Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and wish to state that there are a number of reasons why we should all oppose this amendment. Let me first thank my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), for making the case that, in fact, our States along the Gulf Coast produce indeed the great bulk of this money. The Gulf of Mexico produces, and has produced, nearly $127 billion, he tells us, I thought it was 122 billion, not million, dollars to the Federal Treasury over the years of production. But keep in mind that these are the reasons why this amendment, I think, should fail. Number one, the formula for sharing revenues from the offshore is not my formula, it is not the formula of the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) or the formula of the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). It is a formula derived by minerals management after deep and intensive study of what would be a fair allocation of offshore revenues. To do what? To solve coastal impact problems of not just my State, where the problems are severe, but States all over America. So all coastal States with similar problems share in the formula devised by minerals management. Secondly, this bill was designed to be drilling neutral. Now, I would love to pass legislation to encourage people that have moratoriums to lift their moratoriums and make the same contribution we are doing in Louisiana, but this is not the bill. We decided from the beginning this bill would not be an incentive program for production, it would simply be a fair sharing of revenues for the problems of coastal impact assistance. And, third, I think we need to look at the effect of this amendment. I know my friend did not intend it, but by the language he chose, the new coastal States, as he would define them, would include the Great Lakes States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, but it would leave out California. It would leave out Alabama, one of the Gulf Coast States where the production occurs. So it is a defective formula even if it was the right thing to do, and I do not believe it is the right thing to do. Now, here I am, a Louisianan, standing here and asking my colleagues to vote against an amendment that my State would incredibly benefit from. It is still the wrong thing to do. We ought to defeat this amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, let me point out that in the negotiations on this bill, when the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) raises the question of whether or not there were in fact regulatory authorities that affected lands that were not yet in the park ownership yet but, nevertheless, around it; and we were told at first that there were no such things. And then, sure enough, there are all kinds of laws in effect right now that do in fact provide some regulatory authority under existing law for those lands. They include, for example, under the NMPS Organic Act, NMPS can regulate inholdings where there is a session of jurisdiction from the State to protect park resources, provide wildlife protection, preclude discharge of firearms, forbid the starting of fires, to prohibit gambling, to name just a few. In short, there are other laws that protect parks and resources from all kinds of activities, the likes of which I do not think my colleagues would probably want around a place like Yellowstone. Those laws are in effect today. The problem with the Pombo amendment is that it would threaten the implementation of those laws even though the bill as written clearly says that no new regulations stem from CARA. In other words, nothing in the act crafted through these delicate compromises increases nor diminishes any authority under existing law to regulate private property that is not already enjoyed by the Government in fee ownership. Nothing in CARA increases or diminishes regulations on private property. But just to make it abundantly clear again, we have included in CARA the protection of the fifth amendment, that if any other regulation that exists in current law operates to so limit the use and enjoyment of private property outside of a park, that that landowner is entitled to the fifth amendment protections of just compensation. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, it is exactly what I just said, that it certainly does not limit future Congresses to change CARA. It does not limit future Congresses to make a special appropriation for an in-holding if it wants. It sets down as a principle of law in CARA, that CARA funds cannot be used where there is a willing seller and the government is interested in purchasing the property and the Congress follows all of the steps outlined in CARA for its acquisition.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the business of the amendment limits Federal acquisitions to in-holdings, unless the property is within the boundaries of an existing Federal property an in-holding, there can be no new acquisitions. In doing so, of course, it says, in effect, that if a willing seller wishes to sell property that is partially in, partially outside the boundaries of an existing Federal facility or if he wants to sell property that is adjacent to, if the government is interested in launching a particular reserve or wilderness area and there is willing sellers willing to sell that property, this amendment would prohibit that sort of a purchase. In a sense, it inhibits the property rights of the landowners who want to sell, who want to sell their property for the expansion of a park. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) makes much of the fact that under current law, agencies are creating new parks in wilderness areas by acquiring an acre, or some acreage, without ever coming to Congress, without every notifying Congress. The beautiful thing about CARA is that that can no longer happen. Under CARA, every land acquisition has to be reported to Congress, whether it is from a willing seller or not, and Congress makes a determination by specific grant of authority through the appropriations process to acquire a piece of land. The argument that the gentleman makes that current law is failing counties and States of America is correct, CARA fixes that by requiring, in effect, that any new acquisitions be approved by Congress, not just approved by Congress in some report language, approved by Congress in specific line item appropriation by the committees of Congress. Not only does CARA provide for that, but it provides that the government must notify all the local officials, including the Congressman, that a land acquisition is proposed, so that there is full notice, the government has to go through the full process of saying it really would like to have this property. Congress has to come in and say that it wants to acquire it and it has to appropriate a specific line item to do it. To limit the acquisition to in-holdings severely restricts the ability of this program to, in fact, work to build a refuge, a wilderness area or reserve where there are willing landowners prepared, and, in fact, anxious to sell their property to do so. I hope Members look at it that way. It is a limitation on the property rights of the landowner who wants to sell, who happens not to be completely an in-holding property within the Federal Reserve. This amendment ought to be defeated, and I hope it will be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let me first acknowledge, as so many of my colleagues have already, the extraordinary process that brought the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) together on this historic piece of legislation. There are many things that happen in this House to prevent things from happening. There are many ways to stop good legislation from happening. There are many ways in which we, unfortunately, block each other in our attempts to do what we think is right for this country. Rarely do we see people with so diverse views come together so mightily as this group has come behind this CARA bill to present this Nation with this historic opportunity. In short, it is as though the stars have aligned to make this happen this year. And the stars are numerous. They include, of course, my good friend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who has been such a vibrant part of these negotiations, and my good friend the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John). He has acknowledged me. Let me acknowledge him for the incredible work that he has done in these negotiations. But let me also acknowledge my friend the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), because he and I sat side by side trying to make a case throughout this bill of balance, to make sure that as the bill was creating new environmental initiatives to protect and enhance wildlife and land management areas in the country, that we simultaneously included in the bill new protections for property owners. I think it is important to answer a few questions about this bill that I have been asked on this floor and throughout the last few days with reference to how this bill came to be. It is, first of all, important to know that this bill is divided into several titles. The first title has to do with coastal impact revenue sharing. I was asked by a number of Members why is it in there, what is that all about? Well, for many, many years the interior States of our country have enjoyed the protection of a Federal law that says for all Federal production of minerals on Federal lands within that State, the State gets 50 percent of the revenues. That is a pretty good chunk of change for many States. In fact, just to give my colleagues some numbers on it, in the past years of production since this law has been in effect, the State of Wyoming has collected $7.4 billion of income from Federal lands' production of minerals located in that State. The State of New Mexico has collected $5.3 billion from income produced from royalties from oil and gas and mineral production on Federal lands in the State. The one problem has always been that Federal offshore lands, the lands located right offshore of the coastal States, were not covered by that law. Now, we might have had a chance to get it covered back in the Truman administration. There was an offer by the Truman administration to do just that but, unfortunately, it was not accepted. But the bottom line is that, over all the years of offshore mineral production, the coastal States, which bear a rather significant burden in the production of those resources, have never shared in the revenues that are derived. Just to give my colleagues an idea what happened since then, this Government, our taxpaying public, has benefitted from the benefits of oil and gas production offshore to the tune of $122 billion, 80 percent of which was derived off my own State of Louisiana, right off of the coastal district of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John) and myself, 80 percent of which was derived off that coastal area, which simultaneously produces nearly a third of America's seafood. The bounty of this Nation's catch in fish and crab and shrimp come, basically, from our coastal areas; and our two districts produce nearly a third of this country's bounty. At the same time that that occurs, we have opened up the gate of our coastal areas to offshore production; and the Government and the people of our country have benefitted to the tune of $122 billion. We receive no share, no compensation, for what occurs on our coastline. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John) told us the story, but let me repeat it. If a colleague was losing 25 square miles, some States are losing 35 square miles, of their district along their coastline every day, I suspect the National Guard would have been alerted, we would have had a national emergency declared. Yet, it happens every day in coastal Louisiana. Immeasurably to the human eye, the land is washing away, it is eroding to all the pipeline canals and all the salt water intrusion that is occurring along our coast. We are literally losing this incredible national resource, with no money to deal with it. Title I gives coastal States a chance to deal with it. There is only going to be one amendment to Title I. It is going to be an amendment to give Louisiana a bigger share, and I am going to vote against it. It is going to be an amendment to say only the States with coastal production ought to share in that. I am going to vote against it, because the formula in title I did not come from Louisiana. It did not come from the Congress. It came from a study done by Mineral Management. It is designed to make sure that every coastal State with similar problems gets help in dealing with their problems. And we are prepared to join in that formula. Secondly, I have been asked, well, what about the fact that this bill creates an entitlement, that it puts the money ahead of the programs we heard mentioned before? Let me tell my colleagues, if they have not noticed it, we created two mandated funding programs just recently, one for highways and one for airports. This bill provides a mandated program for land and water conservation. When a poll was done in America to put those three programs side by side, do my colleagues know which one won out handily? As popular as airports are, as popular as highways are, land and water conservation came out way on top, 45 to 35 to 7. Forty-five percent of Americans said that is where we ought to be working hard, to recover and restore America's land and water resources. Finally, I have been asked by many people, ``Billy Tauzin, you were the author of the first private property bill of rights in this Congress. Why on earth are you supporting this bill when these private property rights organizations are against it in America?'' I will tell my colleagues why they are against it. It is not because this bill diminishes property rights. It enhances property rights. They are against it for the reason my friend the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) talked about, the fact that in many States of our country the Federal Government owns 70, 80, 90 percent of the land mass and they do not want the Government buying any more land. I understand that. I am very much in sympathy with States that are put in that position. But we are going to acquire land with or without these protections. This Government in Washington has been appropriating money to purchase more lands every year, many years in excess of what is provided in this bill. But this bill balances it off and says we are going to put in some private property protections, we are going to make sure nobody's land is taken anymore who does not want to sell unless Congress specifically authorizes the acquisition of a single piece of land. We are going to provide additional improvements in the cause of property rights protection to make sure that notices go out to people when land is going to be acquired on the local level, local officials, local politicians, Congressmen, all of us know; and we are going to provide protections to make sure that no regulations apply to property that is not yet titled to the Government. There are some beautiful new programs in here to consolidate the patchwork of Government holdings out West and to incentivize land swaps and for the Government to sell off land it does not work before it buys more land. There is an awful lot of good stuff in here. The improvements in private property rights in this bill are one in balance to the dedication of money to land and water conservation. This is the kind of balance that works. If I were to offer the bill with all the property rights improvements that are in this bill as a stand-alone bill, I doubt if we could get it anywhere in this House. In balance with the environmental protections, the historic preservation, parks and recreation, land and water conservation, we have won a delicately achieved balance. I urge my colleagues, in the context of the amendments that are going to come forward in the next several days, to remember that historic balance. This is a great bill. It is great for America. And it is time it happens.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for the purpose of controlling the time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, CARA is financed from the receipts of the Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas production. It is not coming out of general revenues. Since the inception of that OSC program, Congress always intended that a portion of these receipts would be reinvested in conservation purposes through programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, I do not know if my colleagues are aware of it, but there are nearly $13 billion now in the Land and Water Conservation Fund and over $2 billion in the Historic Preservation Fund in unappropriated balances that already have been authorized by Congress. Congress has fully intended to do this. We just have not been doing it. And the source of the funding has always been intended for this purpose. It has just never been spent. Well, not all of that after all. We are talking about a total program that costs about 2 cents out of every $100 of the Federal budget. And Congress has been, in fact, spending a good portion of it in. In fiscal year 2001, for example, there is a $1.4 billion request in the administration's budget. That is half of this program right there. In other words, we are talking about one penny out of every $100 of Federal spending, a minimal effect on the budget, but a maximum effect on the purposes of this act if this amendment is adopted. Now, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John) and I come from a State that is losing 25 square miles a year. That is 125 square miles in the next 5 years that we are going to have to endure that is in our district gone every year while we wait for somebody to recognize that the OSC obligation is real and ought to be funded and ought to be provided for. Now, in the next 5 years, interior States are going to receive the 50 percent allocation from interior production on lands located in their States. I do not see them suspending that because of the Budget Act. I do not see them telling us do not make those mandatory spending allocations to interior States, States that have been collecting billions and billions of dollars for Federal Reserve production on Federal land in interior States. But they would tell the coastal States they have to wait another 5 years before they get any help, they have got to wait another 5 years before the lands located right adjacent to their State that produce all this revenue for the Federal Treasury, not in general funds but in OCS funds, are not used for the purpose Congress said they intended them to be used when the program was started. No, this amendment is just basically unfair. It says, let us not fund this extra penny out of the $100 that we spend on the Federal accounts to do what Congress said we ought to do a long time ago and to begin remedying the wrong on these coastal States that have endured and sacrificed in order to produce those billions and billions, $127 billion, to their budget efforts. This amendment ought to be defeated.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me read the amendment, it says, in effect, that notwithstanding any other provision of the act, amounts made available by this act may not be used for any acquisition of the Federal Government of an interest in lands, except lands located within exterior boundaries already designated. It says you cannot spend the money to buy anything but an in-holding. Now, I did not argue that the government ought to have to buy every land from every willing seller who lives adjacent to a wilderness area. I simply argued if the government wants to buy it and if the Congress actually considers an appropriation and passes an appropriation under CARA to buy that property and it is not an in-holding, but it is adjacent and a willing land owner willing to sell it, that we ought not prohibit that transaction. This amendment prohibits that transaction by simply saying that none of the funds are in CARA. Of course, Congress, if it wishes to, can change CARA, it can also amend CARA next year. It can pass a special bill changing this provision that says you can now buy in-holdings, or this particular in-holding if it wants to, but this language going into CARA says as a principle of the expenditure of these funds, that only in-holders need apply when it comes time to selling land to the government anywhere near a Federal Government reserve wildlife system or national forest service.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I do so to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter), my good friend. The report accompanying this bill defines certain members of the management conference. Could the gentleman please share with me his intentions in regards to the makeup of this management conference.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for the clarification, and I would like to congratulate the gentleman from Louisiana for his fine work on behalf of the citizens of south Louisiana in this important basin. I look forward to continuing to work with him on this bill throughout the legislative process and encourage its passage by this House.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the report filed with the bill also clarifies that this legislation does not create new regulatory authority over the basin; however, it sets broad goals for the estuary. Could the gentleman share his intentions on the goals of this legislation and for the estuary.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill and urge my colleagues to do so, too. Last year this Congress passed a bill that would enable satellite carriers to provide consumers with access to their local broadcast signals, but there is a problem. It is because satellite carriers by their own admission have no capacity and no plans to offer this new local-into-local service to the Nation's smallest markets. They plan to offer them to the top 70 markets approximately, serving about 70 percent of American television households. That leaves out 30 percent of American households and well over 100 smaller markets. Now, this bill will remedy that. The bill authorizes the Department of Agriculture to provide up to $1.25 billion in loan guarantees, not loans, loan guarantees, to cable and satellite companies that plan to offer this local-into-local broadcast service to rural consumers across America. It is important to note that while local-into-local satellite technology is an important step, it is not the only technology that might be capable of achieving this objective. A variety of terrestrial services, for example, both wireless and wired can serve the same goal and hopefully will. It is for this reason that in the Committee on Commerce, we worked to ensure that the bill was technologically neutral. We should not and we do not in this bill pick the winners and the losers. The bill is about enabling everyone the same opportunity to receive multichannel access to broadcast signals. From here on out, it is up to the marketplace to decide who wins and who loses. Let me also say that on the Committee on Commerce my colleagues and I made a number of other changes to the bill that protect the interest of taxpayers here. For example, we designated an interagency board that will approve the loans under this program. We also capped the loans to 80 percent of the amount borrowed, so the guarantee is only up to 80 percent. We ensure that the American taxpayer's lien would be superior to any other lien that might be against the property of a borrower. On balance, this is indeed a bill worthy of my colleagues' support. It is balanced and fiscally responsible. I urge its adoption. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to my friend and mentor, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher), the ``lead dog'' on the Democratic side on this bill.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin).

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit takes away the sunset. It says we are going to keep this good old income Tax Code a lot longer. Maybe if we come up with a new one, we will get rid of it one day. The bill sets the sunset. It says this income Tax Code that ravages Americans ought to go. We ought to pull it out by its roots so it does not grow back again. We ought to come up with a simple, clean, decent one for Americans again. Mr. Speaker, the power to tax is the power to destroy. My colleagues ought to think about what this current code does. It punishes one for earning income, for saving, for investing, for giving things to one's kids in life through the gift tax and for giving things to them when one dies through the death tax. It even punishes one when one buys American-made products. According to the Harvard study, it adds 25 percent to the cost of everything we make and consume in America. It taxes one coming. It taxes one going. It taxes one when one earns income and when one spends it. We ought to get rid of it. This bill gets rid of it. This motion to recommit says let us keep it. If my colleagues want to keep it, vote for the recommit. If they want to get rid of it, vote against the motion to recommit.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to take this moment to inform the House that I intend to make a formal request upon the Department of Justice regarding a potential criminal violation of our statutes to the extent that the FCC, through its director and associate director of their political office, has apparently transmitted faxes to Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection legislative assistants and legislative directors urging support or opposition to the bill that is before the House today, in direct contravention to 18 U.S.C., section 1913, which provides that no part of the monies appropriated by Congress shall in the absence of express authorization be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device intended or designed to influence any Member of the United States Congress. Mr. Speaker, today the House considers H.R. 3439, the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act. At the outset, let me commend the sponsor of this bill the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) for his work on this legislation. Credit is also due to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, for their extraordinary work in presenting the bipartisan compromise legislation that is before us today. This language passed our full Committee on Commerce by voice vote last month. Mr. Speaker, this bill represents a true compromise. It allows for the FCC to proceed with plans to implement a low-power FM radio service to address the community needs of many localities. The original legislation introduced in January, which gained the support of over 120 cosponsors, would have prevented the FCC from issuing any of these low-power FM licenses and would have effectively killed the FCC's low-power program altogether. The language that the House considers today offers the FCC significantly more latitude than the original bill would have. First and foremost, the bill allows the FCC to immediately begin issuing licenses to low-power FM stations under the current interference standards used today to allocate spectrum on the FM dial. The FCC will thus be able to issue about 70 of these new licenses. Furthermore, the bill institutes a pilot program to test the possible signal interference in nine geographic areas under the relaxed interference standards that the FCC recommends now. Finally, and this is an important point, the bill maintains Congressional authority over any future changes made to the interference protections that exist in the FM dial today. Let me take a minute to expand on this issue. The FCC has proceeded full steam ahead to implement this new service, even after learning about substantial concerns from both Republican and Democratic members of the Committee on Commerce. We held a hearing to address these technical interference issues back in February. At that time, many members of our committee urged the Commission to proceed slowly with this program in order to carefully study the potential harmful effects on our Nation's airwaves. Without regard to these Congressional concerns, the Commission forged ahead and began implementing the program. The bill correctly recognizes the need for Congressional oversight when it comes to such important issues as spectrum management. Before the FCC changes existing protections, protections that are as important to radio stations, public and commercial, as they are to radio listeners across America, I think it is imperative that Congress must have the authority to review any FCC changes over existing protections. I will strongly oppose any amendment offered that would strip the Congress of its rightful oversight authority. I trust the House will agree with me and recognize the tremendous movement that has been made in this compromise language to give the FCC authority to roll out low-power FM where there will be no interference and yet to do a pilot program before Congress gives it authority to indeed change its interference rules and allow further roll out of the program. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the bill and against any amendments that would weaken it. I want to point out again, Mr. Chairman, when the FCC uses money appropriated to it to lobby this Congress, my colleagues all ought to pay a lot of attention. It is a criminal violation, I believe, and I will ask the Department of Justice to investigate it. But when they go so far as to break the criminal laws of a country that prohibit this form of lobbying, we ought to really think about giving them authority to move forward before Congress says go forward on this important roll- out program. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), my friend, the principal author of the legislation, the vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection. (Mr. OXLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close. Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, let me place this in perspective. The bill we are discussing today does not stop the FCC from moving forward with this low power program. It simply says the FCC must only move forward with the 70 licenses that will clearly not interfere with current radio broadcast. It says, in those cases where the licenses may in fact interfere with current radio broadcasting, they have to do a pilot in nine different geographic regions of the country and then report to Congress about the results. What we are going to hear in just a minute is an amendment that would say, when that report comes to Congress, whether or not the report indicates interference, the FCC can then proceed to issue as many licenses as it wants to under its original proposal. I hope that we will defeat that amendment. The compromise carefully crafted in the Committee on Commerce, with the great work of the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) says in effect that the Commission must submit independent testing of interference, and then we get to say, based upon that report, whether they can move forward. Let me tell the Members why that is so critical. I want to read Members a letter from the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation to our chairman. They are writing to express concern about the implementation of low power FM, and ask strong support for this bill, as we have compromised it. The author indicates, ``The FCC is moving forward with a low power FM plan that has not been thoroughly thought through. First, radio is on the verge of converting to digital.'' For television, we gave television new spectrum to move into digital. We did not do that for radio. Radio has to move to digital in the same spectrum they are currently located. That is going to be a tough trick. Before that happens, if the FCC moves forward with this low power FM radio issuance and in fact those stations interfere with that digital transmission of the radio stations that currently exist, like the Hispanic radio station, like the public radio stations, not just the private corporate radio stations, if the FCC moves forward and then the digital conversion does not work, there is all kind of interference. We just will not get static on the radio, we will get no signal at all. In digital, it just cuts out totally. We were told by the Commission that they would wait for the digital report to come out before doing this FM low power rollout, but they went ahead anyhow and did it regardless of that report. It is still not done. Hispanic radio is asking us, please pass this bill. Make sure there is no interference. They go on to point out, ``Furthermore, less expensive and older radios used disproportionately by minorities and older Americans,'' the walkmen, the boom box, the radio beside our beds, not just the radio in the shower, the radio beside our beds, for many older Americans, ``are more susceptible to interference from low power stations. Millions of Americans rely on low quality radios as their main source of news, weather, and sports,'' 65 million, to be precise. I am concerned that low power FM will disenfranchise the very people it seeks to empower, underserved communities like the Spanish language audience that we serve. See, this is the problem, Mr. Chairman. It was minority radio stations and public radio stations, not just the private corporate radio stations represented by the NAB, who came to us and said, do not let this happen to disenfranchise our audiences and our radio stations. Make sure there is no interference. I wish Members had been in our committee room to hear the potential interference. As a beautiful song was playing, we could hear people talking over it. As a beautiful opera perhaps was being presented by National Public Radio, we could hear talking over it. As perhaps a Spanish language station was trying to do some cultural work in the community, we could hear somebody else talking over it. In digital, we would not even hear it at all. It would block the signal completely. Mr. Chairman, we have worked out a delicate compromise. This lets the FCC go forward where we know there will be no interference. It requires private, independent testing to make sure there will not be interference. If they want to go further, it requires them to come back and get permission from us after we know there will not be that interference. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Barrett) will offer an amendment in just a little while that will tell the FCC it can do what it wishes to do after 6 months, regardless of the interference problems. I hope we defeat that amendment. I hope we pass this good bill. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) have done some good work and put together a good compromise.