcomed amendments there in the committee, and we welcome amendments here. Obviously, every member of every committee can bring something to the floor. But this checklist was worked out an a bipartisan basis. Before the local Bell company can be declared as having an open market, it has to interconnect. That is the first point. That is, they have to open up their wires so others can come in. They have to show the capability to exchange telecommunications between Bell customers and competitor's customers, access to poles, ducts, conduits and rights-of-way; the three unbundling standards, where they have to unbundle the system so other people can get in; access to 911 and enhanced 911; directory assistance and operator call completion services; white pages directory listing; access to telephone number assignment; access to data bases and network signaling; number portability; local dialing parity; reciprocal compensation, and the resale rules. That is a checklist that the FCC must go through to determine if the Bell company has opened up its business so other competitors have a fair opportunity to compete in the local telephone business. I have not heard anyone criticize this checklist. It seems to be universally accepted. Also, the Bells have additional requirements on them to open their markets. This is done at the FCC level and not Justice, and the Bells must comply with a separate subsidiary requirement, nondiscrimination requirement and a cross-subsidization ban. The FCC must allow the Department of Justice full participation in all of its proceedings. So the Department of Justice is already present without the Thurmond amendment. Now, the Bells must comply with existing FCC rules and rigorous annual audits, elaborate cost accounting, computer-assisted reporting, and special pricing rules. So there is much involvement. The Sherman Antitrust Act is in place. The Clayton Act is in place. The Hart-Scott- Rodino Act is in place. So the Justice Department has plenty to do. I find this debate very unusual because it implies we are going to get the Justice Department involved. They are involved at every stage. In addition, under the Hobbs Civil Appeals Act, the Department of Justice is involved as an independent party in all FCC appeals. The Justice Department is involved every step of the way. If there is disagreement and there is an appeal, the Justice Department can be a party to that. Mr. President, the Justice Department is meant to be, under its enabling legislation, an enforcer of law. It is trying to become a Government regulation agency. Now, it did become that to some extent under Judge Greene's 1982 order. That order arose because Congress failed to act. Congress failed to do what we are trying to do now. Congress failed to require that the local exchanges be opened up, as the checklist requires. But we are doing that now in this legislation. We are finally doing it. Meanwhile the Department of Justice is very much intent, it seems, upon becoming a regulatory agency. I have pointed out the length of time it takes the Department of Justice to get these things done. Judge Greene suggested 30 days. They are up to almost 3 years. I know they have given this excuse or that excuse, but the point is that Judge Greene thought it could be done in 30 days, originally, in 1982. A bureaucracy such as that will take a long time to produce a piece of paper. That will slow down the process and hurt consumers. It is my feeling that if we can pass this bill in a deregulatory fashion, it will cause an explosion of new investment in activities and devices. I frequently have compared it to the Oklahoma Land Rush--if we can pass it. Right now, our companies are investing overseas, and they are not investing here. People are trying to say this is anticonsumer. That is nonsense. Look at what happened when competition opened up the market for cellular phones. The price has dropped. Look at what happened when we deregulated natural gas. Prices have dropped. It is my opinion that a long distance call should cost only a few cents. It is my opinion that cable television rates should drop when there is more competition from DBS and video dial tone. If we get yet another regulatory agency involved, we can delay this thing 2 or 3 years. In fact, based on the Justice Department's performance, it will delay this whole operation for 2 to 3 years before we have competition and deregulation. This is a deregulatory, procompetitive bill. We are trying to put everybody into everybody else's business. Mr. President, there has been a lot of talk about corporate activity on these bills. There is an implication that the Commerce Committee bill has a lot of corporate input. But I say to you, read the newspapers of the last 3 weeks, and you will see all those full-page ads. They are paid for by corporations, and I admire them. They are fine corporations, members of the so-called Competitive Long Distance Coalition, which is headed by a person whom I respect very much, a former leader of this body, with whom I disagree on this matter. A vast amount of the corporate advertising in the last month has been [[Page S8221]] by corporations opposed to my position. I point that out because there seems to be some suggestion that S. 652 simply represents corporate thinking. Well, all the ads I have seen in the papers--the full-page ads--have been run by corporations that oppose my position and want the extra Justice Department role. That is because some corporations want to use Government regulation against competition. That is what is going on here. I think that we should defeat the Thurmond amendment because it is, as my colleague from South Carolina said, not only the camel's nose under the tent, it is the whole camel under the tent, so-to-speak, because once the Justice Department gets in, they will try to expand their regulatory role, as in the Ameritech case. I cited specifically the regulatory approach they have taken in that case. They want to have people over there writing telephone books--literally writing telephone books. They are supposed to be lawyers enforcing the antitrust laws in the Justice Department. So I hope that we defeat this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. PRESSLER. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. I yield the last minute to the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. PRESSLER. I conclude this by saying I love my colleague from South Carolina, Senator Thurmond. This appears to be a difference over jurisdiction. I plead with my colleagues, do vote this amendment down. It is a gutting amendment. It will add more bureaucracy. It goes against the procompetitive, deregulatory nature of the bill. I respect my colleague from South Carolina so much, but I see this as a jurisdictional difference. On this occasion I will have to vote to table the Thurmond amendment and continue to love the senior Senator from South Carolina. I yield to the Senator from Alaska for the last word.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I make a motion to table the Thurmond amendment, No. 1265. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PRESSLER

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, we are studying this amendment. We have just seen the Conrad amendment in the second degree to the Lieberman amendment for the first time. In the Commerce Committee, there have been many bills introduced on this subject, including one by the distinguished former chairman, Senator Hollings. It was the intention and is the hope that we could hold full committee hearings, in fairness to all those Senators. There are so many Senators who have introduced bills on this subject. And when we finish this telecommunications bill, we are in hopes of turning to hearings for a number of reasons to give those Senators who have introduced a bill and been waiting a chance to have their bills considered but also to allow industry and consumer groups to give an analysis of this. We have just seen this amendment in the second degree to the Lieberman amendment, and I know there is great passion at the moment about this subject throughout our land. I feel very strongly about this subject matter, and we are struggling with trying to find a fair way to deal with this amendment, which Senators have just seen, and dealing with Senator Hollings' bill which was introduced earlier. He had already asked for hearings, and also several other Senators. Also, in fairness to industry groups and parents and children, it would seem that testimony at full committee hearings would be a good first step. Mr. President, I would like to yield to anyone else who has comments at this time. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. I would like to reserve the right to table.

Mr. PRESSLER. Let me make a request here. I see the Senator from Vermont here. If we can lay this aside--the problem we have is the memorial service for Les Aspin. Some Members want to speak, particularly the Senator from Illinois has requested a chance to speak on this amendment before we made any decision about it. So we already made one decision about it. I am wondering if the Senator from Vermont could offer his amendment, if he will allow us to do that. We have been working under the tortuous process of having all these conflicts.

Mr. PRESSLER. I am trying to help Senator Simon.

Mr. PRESSLER. I do not think Senator Simon is going to be able to speak until 4:15, when the bus gets back from the Les Aspin service. If my friends agree, I ask unanimous-consent that this amendment be laid aside until Senator Simon can speak and we go to the Bumpers amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. I am just trying to accommodate that side of the aisle. I do not know if he is for the amendment or against the amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. Yes, yes; absolutely. You shall always have a chance to speak on anything you want as far as I am concerned.

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, we just saw this amendment about 30 minutes ago for the first time. We have been juggling six amendments. We would ask that the Senator withhold asking for a vote on it until we have a chance to study this amendment. I commend the Senator from Nebraska. It looks like something that I am taking a favorable look at. But we have not run it through all the hoops over here.

Mr. PRESSLER. We discussed it last night, and had not agreed to accept it. But we just saw it for the first time 30 minutes ago. At that time, the Senator said he was going to supply us with a different copy. Do we have the final copy of the amendment?

Mr. PRESSLER. Do we have a final copy of the amendment?