Paul Simon

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, let me outline what the situation is right now. We now have under the FCC rule a limit of 20 FM stations and 20 AM stations that may be owned by any one entity. The Dole amendment takes the cap off that completely. The most that is owned by any one entity right now is Infinity. They own 27 stations. CBS owns 26. Under the bill as it is right now, anyone--the Dan Coats Co.--can theoretically own every radio station in the United States. Obviously, I do not think that would happen. But I think diversity in this field is extremely important. My amendment raises that cap of 20 and 20 to 50 and 50 so that there could be 100 stations owned by any one entity. That is a 150-percent increase over where we are right now. I think that is reasonable. I just think it is not in the public interest to have a concentration. Economic concentration generally is not good, but particularly in the media I think there are dangers to the future of our country. Bill Ryan of the Washington Post and Newsweek wrote in Broadcast and Cable of May 27, and said, The whole world is trying to emulate the local system of broadcasting that we have in this country, and here we are creating a structure that will abolish it or put it in the hands of a very, very few. I think it is unsound. Let me add that my friends in Infinity and CBS both have no objection to this amendment--the people who own the largest numbers right now. The National Association of Broadcasters do. Let me just say candidly that I worked with Senator Strom Thurmond and a few others here in trying to negotiate with them some kind of limitation or sensible packaging on liquor advertising on radio. They resisted any change. Here again, they want to have it all. I have been in this business of politics long enough so that when you have leadership at the National Association of Broadcasters that is so narrow minded that it wants to have it all, the pendulum is going to swing from one extreme to another. They are making a great mistake. I have yet to talk to a single radio station owner who does not think this is a sensible amendment. I hope that my friends on the floor of the Senate and the House would vote for this amendment. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. President, I question the presence of a quorum.

Mr. SIMON. I am willing to reduce that to 20 minutes.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I have not had a chance to talk to Senator Pressler or Senator Hollings. But I would be willing to have a 20- minute time agreement, 10 minutes on my side and 10 minutes on the other side. I am not sure that anyone is going to speak in opposition. I would welcome no one speaking in opposition. But I do believe that at least one Member on the other side wants to vote against it.

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

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. I just introduced it. I welcome any suggestions for a modification. I welcome having John Chafee, as well as the distinguished junior Senator from Utah, as cosponsors, if at any point they feel comfortable doing that.

Mr. SIMON. I thank the Senator.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. If my colleague will yield, we also reduced the reporting by contractors very significantly. I think that the average contractor would be pleased. Now, a contractor wants to depress wages, they probably will not be pleased.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed as in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. SIMON. If the Senator will support the Simon-Kennedy amendment, the Senator will find that it helps small business people.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I offer amendment No. 1283, as modified. I will discuss it tomorrow.

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I am not sure we have the right amendment here.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous- consent request?

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for yielding. On my amendment No. 1286, there is a technical error. I ask unanimous consent to correct that error. There is no objection by Senators.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the request is that we vote at 4 o'clock; is that correct?

Mr. SIMON. Will the manager agree that after that, I be recognized? I have no objection.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I support the Dorgan amendment for the reason Senator Dorgan and Senator Helms [[Page S8244]] have outlined, but one other important reason. Economic diversity is important, but diversity in terms of news sources for the American people is extremely important. I used to be in the newspaper business. Fewer and fewer people own the newspapers of this country. We are headed in the same direction in television. It is not a healthy thing for our country. I strongly support the Dorgan amendment and agree completely--it is not often I can stand up on the Senate floor and say I agree completely with Senator Jesse Helms, but I certainly do here today.

Mr. SIMON. Parliamentary inquiry. Have we disposed of the unanimous consent request of Senator Pressler?

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

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my friend and colleague from North Dakota and the Senator from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman. I do this reluctantly, in part because I agree with them in terms that we have a real problem and we have to confront that problem. The question is how we confront it. Let me commend him, Senator Conrad, Senator Dorgan, also from North Dakota, and Senator Lieberman, in terms of video games and what he has been able to do there. Senator Hollings has been a leader in this. Senator Hutchison has shown leadership. The problem is real and there are those in the industry, just like there are those in the cigarette industry, who deny there is a real problem. But the research is just overwhelming. There is no question that a cause--not the cause, because there are many causes--but a cause of violence in our society is the violence people see on entertainment television. I stress entertainment television because on news television -- sometimes it is more violent than I would like--but on news television when you see that scene from Bosnia, you see relatives crying, you see violence in its grimness. In entertainment television, there is a tendency to glorify violence. When even the President of the United States uses a phrase like ``make my day,'' using it against Saddam Hussein, what he is saying is violence is a way of solving problems and violence is fun. Those are precisely the wrong messages. We have been working on this for some time. This body, I am pleased to say, unanimously passed a bill saying the industry can get together without violating the antitrust laws to deal with the problem of violence. Since that has happened, there have been steps--major steps, frankly, by the broadcast industry; very small steps by the cable industry--in moving in a more positive direction. That ultimately is going to have an effect on our society. If you look back at the old television series and movies, you will see our heroes and heroines smoking a great deal, drinking very heavily. That just quietly changed. The same thing is happening on broadcast television, but it is not happening, frankly, in the cable field as much as we would like. I applaud the steps that have been taken, but we need to do more. I am also very reluctant to see Government get excessively into this problem. I spoke in Los Angeles in August 1993 to a unique gathering of 800 television and movie producers and talked about this issue of violence in our films. It was received about as favorably out there as Senator Bob Dole's recent comments. Let me just add that I agree with the general thrust of Senator Dole's comments. But one of the things I said in August 1993 was, if the industry was willing to set up monitoring where we could find out what is happening, independent monitoring that is recognized as solid, I would oppose any legislative answers. At first we got a very negative response from the industry. Finally, both the broadcast and cable industries have established--or have contracted with respected entities, UCLA and Mediascope, to do this. The first report on broadcast will come in September. The report on cable will come in January. And tentatively we will have that for 3 years. I think it is important that we let the industry try to correct its problems on its own, that we applaud the steps that have been taken, that we say more steps are needed. I have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution which will be voted upon immediately after we vote on the Conrad-Lieberman amendment--it is cosponsored by Senator Dole and Senator Pressler--which urges the industry to do more in this area but does not get the Federal Government involved directly. When you start moving in the direction of getting the Federal Government involved--for example this deals with ``the level of violence or objectionable content.'' When you talk about ``objectionable content,'' you are talking about something that is not very precise. When you talk about content, I think the Federal Government has to be very, very careful. If the industry on its own gets into this V-chip field, I applaud that. I welcome that. I am reluctant to have the Federal Government start moving into this field of content. Let me add, it is not a substitute for the industry policing itself and having good programming, positive programming. Even if this is agreed to, we will still face the reality, for example, that in the high crime areas of our country young people watch a great deal more television than they do in the suburbs and rural areas of our country. And they are going to continue to see much too much violence and programs that I think are objectionable. So my hope is that, frankly, we will defeat the Conrad-Lieberman amendment because we do not want the Federal Government getting its fist in there too heavily. I think we have to be careful. But let us pass the sense-of-the-Senate resolution, which will send a signal, a very clear signal, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that I assume will pass unanimously, that sends a signal to the industry: Let us do better. We have serious concerns. Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I would like to reserve the 2 minutes for later, if I could.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I would like to take my remaining time. I have an amendment at the desk I would offer.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, in closing the argument, let me say if the industry on its own moves in this direction, I will applaud the industry for doing it. But let us not make any mistake, we are moving beyond anything Government has ever done before. We are saying, if the industry in 1 year does not get this resolved, then a Government commission is going to determine violence and objectionable content. That is an intrusion that I hope we can avoid. And my reason for hoping we can avoid it is that, frankly, we are making some progress in the television industry. On the broadcast side, we are clearly making progress. No one denies that. On the cable side, frankly, very little progress has been made. And there I hope the industry can move ahead. But we are going to have monitoring. We are going to have our first report come in September of this year on broadcast, January of next year on cable. Let us let the industry try to resolve this matter on their own. It is a genuine problem. I agree with Senator Conrad and Senator Lieberman on that. But I think we have to be careful how far the Federal Government goes. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair. [[Page S8251]]