06-10-2000

CONGRESS: The Country Boys of High Tech

Big Stone Gap, the southwestern Virginia mining town known historically as
the Gateway to the Coalfields, is on the other side of the state-and the
Appalachian Mountains-from the bustling Northern Virginia technology
corridor often dubbed the Silicon Valley of the East. But the town's 4,800
residents, and millions of other Americans living in rural areas, may one
day cross to the rest of the world over electronic bridges now being built
by two Virginians who have become Congress's country boys of high
tech.


Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher, whose rural district includes Big Stone Gap,
and Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who represents an adjacent,
Roanoke-based district, have forged a harmonious and influential
partnership to ensure that the Information Revolution does not bypass
their communities. Through their efforts to promote what Boucher calls
"the seamless operation of the Internet," they have emerged as
important players in technology policy on Capitol Hill and on a global
scale.


Their work to forge 21st-century connections is largely rooted in the
old-fashioned concept of building bridges between people, and they started
with each other. Although their voting records on economic, foreign, and
social policy legislation are frequently at odds, they have reached across
party lines to find common ground that reflects their regional priorities.
This bipartisanship often yields a broad base of congressional support for
their high-tech efforts.


Boucher, a former state senator who was elected to Congress in 1982, and
Goodlatte, a lawyer and former congressional aide who won his House seat
in 1992, agree on technology's importance to rural areas such as those
they represent in Virginia.


"I think the arrival of the Internet as a revolutionary
communications medium provides a breakthrough opportunity for economic
improvements in rural areas because it spells the death of distance,"
Boucher, 53, said in an interview.


In a separate interview, Goodlatte, 47, said the Internet has provided
rural Americans with economic opportunities once available only in urban
hubs such as Wall Street. "Really, this technology is the future of
my district," he said.


Boucher, who grew up in the rural district he now represents, said he
first became interested in telecommunications and information technology
in the 1980s, when his constituents complained they could not receive
television signals in the mountainous region. He worked to craft
legislation allowing viewers in remote areas to receive network TV
stations by satellite.


"I began to learn a lot about telecommunications generally, and I
could see other ways that the use of information technology could be a
bridge for rural Americans to the mainstream of the American
economy," said Boucher, who now spends about 80 percent of his
legislative time on information technology issues.


In the 1980s, Boucher worked with then-Sen. Al Gore on telecommunications
legislation, but Goodlatte does not appreciate the Vice President's
more-recent actions on technology issues. "Gore is still very much a
government-regulatory type of person," Goodlatte said, with a bit of
election-year disdain.


Goodlatte said that high-tech policy tends to be less ideologically driven
than many other matters facing Congress, but he pointed out that his
interest in technology reflects his core GOP values. "I'm still a
Republican, and I believe very much in the pro-business approach of less
government regulation and less taxation and that sort of thing," said
Goodlatte, who chairs the House Republican High-Tech Working Group started
by former Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.


Boucher and Goodlatte are assigned to House committees that have key
oversight roles in technology and telecommunications policy, and these
positions give them a strategic edge in promoting their joint initiatives.
Both lawmakers sit on the Judiciary Committee, while Boucher serves on the
Commerce Committee and Goodlatte serves on the Agriculture
Committee.


All three of those committees had jurisdiction over a high-profile bill
(H.R. 3615), co-authored by Goodlatte and Boucher, to establish a $1.25
billion federal loan-guarantee program to improve rural satellite owners'
access to local broadcast TV stations. That bill, introduced in February,
took the fast track to the House floor and cleared the chamber by a
landslide vote just two months later. The Senate passed its version in
March.


"Without these two guys, we would not be in the game," said Ted
Case, a lobbyist with the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative
who worked closely with Goodlatte and Boucher on the rural television
bill. "They've really done yeoman's work in bringing that bill
forward."


The rural TV bill sailed through Goodlatte's Agriculture Committee, but
faced hours of intense scrutiny in the Commerce Committee, where
conservative Republicans argued that it would not adequately protect
taxpayers from shouldering the costs of loan defaults.


Case, who attended the Commerce session, recalled that Goodlatte offered
moral support as Boucher fought attempts by conservatives to limit the
bill's scope. "Goodlatte came over and watched the markup, even
though he's not on the [Commerce] Committee," Case said. "He
supported Boucher from the front row. It just showed how cooperative these
guys are."


Goodlatte and Boucher are co-chairmen of the bipartisan Congressional
Internet Caucus, along with Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Patrick
Leahy, D-Vt. The caucus, which Boucher co-founded with then-Rep. Rick
White, R-Wash., in 1996, aims to familiarize members of Congress and their
staffs with the Internet and educate them about complex policy debates on
issues such as Internet taxation and privacy.


The two Virginians are also branching out internationally. They have twice
led congressional delegations to Europe to help find common ground on
controversial issues surrounding global electronic commerce. During their
most recent trip, in February, Goodlatte and Boucher testified before the
European Parliament in Brussels on online privacy. They also spoke at
public citizens' forums in several cities, including London, Berlin, and
Geneva. "There were very large crowds, and people were very
interested in what we had to say," Boucher recalled.


Boucher and Goodlatte maintain that a crucial component of a seamless
Internet is the deployment of high-speed data pipelines, such as those
offered by broadband technology, and they insist on the need for
legislative action to bring these pipelines to remote areas. The two
lawmakers co-authored a bill (H.R. 1686) that would take the controversial
step of lifting certain federal "open market" requirements on
regional Bell telephone carriers, to make it easier for them to offer
long-distance data services.


Goodlatte and Boucher also support a popular broadband bill, sponsored by
Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La., and John D. Dingell, D-Mich.,
that, like their own, would revisit the landmark 1996 Telecommunications
Act. They argue that high-speed Internet access is crucial to their
districts' economic survival. Goodlatte compared these electronic conduits
to the railroads of the 19th century: In towns where trains stopped,
"there was an economic boom," but towns without railroad access
"withered away and became ghost towns."


Goodlatte and Boucher are pressing for a Judiciary Committee markup of
their broadband bill, which has more than 30 co-sponsors. But the
legislation faces formidable opposition from Clinton Administration
officials, interest groups, and one key lawmaker: fellow Virginian Tom
Bliley, the Commerce Committee chairman and lead author of the 1996
telecom law. Bliley, a Republican whose central Virginia district is also
largely rural, is one of the most vocal opponents of modifying the 1996
law through broadband legislation.


During a recent hearing before the Commerce Telecommunications, Trade, and
Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Bliley said that recent statistics
indicate that the 1996 law is working. "Congressional action at this
point in time will, if anything, force investors to pull back, and bring
[broadband] deployment to its knees," Bliley said. "Like that
old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Gregory L. Rohde,
administrator of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and
Information Administration, has also condemned legislative attempts to
modify the 1996 law.


Last month, several interest groups launched a lobbying campaign urging
the Judiciary Committee to shelve the Goodlatte-Boucher legislation.
Harris N. Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of
America, argued in a recent letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry
J. Hyde, R-Ill., that the bill would limit both competition and consumer
choice by releasing the regional Bell carriers, or Baby Bells, from the
1996 law's requirement that they open their networks to competitors before
offering long-distance services.


But in an indication of the popularity of Goodlatte and Boucher among
industry leaders, Miller lauded the two lawmakers' work on a wide range of
other high-tech issues-even as he disagreed with them on this particular
bill. "Few Representatives have more effectively articulated a vision
of the importance of an infrastructure for the Information Age than they
have," Miller wrote to Hyde.


Miller said in an interview that ITAA agrees with Goodlatte and Boucher on
"99 percent of the issues," and the group's opposition to the
broadband bill is "the exception, rather than the rule."


"They just have a different perspective on how you get to true
competition," Miller said of Goodlatte and Boucher. "Sometimes,
there is just an honest disagreement among friends."


Molly M. Peterson is a correspondent for National Journal News
Service.


Molly M. Peterson

National Journal