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Eliminates the ``vote-athon'' at the end of the process by adopting procedures similar to a post-cloture process for budget resolutions and reconciliation bills:
[Page: S530] GPO's PDF
Reduce time on a budget resolution from 50 to 30 hours (10 hours of which would be reserved for amendments);
Reduce time on amendments from 2 hours to 1 hour;
Establish filing deadlines (1st degree amendments must be filed by 15th hour; 2nd degree amendments must be filed by 20th hour);
After all time expires, require vote on any pending amendments and then final passage;
Make sense of the Senate amendments on budget resolutions and reconciliation bills nongermane; and,
Adopt same procedures for reconciliation bills.
Modifies the scope of the budget resolution to be major categories of spending instead of 20 individual functions.
By Mr. MCCAIN:
S. 94. A bill to repeal the telephone e xcise tax; to the Committee on Finance.
REPEAL OF THREE PERCENT FEDERAL EXCISE TAX Under current law, the federal government taxes you three
percent of your monthly phone bill for the so-called ``privilege'' of using your
phone lines. This tax w as first
imposed one hundred years ago. To help finance the Spanish-American War, the
federal government taxed telephone
s ervice, which in 1898 was a luxury service enjoyed by relatively few.
The tax r eappeared as a means of
raising revenue for World War I, and continued as a revenue-raiser during the
Great Depression, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the chronic
federal budget deficits of the last twenty years.
Fortunately for telephone s ubscribers, we are enjoying
some long-overdue good news: thanks to the Balanced Budget Act enacted by the
Congress in 1997, we are now expecting budget surpluses for the next decade,
perhaps as much as $700 billion. Mr. President, just as it did in the 105th
Congress, that announcement should mean the end of the federal phone excise
tax.
Here's why. First of all, the telephone i s a modern-day necessity, not
like alcohol, or furs, or jewelry, or other items of the sort that the
government taxes this way. The Congress specifically recognized the need for all
Americans to have affordable telephone
s ervice when it enacted the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The universal
service provisions of the Act are intended to assure that all Americans,
regardless of where they live or how much money they make, have access to
affordable telephone service. The
telephone e xcise tax, which bears no relationship to any
government service received by the consumer, is flatly inconsistent with the
goal of universal telephone s
ervice.
It's also a highly regressive and unfair tax t hat hurts low-income and rural
Americans even more than other Americans. Low-income families spend a higher
percentage of their income than medium- or high-income families on telephone s ervice, and that means the
telephone t ax h its low-income families much harder.
For that reason the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that increases in
the telephone t ax w ould have a greater impact on
low-income families than tax i
ncreases on alcohol or tobacco products. And a study by the American Agriculture
Movement concluded that excise taxes like the telephone t ax i mpose a disproportionately large
tax b urden on rural customers,
too, who rely on telephone s
ervice in isolated areas.
But, in addition to being unfair and unnecessary, there is
another reason why we should eliminate the telephone e xcise tax. Implementation of the Telecom Act of
1996 requires all telecommunications carriers--local, long-distance, and
wireless--to incur new costs in order to produce a new, more competitive market
for telecommunications services of all kinds.
Unfortunately, the cost increases are arriving far more
quickly than the new, more competitive market. The Telecom Act created a new
subsidy program for wiring schools and libraries to the Internet, and the cost
of funding that subsidy has increased bills for business and residential users
of long-distance telephone s
ervice and for consumers of wireless services.
Mr. President, the fact that the Telecom Act has imposed
new charges on consumers' bills makes it absolutely incumbent upon us to strip
away any unnecessary old charges. And that means the telephone e xcise tax.
Mr. President, the telephone e xcise tax i sn't a harmless artifact from bygone
days. It collects money for wars that are already over, and for budget deficits
that no longer exist, from people who can least afford to spend it now and from
people who are footing higher bills as a result of the 1996 Telecom Act
implementation. That's unfair, that's wrong, and that must be stopped.
San Juan Hill and Pork Chop Hill have now gone down in
history, and so should this tax.
Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the
bill be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be
printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SEC. 1. REPEAL OF TELEPHONE E XCISE TAX.< /b>
(a) IN GENERAL.--Effective with respect to amounts
paid pursuant to bills first rendered on or after January 1, 1999, subchapter B
of chapter 33 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. 4251 et seq.) is
repealed. For purposes of the preceding sentence, in the case of communications
services rendered before December 1, 1998, for which a bill has not been
rendered before January 1, 1999, a bill shall be treated as having been first
rendered on December 31, 1998.
(b) CONFORMING AMENDMENT.--Effective January 1,
1999, the table of subchapters for such chapter is amended by striking out the
item relating to subchapter B.
By Mr. MCCAIN:
S. 95. A bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to
ensure that public availability of information concerning stocks traded on an
established stock exchange continues to be freely and readily available to the
public through all media of mass communication; to the Committee on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation.
THE TRADING INFORMATION ACT
Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the
Trading Information Act. In 1998, Americans continued to discover the Internet
for the increased access to information and entertainment it provides, and as a
more convenient means of purchasing goods. Americans also continued to discover
the Internet as a more direct means of making and managing investments.
Online stock trading is growing at a phenomenal pace.
According to Forrester Research, there are more than 3 million online accounts,
and that number is expected to exceed 14 million by 2002. In fact, the number of
online traders in 1998 doubled from 1997, as it did from 1996.
Trading over the Internet is providing more Americans with
the opportunity to increase their personal wealth, and to participate in the
current growth in the market. New discount brokerages, high-speed Internet
access, and ``real time'' market updates are all contributing to the growth of
online trading. The Trading Information Act will help to preserve this growing
trend.
The Trading Information Act will ensure that online traders
will continue to have access to information relating to financial markets which
they rely on to properly manage their assets. Whether watching a stock ticker on
television, receiving up-to-date information over a cell phone or pager, or
logging on with an online brokerage firm, Americans must continue to have
unfettered access to this vital information, and this bill will ensure they
continue to have it.
By Mr. McCAIN:
S. 96. A bill to regulate commerce between and among the
several States by providing for the orderly resolution of disputes arising out
of computer-based problems related to processing data that includes a 2-digit
expression of that year's date; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation.
Y2K ACT
Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce
a bill today to limit and prevent needless and costly litigation which is
arising as a result of the computer programming problem commonly known as Y2K.
Even before December 31 arrives lawsuits are beginning to be filed. This is an
unfortunate reflection on our overly litigious society, and a situation which
needs to be
The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that we look
to solving the technology glitch known as Y2K rather than clog our courts with
years of costly litigation. The legislation is designed to compensate actual
losses, but to assure that the courts do not punish defendants who have made
good faith efforts to remedy the technology failure. My goal is to provide
incentives for fixing the potential Y2K failures before they happen, rather than
create windfalls for those who litigate.
The bill would also encourage efficient resolution of
failures by requiring plaintiffs to afford their potential defendants an
opportunity to remedy the failure and make things right before facing a lawsuit.
We should encourage people to talk to each other, to try to address and remedy
problems in a timely and professional manner.
Physical injuries are not covered by the limitations on
litigation and damages in this bill. In those instances where a computer date
failure is responsible for personal physical injury, it is best to leave the
remedy to existing state laws. Further, it would be imprudent policy to offer
any ``safe harbor'' in such situations because to do so might have the undesired
result of discouraging proactive remediation.
This bill is a starting point. It provides an opportunity
to begin discussion. It is my intention to hold a hearing in the near future,
and to bring this bill to mark-up as quickly as full discussion will permit. I
know many of my colleagues are interested in addressing this issue as well, and
I look forward to working with them, and with affected industries and consumers
to arrive at an acceptable piece of legislation which will benefit industry and
consumers alike.
By Mr. MCCAIN (for himself and Mr. HOLLINGS):
S. 97. A bill to require the installation and use by
schools and libraries of a technology for filtering or blocking material on the
Internet on computers with Internet access to be eligible to receive or retain
universal service assistance; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation.
CHILDREN'S INTERNET PROTECTION ACT
Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce
The Children's Internet Protection Act, which is designed to protect children
from exposure to sexually explicit and other harmful material when they access
the Internet in school and in the library. This legislation is substantially
similar to the Internet School Filtering Act, which I introduced in the last
session of Congress.
This legislation, like its predecessor, comes to grips with
one of the more unfortunate aspects of modern life: that the problems modern
life don't stop at the schoolhouse door. Societal problems like violence and
drugs have become part of the curriculum of life at many schools.
Now, however, we are adding another problem to the list.
And this particular wolf of a problem will walk into our schools disguised in
the worthiest of sheeps' clothing: the Internet.
Today, pornography is widely available on the Internet.
According to ``Wired'' magazine, today there are approximately 28,000 adult Web
sites promoting hard and soft-core pornography. Together, these sites register
many millions of ``hits'' by websurfers per day.
Mr. President, there is no question that some of the
websurfers who are accessing these sites are children. Some, unfortunately, are
actively searching for these sites. But many others literally and
unintentionally stumble across them.
Anyone who uses seemingly innocuous terms while searching
the World Wide Web for educational or harmless recreational purposes can
inadvertently run into adult sites. For example, when the term ``H20'' was typed
recently into a search engine, one of the first of over 36,000 sites retrieved
led to another site titled ``www.hardcoresex.com.'' This site provided the
typical warning to those under 18 not to enter--and then proceeded to offer a
free, uncensored preview of the pornographic material on the site. And when the
searcher attempted to escape from the site, new porn-oriented sites immediately
opened.
Parents wishing to protect their children from exposure to
this kind of material can monitor their children's Internet use at home. This is
a parent's proper role, and no amount of governmental assistance or industry
self-regulation will ever be as effective in
protecting children as parental supervision. But parents
can't supervise how their children use the Internet outside the home, in schools
and libraries.
Mr. President, the billions of dollars per year the federal
government will be giving schools and libraries to enable them to bring advanced
Internet learning technology to the classroom will bring in the Internet's
explicit online content as well. These billions of dollars will ultimately be
paid for by the American people. So it is only right that if schools and
libraries accept these federally-provided subsidies for Internet access, they
have an absolute responsibility to their communities to assure that children are
protected from online content that can harm them.
And this harm can be prevented. The prevention lies, not in
censoring what goes onto the Internet, but rather in filtering what comes out of
it onto the computers our children use outside the home.
Mr. President, Internet filtering system work, and they
need not be blunt instruments that unduly constrain the availability of
legitimately instructional material. Today they are adaptable, capable of being
fine-tuned to accommodate changes in websites as well as the evolving needs of
individual schools and even individual lesson-plans. Best of all, their use will
channel explicit material away from children while they are not under parental
supervision, while not in any way inhibiting the rights of adults who may wish
to post indecent material on the Web or have access to it outside school
environs.
Mr. President, it boils down to this: The same Internet
that can benefit our children is also capable of inflicting terrible damage on
them. For this reason, school and library administers who accept universal
service support to provide students with its intended benefits must also
safeguard them against its unintended harm. I commend the efforts of those who
have recognized this responsibility by providing filtering systems in the many
educational facilities that have already have Internet capability. This
legislation assures that this responsibility is extended to all other
institutions as they implement advanced technologies funded by
federally-mandated universal service funds.
Mr. President, this bill takes a sensible approach. It
requires schools receiving universal service discounts to use a filtering system
on their computers so that objectionable online materials will not be accessible
to students. Libraries with more than one computer are required to use a
filtering system on at least one computer used by minors. Filtering technology
is itself eligible to be subsidized by the E-rate discount. Schools and
libraries must install and use filtering or blocking technology to be eligible
to receive universal service fund subsidies for Internet access. If schools and
libraries do not do so, they will not be eligible to receive universal service
fund-subsidized discounts and will have to refund any E-rate subsidy funds
already paid out.
Some have argued that the use of filtering technology in
public schools and libraries would amount to censorship under the First
Amendment. The Supreme Court has found, however, that obscenity is not protected
by the First Amendment. And insofar as other sexually-explicit material is
concerned, the bill will not affect an adult's ability to access this
information on the Internet, and it will in no way impose any filtering
requirement on Internet use in the home.
Perhaps most important, the bill prohibits the federal
government from prescribing any particular filtering system, or from imposing a
different filtering system than the one selected by the certifying educational
authority. It thus places the prerogative for determining which filtering system
best reflects the community's standards precisely where it should be: on the
community itself.
Mr. President, more and more people are using the Internet
each day. Currently, there may be as many as 50 million Americans online, and
that number is expected to at least double by the millennium. As Internet use in
our schools and libraries continues to grow, children's potential exposure to
harmful online content will only increase. This bill simply assures that
universal service subsidies will be used to defend them from the very dangers
that these same subsidies are otherwise going to increase. This is a rational
response to what could otherwise be a terrible and unintended problem.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the
bill appear in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be
printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Childrens' Internet
Protection Act''.
SEC. 2. NO UNIVERSAL SERVICE FOR SCHOOLS OR LIBRARIES
THAT FAIL TO IMPLEMENT A FILTERING OR BLOCKING TECHNOLOGY FOR COMPUTERS WITH
INTERNET ACCESS.
(a) IN GENERAL.--Section 254 of the Communications
Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254) is amended by adding at the end thereof the
following:
``(l) IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTERNET FILTERING OR
BLOCKING TECHNOLOGY.--
``(1) IN GENERAL.--An elementary school, secondary
school, or library that fails to provide the certification required by paragraph
(2) or (3), respectively, is not eligible to receive or retain universal service
assistance provided under subsection (h)(1)(B).
[Page: S531] GPO's PDF
[Page: S532] GPO's PDF
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