committee will come to order the chair now calls up the committee print in title the digital television transaction trends transition act of two thousand and five and asked the clerk to report committee press title one digital television transition the clerk will read the first section of the committee print section while one short title the title may be says the digital television transition act of two thousand and five  members have an opportunity to offer amendments and that there be a proper reasonable discussion of the business of the committee because this is not a matter of lacking importance but rather is a matter of great concern to many of our people in the country including the first responders and the cities in the state over how the matter should matter of telecommunications policy should go forward under the plan as submitted to the committee every consumer with an analog television will pay some twenty dollars others could pay as much as sixty dollars everyone will pay something and we will certainly hear about it from our constituents i would note that the occasion of this page is caused by the simple fact that we are changing from one kind of service from analog to digital there's a problem here first the plan offered in the bill is under funded it provides only eight hundred thirty million dollars which means only twenty million coupons will be available to cover seventy three million sets that need a converter box even as the boxes cost as low as sixty dollars those lucky few who get a coupon will still have to pay twenty dollars for each box second the committee plan offered by republican colleagues as mr rector homes most relied on over the air broadcast will not get  while it may very well be the vacation homes well there's no guarantee that those who need the help most will be covered or receive assistance third the plan is intrusive consumers should not have to fill out an application and provide personal information as a governor just to watch television forth the plan is first come first served when the money runs out your idea what the republican plan was designed to meet a goal of the budget rather than to help americans most affected by the transition it will level the attempt television tax to the tune of three point five billion on the unsuspecting american people since a government is accelerating this transition is only fair that the government should bear the cost and that money can comfortably in easily come from the provisions that we are making to sell spectrum in the raffle which will take place the democratic substitute offers this committee a chance to do this right consumers will not pay out of pocket costs for this government mandated transmission and first responders which were very important part of the situation of need w get much needed funding funding for interoperability measure provides house households with vouchers redeemable for up to two free converter boxes no one needs apply boucher's will be mailed to every household to minimize the inconvenience to the transition on consumers there will be no television tax under the democratic substitute for our people by forcing this transition government is expected to receive at least ten billion the auction w provide more than sufficient funds to cover three and a half to four billion expected to come from the cost of our program and the remaining are should proceeds under this substitute will be spent on public safety and other communications priorities and you will note from when you go home and talk to people mr chairman that this is the number one priority of our public safety people and our first responders the public can expect to receive five point eight billion even more important is the fact that a mere five hundred million dollars would leave first responders with little more than outdated telecommunications equipment i would urge you my colleagues to address the needs of your local police fire and public safety officials and not place tax cuts above public safety needs to substitute for incident hance nine one one seven nine one one system provides digital telecommunications systems for translators stations in new york city and along the mexican border and in excess of ten billion will fund broadband deployment in rural and under served finally are measures of more practical hardcore date of april seventh two thousand significantly enhances consumer education including that for spanish speaking americans and and simplifies warning labels on analog sets this boat is about priorities chairman the chair recognizes him self in opposition first i want to come in my ranking member on the on off in a substitute i think parts of it are well thought out and basically track and like to make a few comments about it the committee print in the spirit of multitasking or multi purpose does apart on that committee print sets up a subsidy program for low income and moderate income americans and there is no means test but one would assume that those most likely to use the coupons in the committee print  that have the lower incomes we don't and we don't expect multimillionaires to take advantage of the program they probably already have high definition television sets anyway and will and won't need to  already substitute basically takes the money that's optioned and spends it all doesn't do anything for the the taxpayers of america says we're going to raise this money we're going to spend it well television stations there is obviously a problem there i'm not sure how we should solve it the minority substitute sets up with i think a fifteen million dollars program to provide set top boxes at the discretion of  bill would do much good so in general i would say the minority substitute tracks the tracks the base bill except that it spends all the money and it takes a little bit longer to kick in  would respectfully oppose it in hope that the majority of the committee opposes it is there are other discussion of the dingell substitute gentle lady from california thank you mr chairman i'd like to speak in strong support of the dingell substitute i believe this committee is taking action that is going to render tens of millions of t v s across the country and i think believe we have an obligation to do everything we can to ensure that doesn't we can improve communications in the public safety community yet another exam well the need for more coordinated communication services during hurricane katrina a problem many of us thought we were well on the way toward fixing in the aftermath of nine eleven in addition we can free up more spectrum for the high tech industry this would likely result in greater wireless services more consumer choices lower prices and a boost to our economy these are the good things and they're very good things that will result from recapturing the analog spectrum but however valid the public policy reasons the plain fact remains that ending analog broadcasting means tens of millions of television sets are going to go dark after the transition date on september thirty first two thousand and eight and these aren't just old t v s with legs tubes and no remote control are the t v s sitting in tens of millions of households right today they are t v s that are still being sold today and tomorrow and for the next eighteen months consumers have a right to expect that these t v sets are going to work for their expected lifespan they paid good money for these sets and the only reason they won't work is because our government will be shutting them shutting off the analog signals from their local broadcasters and there is a simple way to solve this problem that would be to make and that would be to make converter boxes available to anyone who would want them and that's what mr dingell substitute would do the majority hasn't wanted to do that instead the majority proposes a convoluted system not designed to ensure that everyone's t v still works but to ensure that the cost of the converter box program doesn't get too high consumers would still have to pay for the vouchers and pay twenty dollars for the box to keep their t v working that may not seem like a lot of money to any of the people in this room here today but it is to millions of americans and this tech t v tax would buy the republicans is simply unfair there is no reason for consumers to have to pay anything their t v is going going dark and it's not their fault it's the fault of the people who vote for a bill that shuts off their t v s it should be incumbent upon all of us to ensure that making the transition from analog to digital is not the consumer's burden the bill presented by the majority to not passed that test the program as i've said is not designed to ensure everyone's t v still works but to ensure that program costs don't get too high and that is because the billions of dollars raised from auction in the analog spectrum is supposed to adjust the deficit which is coming from high from republican tax cuts in those are appearing too high these tax cuts include a need just extension of capital gains and dividend reductions for example provisions that don't even expire until the end of two thousand and eight coincidentally that's the same time that many of our consumers will begin paying for the privilege of keeping their t v working the spectrum auction is not going to pay for katrina this legislation was passed long before katrina was planned long before katrina and it's certainly not going to reduce the deficit notwithstanding the ten billion dollars revenue from the auction and the ten billion dollars in medicaid cuts that will be voting on that later this week the majority's reconciliation package is actually going to increase the deficit not reduce it so republicans are asking consumers to pay to keep their t v s working after the government shuts them off man by the way cutting health care for the poorest in our country at the same time in the bottom line is that this is going to ensure that the wealthiest in our society or are assured of their capital gains and dividends income isn't even affected in night till night two thousand isn't affected in two thousand and nine so i believe we here in this place today ought to reconsider support for the underlying legislation and vote for the dingell substitute instead and i yield back the balance of my time generally yield others seek recognition mr  thank you and i i speak in opposition to the to the dingell substitute with a couple of important points i do want to say and i said this yesterday in my opening statement that i did appreciate the work of mr dingell mr markey certainly mr barton and our staff says we worked a long long time and i have to say that the bill that the base bill that is before us not this substitute takes a number of those same building blocks that we discussed and i that will actually send to every household across the country free coupons for boxes regardless of whether they have satellite or cable and it's my understanding that we're pretty close to eighty five percent of the country has cable or satellite a number of folks will be confused they will have no reason for those coupons and one of the things of course that is in the base bill that will be before us is that any anyone that wants up to two coupons w cost of mailing these out obviously some confusion people won't know whether they need them or not who knows if they actually go out and get one and find out later on that they don't need it just because they got it from the us government couple of things that are language that the gentleman mr dingell has included to provide up to thirty million dollars because of the world trade center falling down with digital conversion is good we're going to provide an amendment that we're prepared to accept on that we're going to be offering that abco support first responder groups that will provide up to half a billion dollars for first responders that will come directly out of the spectrum and i guess you could say the real difference between the dingles substitute and the is before us is in essence the cost we under the barton bill will be turning back to the treasury probably something in the neighborhood of eight to nine billion dollars and  substitute in essence all of the money that comes from the spectrum is spent and i don't think that's our purpose today as part of reconciliation and i would i would suggest that we defeat the dingell substitute and accept the  this conversation and i think you have made tremendous progress and i think your draft contains a number of useful provisions the major that i have with the bill that has been put forward by the committee a the democratic substitute is the matter of the subsidy for converter boxes and i am very concerned that the committee bills simply does not provide enough funding to make sure that people who need these converter boxes are able to purchase them without having to incur substantial cost themselves let me just run through the numbers there are seventy three million television sets in use today that are analog that are over the air dependent forty five million of these seventy three million sets are in the twenty million homes that have no cable or satellite connections so these households are totally over the air dependent twenty eight  million of the seventy three million are second or third that are in homes that do have a cable or satellite subscription but these sites are in places where the wires don't run perhaps they're up stairs or they're in another room that for whatever reason it is difficult to wire with the cable or satellite lete when you add these numbers together you get a total of seventy three million sets that depend on over the air reception and these are the sets that will go dark on january the one two thousand and nine unless a converter box is attached to those sets under the bill that the committee has put forward only eight hundred thirty million dollars is going to be made available in order for consumers to purchase converter boxes for these sets that funds forty dollars coupons for only twenty one million sets leaving the owners of fifty two million  burden of having to buy the converter boxes entirely on their own if they're going to keep their analog sets and service and so a digital television conversion tax is going to be imposed on the owners of those fifty two million sets under the committee bill i would note that the senate did a far better job in addressing this issue the senate has decided to provide three billion dollars for the purchase of converter boxes and that is a far more adequate psalm than the sum contained in the committee bill the substitute that mr dingell has put forward provides somewhere between three point five and four billion dollars by offering two vouchers for every home where analog sets are owned and and that would assure that individuals are able to afford to make this conversion without having to suffer a major financial burden let me note that there will be plenty of money in order to afford the democratic recommendation the official see b o s event is that when the analog spectrum is recaptured from the broadcasters and auctioned the government will receive ten billion dollars in revenues from that auction and that is a pretty conservative estimate the independent estimates that that have been made by a reliable companies estimate that as much as twenty eight billion dollars will be available from that option to enhance government revenues and the truth probably lies somewhere in between so we can easily afford three and a half to four billion dollars the senate decided on three it seems to me that the democratic substitute moves in exactly the right direction by saying that we will make the cost of this conversion a government cost and not impose that burden on our constituents thank you very much mr chairman this is the issue i care about the most and i very much hope the democratic substitute will be adopted thank you i yield back we thank the gentleman for his constructive comments are there other members seeking recognition thank you mr chairman support the single substitutes for a number of reasons if you just take the  converter box issue i think we're all supportive of a hard day to date that we can all agree upon democrat republican i think we all agree on that but when you get to the converter box issue my colleague from michigan mr upton said that the then how will they know when and if to ask at least underneath that they go bill they're going to get a coupon the least prompt the question whether or not this would cover what they need to make sure their t v s will still work after our hard date at least the dingell bill prompts the asking as opposed to individuals if this is such a confusing issue as as mr upton says at least we have something to prompt the question and they will already have it the other thing  dingell substitute also pays for it you're getting a rebate for partial payment not a full payment and as mr boucher said the senate is tracking more in the line of the single bill the thing i'd like to address mostly is interoperability issue you know we've been on this issue for a long time and i appreciate the gentleman from michigan mr upton trying to work on it but the base bill has no money he will be offering an amendment today for five hundred million dollars but if we think back start nine hundred eighty two we've heard about interoperability with the air florida crash here in washington d c in one thousand nine hundred two we heard about it again during the murrah building and course with world trade center and of course hurricane katrina twenty three years later we're still hearing about it we're still talking about it no one does anything about it even the president after september eleventh said he and i'm quoting that's why we need to spend money to make sure equipment is there strategies are there communications are there to make sure that you have whatever it takes to respond well the biggest incident since then is hurricane katrina we're not prepared no one can respond there's no strategy there's no communication and once again we're losing lives look at we can continue to talk about this will be another twenty three years even the blueprint that's been laid out this it is going to take another twenty years to fully interoperate this country underneath that ingle bill we at least put five point eight billion dollars in or to get public safety interoperability go on another two hundred million for emergency nine eleven implementation there are a number of things in here that we should spend this money on like make america safe not in hopes the spend some money to have some money left over hopefully for deficit because the true argument there the money underneath the base bill is not going to deficit reduction there's an argument between the senate and the house who's going to come up with the extra fifteen billion don't need for tax cuts this money is not going to deficit reduction it's going to further tax cuts i just did six town hall meetings or to columbus week break not one constituent came up and said we need more tax breaks they're concerned about the security of the country  concerned about the war in iraq they're concerned about hurricane katrina and the victims in this country what are we doing to help and although this bill doesn't do anything to take down the deficit does nothing to bring in our operability does not seem to provide any security for our country does nothing to help get in our operability up and running the dingell bill in the dingell substitute is the best one we have to move forward and while we may be supportive of the up the amendment later at five hundred million member dingell and my concerns are that the large segment of the hispanic communities particularly in my own district in los angeles los angeles is not going to be able to receive the benefits of the underlying bill that you've introduced and the reason for that is that most of the folks in my district number one their first language is not english many of them have not been able to acquire the necessary equipment and tools to be able to to provide the conversion that we're talking about in the underlying bill a large segment of our community will be left without any kind of communication particularly those for many of them their first source of information is through the spanish language networks the major broadcasters  provide that coverage now i know that we have a long way to go we should take care of those consumers that currently aren't able to acquire the necessary tools and equipment to make this transition happen and we should be more willing to provide them with the system so that that can easily happen because too many people will be left out of this discussion too many consumers that are currently paying into our systems trying to reap the benefits of our society but somehow are going to be left out mr chairman and i'd like my full statement be placed on the record by my colleagues on our side i strongly support the dingell substitute we've repeated this over and over and hopefully the other side will listen we were taking the public's analog airwaves away from t v viewers and selling them at auction to raise money for the federal government that's a tax and we're taking something from people to pay for the federal government since we're going to receive so much money from the net spectrum sales why don't we make the consumers whole if we're going to turn off their perfectly good t v sets why wouldn't we turn it back on if we could easily do it my good friend mr boucher who knows about these things thinks we can get over twenty eight billion from his from this spectrum and we would be happy with three billion dollar compensate them for it and make them whole not bella tex and ralph hall put that hit the nail on the head yesterday point out that we wouldn't have to provide so many analog digital converters if the consumer electronics makers would were not still selling analog televisions this very day without informing consumers we know the analog days are numbered in the t v manufacturers none of which are in the united states no the analog days are numbered and all these folks in the reporters in the audience know the analog days are numbered however no one seems to be surprised that the average american t v owner has no idea that transition is coming and when they find out that congress heard off the t v in two thousand and nine and they're going to make him pay to turn it back on  something's going to happen and i don't think those of us who are elected office will be happy about it we haven't had retailers and manufacturers warning consumers what is coming instead of letting them spend their hard earned money on new t v sets it will be obsolete in maybe four years a chairman included warning label requirements in the bill but i think the label is too long and too cumbersome for folks it's going on and on and not clear about the most important thing that these t v s will not receive broadcast  its missile leases t of bringing the digital television transition to a timely conclusion and the setting of a hard date for the secession of analog television broadcasting i also agree upon the need to do so in order to assist public safety entities in obtaining much needed cleared frequencies for their vital public safety mission and to free up frequencies for other wireless uses such as broadband wireless services but neither are public safety mission narada d t v transition mission will be met if we pick a hard date for transition that we cannot make stick unfortunately the republican committee print has done just that the problem with the republic hard date is that the lack of an image of an effective consumer t v picture restitution program makes the phrase far too literal it will be a really really hard date to hard to meet the goal that consumers aren't fully protected and become aware of what is  the risk is that the republican hard date is so hard to meet that it may unfortunately put pressure on a future congress to move it back yet again that would be terrible from a high tech and public safety perspective which is why it is critical to get this corrected nile and to assure all consumers that they will be held harmless during this transition the core of any digital t v bill we approve should ensure that the government does not engage in the unconstitutional practice of taking private property without just compensation and i really don't understand what has come over my republican friends they are proposing that we ren millions of perfectly good televisions and by the way thirty million analog t v sets were sold last year in america eighteen million analog t v sets are going to be sold in america this year you're going to shut them all off in three years from  three years especially this is a government forced condemnation of private property and i don't believe that my colleagues have thought through the ramifications of such an act if we shut up everybody's telephones and then made people pay in order to find some way of getting them back on again they would go crazy and the same thing is true with the republican proposal today you don't have a remedy that deals with the millions of people who are going to be adversely affected do you really want to set in motion a process that guarantees that millions of americans will be tuning in expecting to watch a new year's day call a ballgame and january first two thousand and nine only to see their t v sets go dark do you really want to look back on this vote and say i could have provided you with a remedy but chose to use that money instead to preserve the tax breaks for america's wealthiest citizens and let's be clear since the option is expected to raise at least ten billion dollars there's more than enough money to make all the affected consumers whole who are unfairly blacked out by this policy impose the top down and the republican plan puts the hard date in jeopardy the fact is that it does not adequately address potential consumer outrage which makes the hard data untenable the public will be screaming th congress will change the date once again any abrupt end date to the digital television transition will as a result be difficult to implement yet it will be nearly impossible if consumers are not compensated when the government turns off the television upon which that family depends but the elderly for the working poor and for immigrant groups who speak foreign languages the digital television transition may pose particular problems and contain greater risk so if you're one of the million consumers the millions of consumers who has an analog t v click in one hand you better have the other hand on your wallet because the republican congress is coming after  they're going to make you pay because they turned off your television set to find some way of getting it turned back on again and again the elderly the disproportionate group that has v s that are not that are that are free over the year one third of all his families in america just rely upon free over the television when you shut off analog your shutting off the t v sets in one third of all hispanic homes in america and your bill doesn't provide the money that will allow them to get their t v sets turned back on again this bill is a huge mistake yield back the balance of my time substitute they are moving to a hard day we can figure out how to get the best there when we get to conference but i also want to thank democrats for reminding america what the difference is between the two political parties that is extremely important because the democrats were in the majority today we'd be voting on the dingell bill which would spend all of the money that's what i remember what it was like when i was in the minority having to deal with those kinds of things so this whole issue about tax and spend and saying this is a tax and being clever in that kind of thing it just doesn't flow and with regard to this issue that mr markey just  this down condemnation the taking of private property those ladies and gentleman are just words because they do not find themselves with merit in the law so when you look at the there is neither a taking in contract nor in tort and you can't make it up it is narrowly construed by the courts so you just can't say wow if we're going to change from analog to digital there for some form of taking and thereby we the government now must make sure that we give them something some form of just compensation that's words those are just words making it up it's an emotional argument to appeal to a population of a whole  o basis in law none zero zip zero so if you hear this argument today about it taking is strictly an emotional argument no basis in from texas mr gonzalez thank you mr chairman i was going to say anything and i know that you were aiming to streamline an expedited but after those allies comments i don't think you're going to get your wish well we're going be out of here about about four thirty no matter what i know daphne will be there celebrate mr dingell service to his country and then we'll be back tomorrow i'm sure i don't know we're going to be debating constitutional definitions and such i would on a more serious vein whether it's a constitutional taking or not if you're that family lower usually in the lower economic echelons those that aren't privileged those that rely on this free form of entertainment and recreation whatever you want to call it it is a taking you are being deprived of something by policies that we are instituting here in congress those are very real in the real lives of citizens today i'm not going to gauge in the constitutional question of what is a taking or not i still believe that there is a third branch of government that rightly so will make those interpretations we don't want and i thank the gentleman that the gentleman from ohio may be right that you know in fact most people probably wouldn't get that concerned if the government was going to decide to take justice souter's home by eminent domain in new hampshire you know they just wouldn't lie awake at night wondering i wonder if they're going to take my home so wouldn't be really a national controversy but when seventy million t v sets go black on december thirty first two thousand and eight three years from now i can tell you people are going to have very strong opinions about it because it's their t v set and someone came into their living room took their t v set that they just purchased in two thousand and six the five hundred bucks and just threw the t v set out on the street and it doesn't work anymore you would have them arrested what would your about to do here today is have a bill that is on the other side only of you agree with me i'm imposing the republican only republican with no course i will be there at three there are three words that are being used here that are not being used properly in the law and that is eminent domain condemnation and taking so if you want to use the words and be plainspoken and fine do that as some form of justification for action but they find no basis in law and i just want to make sure that people understand the three words no i'll reclaim that and if we were in a court of law this be a wonderful academic esoteric debate but we're dealing with real life here and if we want to go ahead and hide behind those kind of legal dimensions we can day in and day out and be totally out of touch with the people that we represent with that i yield back the the gentleman from indiana referred to mr dingell substitute and and the notion that we're that adopted that somehow we would be inappropriate just giving money to people who i guess he feels are undeserving of that money i think that it is important to come back to the fact to the consideration of why we're even engaged in this process of reconciliation and trying to find more money a sensible rationale was and i think maybe still be stated as to help victims katrina but the fact of the matter is that even with these cuts that we're making the deficit is going to grow that the money is going to help pay for additional tax cuts for the wealthiest so let's put the needs of ordinary consumers middle class lower income people who are going to find their t v sets to go blank if we don't help to provide them with the ability to turn their t v s t v s on our we're going to give the money to the wealthiest americans in order to continue to pay for these tax cuts so i'm not a lawyer i'm not a constitutional lawyer i'm not  nominee for the supreme court not not of those things but i do when most americans understand the word fairness fairness they have a sense of fairness even if they couldn't accurately define it according to some legal document and i think people look at the situation look at the activities of our committee today and tomorrow and think this is unfair we are trying to find money from the poor in our country from middle class people so we can give it to the wealthiest so you know congressman dingell's bill tries to restore fairness that you may not be able to find the exact  section of the of the constitution that narrowly defines that but i think most americans get it thank you mr chairman thank the gentleman from illinois the gentleman from oregon thank you mr chairman i have a question for  counsel on the democrats substitute that we've heard so much about helping the poor and lower class lower incomes is there then a restriction on the free set top converter boxes based on income in their substitute no there's no restrictions so anybody of any income say bill gates or or or ross perot would be able to get a free set top box under george soros maybe would george soros be able to get a free set top box are these the poor people we're hearing about are that's correct so anybody in america would get a free converter box regardless of income that's correct ok now i understand the and i think you would not yet i understand under the coupon provision in the underlying bill there is no income test either although there was consideration of that at one point right that is also correct so the limiting factor under the majority bill is a participatory requirement because share if you will by having a coupon that can be redeemed to help cover part of the cost in a sort of public private partnership great technology that's correct those who believe they need the box and need the subsidy would be able to participate and under the under under the democrat alternative anybody how does that work do they just send a form in or go to a retailer and they get a free box a coupon would be distributed automatically to everybody and under what mechanism would that coupon be distributed presumably to the u s mails or some other mechanism so that isn't clearly outlined in the in the substitute nicely they will leave that to the administrator of the program so they just sort of throw you figure out how to distribute it and then those would be redeemed at any retailer is there any cost control on those boxes there is a price cap what is that cap only a sixty dollar box would be eligible for the coupon and what happens if it's more than sixty the consumer would not be able to use a coupon for that box so they can gauge in a price setting on the box and i know we've been told the boxes should come in at that range at some point but they're do we have any guarantee that they will no sir so if it turns out that the actuaries have set top boxes that cost more than sixty dollars you're completely out of the ballgame  the council i understand that but at least it's a public private partnership is not just a free lunch of a free you're giving every every person in america its  could i ask when the republican plan is there any guarantee that a box be sold for sixty dollars could a box be sold for eighty dollars under the republican plan or one hundred dollars under republican plan yes if a consumer chose to buy that box yes and and so the republican plan and since twenty one million american homes don't have anything but free over the air television under the eight hundred fifty million dollars plan which republicans have after ministration cost isn't it true that two t v sets of family  times ten million families of already exhausted the entire fund in everyone else after that reclaiming i'd only reclaiming oil time by five everyone reclaiming my time mister if i may have to buy under the republican plan it requires an affirmative action here i have to request that coupon right now and the system secretary's going to either make those available post offices other places of distribution quoting retail outlets or over the internet correct that's correct under the democrat alternative what's the distribution system drive to ask nothing it's just whether i need it or not i'm going to get a coupon in the mail that's correct and so for a free set top box do you suppose somebody could get could get those set free set top boxes and turn around and sell them even though they need them i don't see any limitation there be no limit so i could i could like get my neighbors together and get a whole bunch of these we don't need them because we either a high end and have h d t v s or whatever are the other members mr gordon i did i'll just take a moment i have a question for my friend morgan does this means testing also extend to so security would you like to advocate that no i wouldn't but i would remind the gentleman since he's on the committee that we did have this debate when it came to medicare and it was the republicans who said people like the very wealthy in this country maybe don't need to have their drugs subsidized and instead we should focus the bulk of the resource that we have at our disposal to those most in pharmaceutical companies that seem to be most get it since you're not allowing us to negotiate to get lower prices being consistent i just want to know whether if you gentlemen good my question is do you want to extend this same type of means testing to so security no i already answered that but i would refer you to what's the difference i would refer the gentleman to both the outcome of the prescription drug plans that are now in the market as well as get out on it isn't respond to you the outcome was that it's caused costing us about three times what we were told it was going to cost well it depends upon the years that you're looking at versus the first estimate versus a rollout period and whether it's out there course it cost more because people are going to take advantage of it we're seeing plans coming in at lower prices than we were originally told to expect with lower deductibility and far more participants out there than anybody imagined and whatever the city may we're going to help people in america who need the most help with their prescription drug recall someone who wanted to warn us about that was was told they might be fired if they gave us the real price but again that's a whole nother matter i'm just going back to that to the element of price rather trying to do mean testing and i just want to turn away there's a consistency for means testing so security as well as for means testing boxes but i will i don't want to proceed but i will yield to i think the gentleman under the republican plan they put aside eight hundred thirty million dollars but we know that twenty one million american homes have no it really have no enabling the satellite gentleman and on that but just on that technical point of my numbers it there fifteen million meeting and the average household that does not have cable or satellite has to do television sets in it so in other words just under your plan giving each family let's say two coupons for forty george soros or anybody else from applying for the money as well and so you're just going to wind up with many minorities and seniors having to basically pay a t v tax you're imposing this t v tax on it by shutting say as an example and on of the mass the fact that ninety five percent of all the multimillionaires are republicans and a high percentage and contribute to the republican party and you know imposing a television tax however on citizens senior citizens and minorities on the poor and by the way even on regular families that have cable or satellite it turns out that one third of those also have an additional t v set in the house is not hooked up to cable but you're also n in the context of a converter box which he would not even care about and you've got to apply for this too and you know how difficult it's going to be for us to get all that information to minorities and whatever i plan says we're mailing you the coupons ok  not agreed to the chair now recognizes and self to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute for five minutes in support of the amendment today we received numerous comments and suggestions about that about that title the manager's amendment tries to incorporate the more constructive of those  s number one we believe in the c b o believes that the converter box program that's in the base tax is fully funded the manager's amendment makes the program more efficient by ensuring that coupons that are sent out to households cannot be stockpiled in other words we we do not want some scam artists to go around and gather up thousands of these and then create a black market so we put some language in to try to prevent that second the manager's amendment makes clear that we can use some of the funds allocated for the program for consumer outrage we have listen to many comments that we need to have an aggressive outreach program to make sure that people understand that what's what's going to happen third the manager's amendment and certainly to the carriage rules that will govern satellite carriers transmittal of programming in digital and analog formats manager's  statutory language that requires satellite providers to follow the same carriage regime as cable operators it does so in a way that follows market by market approach that currently applies to satellite carriage of analog signals recognizing the differences between cable and satellite and capacity in system architecture other than that the the manager's amendment is the base tax it was released last week so the chair would hope that we could  have passed this on a voice and then move on to the specific amendments that members have is there discussion of the manager's amendment if not the chair will call the question those in favor say  understand that this him him and merely amends the consumer convert a box section so that we can have a direct debate and it's direct vote on just that issue that narrow issue of how we're going to protect the consumer so that that one essential principle of consumer protection is debated in the committee consumers did not ask for this digital television conversion the government has put the broadcasting industry on a forced march to go digital and is now prepared to set the hard date to and analog broadcasting but we must also keep in mind the shockingly high number of consumers who continue to walk into stores every day and buy analog t v sets sets which to the credit of the television manufacturing set industry typically last fifteen to twenty years in many families when they talk about the new t v set they're talking about the set they bought five years ago or six years ago it's ladies and gentleman that set the new set in most people's minds in their homes now in one thousand nine hundred seven in this committee i offered in amendment to mandate that no television set could be so sold in america beginning in two thousand and one that could not receive a digital signal and i was rejected unanimously by the majority then the republicans rejected if we had done that we would have sold thirty million digital sets every year two thousand and one two three four five six whatever hundred fifty one hundred eighty million t v sets out there right now but we don't last year unbelievably in america we sold thirty million four hundred five hundred some people a thousand dollars for that analog t v set when the signal goes black they will be set so this issue is one to me which is central to our need as a congress this week to ensure that consumers are not on the broadcasters are going to be benefited the cable industry to some extent will be benefit we can debate some of their issues at another time the wireless industry will be benefited because it will have the ability to bid for this additional spectrum it's the consumer who is going to get left holding the bag they're the ones who will have to pay part and the money is going to be there from the spectrum auction but yet the republicans are saying that money must go to tax breaks for the wealthiest cobble together with the money from the from the cuts in medicaid in this committee for the poorest young people and seniors in our country so that's why i think it's important for us too to debate this issue because the government owes restitution to americans were haven't been warned they haven't been told they're good they're walking through best buy and circuit city right now buying analog t v sets without any warning it's not right for these families to pay three hundred forty five hundred dollars for a t v set and then have it all black it's not right we owe them something as part of this process so this amendment gives us a chance to have a direct vote on whether there will be a consumer friendly plan to take care of everyone who needs a box all whether we stick with the republican plan which one doesn't cover all consumers and will run out of money to even for the consumers it does cover it puts the onus upon them to send in their name and write the government in order to get a coupon in the mail and three finally once they go through the hassle of writing the government and getting their coupon it will still result in those consumers having to shell out money anyway as a co pay so let's make it easy on consumers to address the the government option they cause i asked was support for this amendment the gentleman yields back two seconds in the chair recognizes him self for five minutes in opposition this is the marquee amendment kind of goes to the heart of what appears to be the dispute between the minority in the majority on this particular bill we all agree that there are some americans that need some help in converting to  digital the the base bill can apps that help into one we put a specific limit on the amount of money available for the subsidy nine hundred ninety million dollars and second we while we allow every household in america to get two coupons they have to ask for them and the assumption is that households that don't need t coupons won't ask for it or households that there are higher income households won't feel the need to ask for it so we we both agree that there are some television households in america that will need some help they don't have cable they don't have satellite they only have over the air and they're moderate to low income so the majority the base bill before us tries to target that help without actually putting a means test or something like that in it the marquee substitute since two coupons to every household in america mails him out has no makes no effort to contain th cost i don't know how i think they're one hundred twenty eight million households in america with television sets that's a number that sticks in my mind if somebody has a better number i'll take it but whatever the set top boxes it cost up to sixty dollars if if if i read is a mimic correctly if the set top box cost more than sixty that particular brand of set top box is not eligible but if it costs sixty dollars or less it is so you know his substitutes in every house so ons were sixty dollars up to sixty dollars and whatever if everybody who got the coupons took advantage of it and my number is right on one hundred twenty eight million households and they all had two t v set said b two hundred fifty six million times sixty what would that be two hundred fifty six times sixty would be about twelve billion dollars now my math may be off a little bit but compare that to two c b l scores the base tax is eight hundred  thirty million and c b s says there are only fifteen million households at that have no and no digital i mean ok we're no satellite and not all those are low income and i think it's a pretty clear  pretty clear choice we can be responsible and try to target without means testing and support the base tag we can throw caution to the wind and basically have the u treasury spin over over ten or twelve billion dollars if everybody took advantage of the program so i would hope we would oppose the marquis amendment and continue to support the base t generator it's not time and i'll be happy to use my last twenty two seconds the only point here is that most of those t v sets are a high percentage of them are hooked up to cable or satellite so that i agree i couldn't agree more well that's why the number twelve billion is not relevant the relevant number is the number that mr dingell mention which is the but it was technically possible you're you don't limit your subsidy to t v sets that are not hooked up to cable are to satellite the chances of people receiving it preclude pawn in in the mail for something which they don't need because they already have satellite a cable and then taking the time to go down to best buy just so they can go and get the box and then bring it home then put it in the garage because they don't need it is almost zero no one's going to do that so the only people who are really going to want these boxes are the people who have free over the television sets that we agree i mean you know we saw the numbers twelve point five million is a billion is just not relevant it's only the for you over the a t v sets that are relevant well i agree with you that the people most likely to use them are you big the group that you and i both and i'm with you on that my point is your amendment does nothing to limited to those people and the base tax at least caps the total cost of the program and also requires you to be able to be more  access to cable or satellite and therefore are getting their signal over the air it is my understanding that mr walden intends to offer an amendment which will affect the number of houses impacted by the mar as i understand it i know that in arizona arizona has two major cities two huge big cities all the rest people in arizona live in relatively small towns all the people who live in those small towns get their signal by repeaters i'd like to ask council if they get their signal by repeater and if the wall the minute passes does not that mean that the quite frankly millions of americans who obtain their signal over the air through a repeater will continue to get an analog signal for some period time beyond the deadline in the bill that is correct in the wall an amendment that would be money available to the translator itself conversions and then anyone by that translator would receive a signal with their existing analog television and in the situation correct in most states that if you live in a big city you get it directly from the broadcaster but if you live in anywhere else any other rural part of the state you get your signal by  repeater there are parts of the country that cannot receive a signal because of distance or terrain and they are served by a translator and those that are served by a translator assuming that all the men that is a die will continue to get their analog signal for some period time beyond the transition report certainly i want to stipulate i agree with what mr dingell said about what the c b s said and i agree with what mr markey is saying about his intent but i do want to insist on my technical point if there are one hundred  twenty eight million households with television sets and i think there are and if everyone has to and i think they do that is two hundred fifty six million t v sets in this country and under the marquee amendment you could take these coupons and you could turn them in for converter boxes and then if you didn't need them not everybody needs them but you could do it legally take it down to best buy or circuit city whether you needed it or not turney and then take that converter box sell it on e bay and give a donation to the marquis for congress committee thanking him for doing that and that is technically possible and is not illegal under his amendment that's not his intent but it is possible that some modest chairman would y satellite there will be a lot of consumers who because of the public interest standards that are that we applied are free over there that will i am ready to get off cable i am ready to get a free there are in the country or what proportion of the nation is served by a repeater as opposed to getting their signal directly well thank you mr shafiq i just happen to have those data translators nationwide four thousand four hundred seventy four  in my own state there are three hundred fifty three licenses low power t v i understand there's about two thousand low power t v in oregon hundred nineteen class a television booster stations i don't actually have a number here i guess  maybe up to seventy five hundred but you also have boosters that are used to fill in voids and broadcast especially and i think cities where you have a lot of buildings and then also perhaps out of the rural areas so indeed there are a significant number of viewers who think they're getting their t v off the main signal of a television station when in fact they're actually off a community translator what this amendment seeks to do is give some certainty that process so it can continue as well as set up a very small three million dollar fund to help with the conversion piece that takes the digital signal off the main transmitter and converts it to analog so they can continue to transmit in analog now the translators would continue to be a second a second on the on the channel so they could get bumped by a priority my understanding down the road a lot of that would be worked out by the f c c but by and large those people were going to to get an analog signal for a period of time pas lady again let me go back to what my amendment actually says although i appreciate the gentleman from oregon because those of us who live in boston or chicago or l a detroit  might be able to benefit from your t v viewer relocation program as we all move out to where those repeaters will be out there and rural america to enjoy the benefit of the jones another for those of us who don't and live in urban  suburban america we're just not going to have that luxury and our t v s will be going black and again it's key for everyone here to understand that the republicans have no answer to the question of what they're going to say to the eleven million families that applies under their program for help with the purchase of convert a box of their analog t v sets have no answer to it and as a result those consumers are all going to be left holding a clicker in their hands in front of a blank t v set and they're not providing the money for any more than eleven million families and we know according to g a o there are twenty one million american families that has that don't have free over the t v don't have a cable or  one third of all analog t v sets that are in the homes of people who do have cable or satellite and it's in a separate room and that's been working up in that room for the last five years ten years fifteen years and everyone plans on having it going on working forever and you're all going to make black now i'm just going to give you this little anecdote just see if you know what we're dealing with here on the on the anniversary of the of the ten thousand and f l football game they did a survey of the most famous n f l football game of all time police phone system all of them with the phone calls that came in from people saying where's my football game now in the next ten minutes darrell in monaco through two passes different bulletin  cough to pull it out and they ran a little scroll about halfway through heidi letting all those football fans although it's probably not the same audience you know that the football game had actually been won by the oakland raiders  why do you think that's the most famous football game in the history of the n f l it's because people have a very emotional relationship with their television set and they really don't want people to turn it on off switch channels  what you're doing here what you're doing is you're just deciding that not just for the poor and again i admit that most of the people who are in the twenty one million category they have free over the television they are poor they're more elderly they are minorities ok i admit that but you have to understand that a third of all more people have got that extra t v set up there in the third floor of the basement they've just got if they have for the kids they don't want to look into cable they don't want to look at the satellite it's still sitting there the kids can just watch regular t v but they can't watch cable they can't watch satellite right in their room they trust them with that sets don't blame you have to understand it's going blank and you're not going to give them anything for the t v set and i believe that as a no mr gilmore mr gilmore votes no mr  you want to double check the that would be correct twenty five twenty five as but there still are twenty seven nos so the instrument is not agreed to familiar with the stories of how first responders have been at times unable to communicate effectively with one another it's one of the most important challenges we face in terms of public safety today and our ability to allow the deployment of state of the art and inner operable public safety communications i think is is very very important my amendment will make the seven hundred megahertz public safety spectrum that we're clearing today even more valuable by asking the f initiate a rule making to assess the necessity to rechannel izing that portion of the spectrum currently set aside for wideband technologies to enable the deployment of today's powerful commercially available broadband wireless technologies public safety personnel should have in or operable radios as has been widely recognized but they should be also have access to broadband data and enter operable ip based voice communications just as consumers and businesses users have today deployment of commercially available broadband wireless technologies in the dedicated public safety spectrum provides another platform from which public safety networks can evolve into fully  feature rich voice and data systems in the shorter term deployment of broadband wireless technologies and the public safety spectrum will give our country's first responders dedicated access to high speed mobile data capabilities that are increasingly critical to carry out their missions in a safe and timely and cost effective manner these capabilities would include real time video detailed images automated dispatch and multimedia alerts and real time monitoring and wa public safety the spectrum they were promised years ago is an important step that i've long supported but let me be clear spectrum alone will not solve the gaping interoperability problem that this country faces spectrum does public safety no good if they don't have communicate equipment to use that spectrum my amendment is simple it takes five point eight billion of the auction proceeds and put it into the public safety interoperability trust fund to give our first responders the tools they need to save lives and to safely do their jobs adequate funding for interoperability is long overdue as i mentioned earlier starting in one nine hundred eighty two era florida crash on potomac the oklahoma city bombing september eleventh california wildfires and most recently hurricane katrina have all demonstrate a critical importance of first responders communications to save lives president bush recognized this after september eleventh when he said and i quote that is why we want to spend money to make sure equipment as there are strategies are there communications are there to make sure that you have whatever it takes to respond in the quote i agree with his words one hundred percent unfortunately there's been scant follow through on these words state local governments have received little guidance and fewer federal dollars going to two years after september eleventh a mere two hundred million was provided for interoperable communication grants at the apartment of homeland security today this grant program is nonexistent because the president in the republican controlled congress has eroded out two hundred million is a drop in the bucket compared to the fifteen billion cost cited by the office of management budget the public safety wireless network study estimate that full interoperability would cost eighteen billion dollars today we have an opportunity to properly meet the needs of our first responders by giving them both the spectrum and the funding they need to do their jobs by management takes the five point eight billion from the spectrum proceeds and creates the inner trust fund this amount will be meaningful down payment on first responders communications the trust fund is based on bipartisan legislation i've introduced in the past two congresses many will say we can't afford five point eight billion dollars i say we can't wait we can't afford to wait any longer the administration says it will take twenty years to become interoperable we can't afford to wait twenty years when lives are at stake our first responders need communications equipment today we can't afford more tax cuts when we have first responders on a frontline of the war on terror with substandard equipment with radios that can't use seven hundred megahertz spectrum we are giving them back we can't afford to pass up the opportunity when more than eighty percent of america's cities are not in or operable with federal agencies according to the u s conference of mayors in fact the mayor is reported ninety seven percent of the city's unprepared to communicate during a chemical plant disaster ninety four percent of cities are unprepared to communicate during a rail disaster ninety two percent of the cities are unprepared to communicate during a sea port disaster the seven hundred megahertz is estimated to be worth upwards of twenty eight billion dollars now is the time to devote money to our first responders with your human cations equipment they need and not more tax cuts we may never have another chance to do this again senator mccain agrees with us in his save the votes the money from the spectrum auction to a similar interoperability trust fund we have momentum on both the house and the senate now is the time to act i urge the committee to put radios for police ahead of tax cuts for the wealthiest level for a grant program as the underlying bill moves through the legislative process particularly in conference with the senate and i would note that in the senate bill that they completed last week they also have a provision for this same dollars and i would i'm going to be working with with my chairman and with others as this bill moves through the conference to get as much as we can but i have to say that five point eight exceeds our target and it is with go nowhere and while i respect the gentleman efforts and the fact we're going to put in five hundred million and all those law enforcement groups that support it probably even support it but we got to do something we just can't continue to say and say we'll work out it later i mean even the senate bill is woefully inadequate what we need we're going to do more than work on it i mean i would like to think that i will pass later this afternoon and i have to say that i have you know i have  now i'm reclaiming my time i'm not adverse to using money from the appropriations for this worthwhile program and we'll work with the gentleman all the all the members of this committee to see what we can do with the appropriations to continue to fund this as the need for strongly support the stu pac amendment and i will tell you neither of those two counties can communicate with the police officers in the washington district of columbia and what this means is if we have another nine eleven style attack and those people are trying to exit or exodus out of to maryland will find it impossible because law enforcement cannot communicate effectively because they don't have interoperability and i think this illustrates in a way that's very close to home what is going to happen if we don't address this issue seriously we will be trying to conduct an evacuation with law enforcement officers who can communicate with each other with only a limited number of access highways and comes if if we take it either one is grossly inadequate the amendment offered by the gentleman from michigan mr stupak puts five point eight billion into a public safety communications trust fund that's beginning to get to be the kind of money that we have to spend so that we can get interoperability amongst our police for our public safety and amongst our public are first responders now let's take a look at the situation if you will go home and talk to your police fire and public safety you will find there is one thing that they will always come to you on what in which they say you can help them that is to see to it that they get the ability to communicate between themselves and between the different departments so that they can respond to a nine one one or respond to a katrina or a wilma or an alpha or to cook or  correspond to a major fire or a landslide or something of that kind that might be affecting their community and failure to do this puts people at risk whether it's whether it's a whether it's a fire and a house or a factory whether it's whether it's a train crash or whether it's the release of some kind of toxic substance in the community your police and fire and public safety cannot now adequately safely assuredly talk to each other and as result the public is at risk we're selling off a huge amount of spectrum here that spectrum should be should be sold for for the best public use and the rich should be used for the public use here what we're looking at is now the plan of my republican colleagues which is to give a little bit here just enough to keep people quiet but not enough to solve the problem so as a result if you look you're finding that what we're doing is we're going we're actually going out to sell these revenues off not to balance a budget not to take care of police fire and public safety but just to give tax cuts to those who don't need it now it may well be that the time will come when we should give tax cuts to those people and it may well be that it is it is a proper thing to do but in the ordinary fixing of priorities here fixing our priorities to take care of police fire and public safety is absolutely urgent and doing it is sufficient amounts is enough if you go home and talk i repeat to your police fire and public safety they will first of all tell you  this is the greatest single need which they have in terms of implementing their important responsibilities if you go home to them after you have done this they're going to look you in the eye and they're going to say mr cargreen you who have  wrong thing by not seeing to it that adequate funds are available for us to carry out our responsibilities i would beg my colleagues on both sides support the stupak amendment if if there is if there are promises to be made let us have additional money and good but the answer is let us now see to it that the money is there to meet one of the most pressing public safety needs which this nation has i urge my colleagues to support the stupak amendment i urge my colleagues to do something for the safety of your people and i urge my colleagues not to listen to a lot of promises about how we're going to do something about every police and fire department in america for every one of us keeps coming to us and explaining is central to their ability to ensure that in their hometown in our hometown that we don't see a repetition of what happened in nine eleven in new york city let's refocus our debate in nine hundred ninety seven in the telco act i think the members of the committee that were here then we all voted for it set aside spectrum for law enforcement and first responders but they never got it because it was that same spectrum was allocated to the broadcasters so they could broadcast in digital and in analog the base bill since we are recapturing that spectrum we finally have that spectrum of violence for law enforcement and first responders and we all agree with that i don't think anybody on either side now in terms of paying for the equipment there is nothing in current law all that prohibits any law enforcement and first responder group in this country getting with their region or their state and coordinating their equipment purchases through regular order so that they can communicate there is no you know what what mr upton and mr stupak are doing we're creating a special program that actually federalize is that in in if i understand mr stupak would totally federalize it mr upton subsidizes it so that it's kind of a joint state federal local partnership in terms of paying for the equipment but the base bill is is taking the spectrum that was allocated ten years ago and saying it's finally going to be available for first responders and law enforcement and now the debate is what level and to what extent does the federal government either totally pay for this new our subsidize it and that's a debatable proposition now i will point out that in texas some very clever fellows in the texas national guard have come up with some equipment that is very inexpensive and when they have an emergency that they're involved in they contact the local people and say what are your frequencies that you're using and they plug it into this i don't know if it's a translator a transmit whatever it is but it doesn't cost a lot and they can commute from there frequencies can communicate all day and all night long and it no i don't know if it's just the texas national guard that does that or for everybody does it but that's something that we are looking at you know this is a case where both mr stupak and mr upton are right and it's just a question of what degree the federal government wants to actually pay for this equipment and with that i'm going to yield the balance of my time to mr bush i have to i have to associate myself with your comments exactly what i wanted to share it is a matter of degree of federalism we find ourselves after september eleventh making those judgments and wanting to modernize and whether it was from communications satellite radios all the way to some of the fire equipment updating oxygen tanks and masks and and my only fear  indiana very concerned about a bulletproof vest now we've got a program to make sure we get the bulletproof vest i mean every time we're saying to the localities the federal government will step in and we will do and we do it through an incremental step towards greater and bigger centralized government because i guess we know best here in washington but i want to applaud my friend from michigan this is a question of degree and i regrettably have to vote yield to the other barque chairman for you to let me just clarify that spectrum alone is not the answer there are technologies available you mention the national guard we have thing in michigan called cold spear that can implement today and we can save lives today we don't have to wait for the seven hundred megahertz in fact new orleans had seven hundred megahertz why can't they communicate with each other they don't have the equipment they don't have the money to invest in it indicate that we want to federalize it when an airplane goes down when a bomb goes off when something happens in our country you want first responders a stand around and say is this state is this better or is this local who's going to respond it doesn't work that way in the real world something's happened you expect us to up certain things we have to do local police officers you have put an unfunded mandate on the state local police officers when something happens you want to be able to talk to each other so they can save lives we don't do that in a sit around and say we better allies this or did that is just a poor argument so next time something happens ask your first responders wait to see if it's a federal response response but are local when something happens you want to be there let's give them the homeland security has been nickel and dime in terms of the amount of money which they receive in order to help on this communications issue they're going to be calling the local police and fire those of the local heroes there's an estimated fifteen billion time we're going to try to conclude the debate on this and then go and come back i mean go to the floor and vote and when we come back the first order of business will be the vote on this amendment thank you i move to strike the requisite number of words on this topic one of the questions is how much the local contributes how much the federal government contributes to inter operability and upgrading the technology i think another question is speed i think after nine eleven the public thought we were on and were shocked and horrified after hurricane katrina to figure out that we not and it has not moved with all due haste if we don't pass the stupak amendment i fear that it will be a long long time to come before we achieve true interoperability during the august recess i  traveled around my district i met with local first responders police chiefs fire chiefs i asked them about their plans to upgrade their technology the cost was always a major factor that far exceeded the capacity of local budgets to fund in the near term i think we have to put this investment if we're going to achieve interoperability with eddie haste and i think we ought to have a sense of urgency right now given what we've experienced i also wanted to respond to the gentleman from indiana his comments about centralization because we're not talking about a new federal bureaucracy we're talking about equipment is going to be put out into the field that's not centralized but the importance of having some central hand in all of this is that while we debate this our local first responders our public health officers our police chiefs our fire chiefs are having vendors come around who are hawking their goods and we really want the equipment that they invest in to be interoperable we have the capacity of missing that opportunity if we  the quorum is present there are twenty one members in the room i think nineteen is the necessary number so we'll just go ahead and do the roll call those in favor of the st substitute will vote aye and those opposed will vote no the clerk will call the roll slowly because i don't i don't obviously there are not a lot of members here but there is a quorum so call the roll slowly mr hall mr gordon mr gordon votes mr rush transition so that public safety can have access to the twenty four megahertz of spectrum in the upper seven hundred megahertz band that they were promised in ninety seven according to recent testimony in support of our committee's efforts to set a hard date lieutenant colonel miller the michigan state police  public safety access to the seven hundred megahertz spectrum both in michigan and across the country is critical for the safety of our citizens and first responders because the seven hundred megahertz band is the only dedicated spectrum allocation where public safety can further develop in or operable voice communication of course clearing the spectrum while a critically important first step is not an end unto itself the next step is to help make sure that our local and state first responders have the proper communication systems that they need and this is where this amendment comes in and marries the two steps the amendment establishes a federal grant program to assist state and local public safety agencies in the acquisition of deployment of in training for the use system which enabled public safety agencies to share information amongst local state and federal public safety agencies in the same area be a voice or data in the m m it sets aside five hundred million dollars from the d t spectrum auction proceeds to fund the grant program which will be administered by the department of commerce is importantly this amendment is supported by the following organizations the association of public safety communications officials international international association to the chief of police international association of the fire of major cities chiefs association major county sheriffs association national association of counties national league of cities national sheriffs association the telecommunications industry association i would ask unanimous consent to submit for the record the letters of support for that amendment from those organizations an objection having said that these public safety organizations and all of  us i think the same desire to increase the funding level for the grant program as we work with the senate on the underlying bill and conference as a primary author of this amendment as chairman of the telecommunications internet subcommittee i will fight to do just that and i want to together to ensure that rural america not be left out of a possibility of the possibility of receiving some of these grant absolutely i look forward to working with the on that thank you and i support the amendment side funds as the chairman mentioned from the auction revenues the public safety interoperability i want to commend chairman upton for working with us on this issue and i want to commend you mr chairman for being as responsive as you've been let me say upfront i do believe that far more is needed but as a new yorker i must say that this points us in the right direction i hope we can ultimately add more money to this this is why i think mr st ak was going in the right direction and i hope that we can add some to this down the road all new yorkers have relive the horror of september eleventh many times but for many of us we experienced additional pain as we read the transcripts of the police offices circling the world trade center and they realized that the second tower would soon collapse what is more is that those offices knew it was going to happen and were helpless had absolutely helpless warn the firefighters in the towers to get out why it's very simple because the radios were not interoperable since then new york city has worked to get its systems interoperable in fact so has westchester and rockl counties to which are also in my district the digital transition will of course free up valuable spectrum that has been set aside specifically for public safety but without funding to assist local first responders in obtaining this new equipment then  join me in are fine one point the language in the amendment does not specify that these funds can be used to design a radio system however i believe that the word acquisition of such equipment would include working with the radio equipment vendor to ensure that the system being purchased works taking into account issues such as topography and other local issues that can require additional engineering of a system i would yield to the chairman upton to ask if he would agree with this interpretation i do thank you that's the best i've heard since the day i got married we did it with a gentleman yield certainly the gentleman elaborate for us on what pain a yankee fan in a white sox fan share in common what it what does that pain that you i don't know you're asking me to expose my in the most feeling since i also wrote from the mets for the mets and i'm from the bronx you say we feel every year that a team that hasn't won a world series in a long time gets to win it so last year it was boston and now it's probably the white sox and and we think it might be the cubs eventually as well mr market there actually a lot of emergency communications equipment according to that report the inability to communicate was a critical element at the world trade center the pentagon somerset county pennsylvania crash sites where multiple agencies and jurisdictions responded the hard date returning analog spectrum in the base text of today's bill speaks to the first part of the recommendation human allows for the adoption of the recommendation of full by providing five hundred million to establish a grant program for first responders to purchase and learn how to use interoperable communications equipment also provides a federal commitment to fund eighty percent of approved grant requests with the twenty percent state local share and additional hours for the flexibility to design in the point of interoperable communications money for the program would provide necessary funding for first responders not just in new york city but in other cities across the country to improve voice communication between among city state and federal entities but also go a long way in establishing adequate data networks for first responders i mean a real life example i think of what this could do the current state of mind and what hopefully if this is passed what will mean the amendment well allow terminals to be installed and police and fire vehicles that would be capable of receiving in real time information pertinent to their mission would give law enforcement and fire officials access to mug shots building blueprints compress video remote reporting biological monitoring throughout the city  be able to share the information with other jurisdictions in the metropolitan area arriving and responding in the city of new york to give an example situation for example now is a officer first responded out to carry a paper copy of a blueprint to a building with a crisis or the police can only receive a description of a suspect rather than actual photo we did not have the capability to remotely monitor receive the funds will allow us to have a system that would could remotely monitor a scene thus assisting those at higher levels in the police and fire department the management decisions the new system of these phones would support we'll be able to better my monitor vital signs because they will be able to put monitors on firefighters for example when they enter a building such as new system would also be able to better track patients and send medical records ahead when individuals taken to a hospital much of the sounds like common sense and reality is that many people would be affected in a very positive way first responders are given this tool these tools to not just protect the public but help those in a time of need and especially at a time of crisis this is overdue thank mr upton and then go on others for supporting us the first responders across the country deserve to have this because at the end of all of this it's their job to protect the public and right now they're not doing it although they are trying and do a great job every day we believe they can be doing a lot better with the tools that we upton and others as well as to mr stupak raising the issue of funding interoperability we've had a lot of discussion about the need to help our heroic first responders we've heard testimony in previous hearings that the cost to fund the necessary equipment would be between fifteen and eighteen billion dollars but yet we have failed to provide the necessary funds the optimum upton amendment takes i think a modest but certainly important step in the direction of funding interoperability i spoke earlier today about the problems in the washington d c suburbs of maryland and the lack of inner operability and the point i want to make in this amendment is that in allocating whatever funds are available as a result of the  auction for purposes of interoperability in person equipment we should take into consideration a risk analysis now as you know we've had an extensive debate in this congress about the need to allocate resources for homeland security based on a risk analysis this amendment would basically say that some funds should be apportioned across the board but some funds should be apportioned based on a risk analysis comparable to that which is used by the department of homeland security which identified certain high risk areas the member would also provide that priority would be given funding based on risk of terrorism or threats to terrorism to agriculture food banking chemical industries the defense industrial base emergency services energy government facilities postal shipping public health health care information technology telecommunications transportation systems water dams commercial facilities and national monuments and i i just want to share of my colleagues those of us who are involved in the katrina investigation right now are doing so in a manner to to discover all of the facts so we can come to competent judgments on what occurred not only at the federal level the state level and the localities so when we talk about public safety it's important to note that there is a federal response plan and this plan the plan has been put together along with our states and the localities on how to respond to many to a full array of mayhem and when we talk about duties responsibilities missions and consequence management all of that is done where everybody understands what everybody has to do and my i just want to make sure everybody's fully cognizant got the sense where we want to go is we're going to create another federal program and the federal government's going to be the answer because localities are doing their job the states not doing their job so the federal government's going to do it for them and here we go again on the issue of public safety is it important absolutely the federal government have an interest in absolutely the states have an interest in this you bet and so the lookout so i just want to throw an air of caution out here that our county commissioners have areas of responsibility to our county council so to our state legislature and i just one thought out there here we go again on another federal program whereby we're going to provide the federal tax dollars to do this and i think that we're going to learn a lot when we're done here with the facts on  katrina whereby we're localities even though the federal government did certain things localities fell on their face and the states fell on their face so before you buy resource talking about responses and public safety i invite you to read the federal response discussion of the tax dollars or their money's coming from the sale of the spectrum and you talk about a federal plan if it's a federal plan should not the federal government then pay for it and in my concern about katrina we already know that new orleans of seven hundred megahertz they should have been able to do all this interoperability that's the spectrum we're arguing over here and it's a spectrum will be given to law enforcement the reason why they couldn't they don't have the resources whatever we elevate the security level in this country we put requirements on the county commissioners the local governments the townships the cities the states to do certain things and we don't reimburse them and this bill or this amendment my friend from michigan  five hundred million it's more than what we had coming into the room this morning but still woefully inadequate it's equivalent to about ten million for each state it's clear that it's not enough money and if it's ten million each state state of michigan has testified last month miller as mr upton indicated that since one thousand nine hundred five michigan has put in two hundred twenty one million construction of its statewide system in two thousand and six we're in invest another nineteen million the demand for interoperability the cost is huge the first responders that we require upon whether state local or federal must have the resources must have the equipment to do their job we can we must do better than this five hundred million we know the options are going to generate at least ten to twenty eight billion i think is a shame that we last management there by myself and then twenty four twenty four t a start but the you know just this point here we go again we'll be here twenty years but also oregon the same point but i mean you know well you know i think the general feeling you know what we saw in louisiana was a state that had fifty percent of  children living in poverty and and we saw in the wall and one hundred thousand people that didn't even own automobiles so that's obviously a tip off that they don't have the resources to take care of some of these other things that go to public safety response to a crisis like we saw in katrina but we could see it manifest itself in many other ways and so all we're really doing here and i and i think it's only ten percent of what miss the pac want to put aside because it will go a long way it is not going to go as far as it should be better than nothing and so i applaud the gentleman from michigan for you know taking a beginning take us in the right direction but this problem was really identified for us and in katrina got on the wall and and you know these people obviously don't have a lot of cash and the federal government has a responsibility in the same way to build the levees to protect these people they don't have the money to do that we similarly have a responsibility to give them this equipment that can help to protect them in the event of any catastrophe i yield back to the gentleman from michigan you know back mr i'm sure other discussion of the pending amendment if not the cure is going to mr hall i know you're mr hall votes mr bill rockets misspell rockets mr allen mr davis zero five the clerk will report the title and distribute the amendment digital television transition will be the ability of television viewers to receive digital programming at higher quality than the analog signals they're receiving today but the real improvement in quality comes with the receipt of high definition signals that offer crystal clear images and striking details i want for my constituents and for all americans to be able to receive their signals in digital format and  high definition digital but the print that is before us would provide that cable and satellite systems will not be required to carry high definition  signals five years after the hard date for surrender of the analog spectrum and other words it will be twenty fourteen before all the cable and satellite systems carry high definition programming under the committee bil the bill requires that cable to like carrie standard definition digital and make an analog signal down converted from digital available beginning in two thousand and nine cable and satellite systems may carry high definition digital as well and some may in fact decide to do so through this amendment i hope to encourage all of them to carry the high definition signal of the amendment does the following things first it requires that local broadcast television stations broadcast in high definition when a high definition feed is being provided to them by the network with which they are affiliated secondly the amendment imposes a truth and viewing disclosure requirement on both cable and satellite operators if a cable or satellite operator decides to down convert a high definition signal from a local t v station into standard definition format a fifteen second notice would be placed on the screen by the cable or satellite provider saying that a down conversion of a signal received at the cable or satellite facility and high definition  occurred at the option of the cable or satellite provider third cable and satellite carriers could apply to the federal communications commission for a waiver from that notice requirement if they could persuade the commission that capacity limitations make it technically unseasonable for them to carry the high definition signal the purpose of the amendment is to require broadcasters to transmit in high definition when they're receiving a high definition feed from their affiliated network and to encourage cable and satellite to carry high definition when it's available from the local broadcaster if it's technically feasible to carry the high def signal i think cable and satellite like to do so rather than just show the disclaimers saying that they have voluntarily down converted that hide if an ocean signaled into standard format if it's technically infeasible for some reason to carry the high definition signals the commission can then waive the notice requirement by adopting this amendment we can take a positive step to put high definition programming in our constituent homes at the earliest possible time and i hope it will be the pleasure of the committee to adopt the amendment mr chairman thank friend i think i rise against this it's not clear technically how a cable operator when certain notice in a particular broadcast signal and when you think about it this is a mandate for the cable company but why not just let the broadcasters do it themselves so i would ask my colleagues couldn't the broadcasters do this themselves without mandating to the cable and the broadcasters have the incentive to do it so why why not put it without it where they where the broadcasters  would be they want to get it done with the gentleman yield yeah well the situation i'm positing here is where the broadcaster is broadcasting in high definition the cable system receives that high definition signal from the broadcaster but then the cable system voluntarily decides that they're going to down convert that h d signal into standard digital format and that's what they claim has no no ability to do what you're suggesting well i guess i guess the question would be is requiring cable operations certain on screen notice might confuse customers trying to understand what it is might not be technically feasible it looks like it's a  mandate and i would think there's some way to do it through the marketplace and rather the mandates and i think there might be a simpler solution for the broadcasters or perhaps insert a message contrary to what my colleagues say the broadcast could insert a message in it's own signal just like it put it station logo we all see the station logo for the broadcast when we do it why couldn't the broadcaster just do something that the say if you're in this case not getting it in high definition so mr chairman i reluctantly rise oppose this amendment for mandating on screen notices by the cable with gentlemen you yes i to oppose it i normally try to go out of my way to work with mr boucher because he and i were chairman and rancor on the energy subcommittee and we just have a tremendously i think positive relationship and i do oppose it because of the technical problems that mr stern says enunciated i think it's some point to process we might have a meeting of the minds on this but for this point in time i would have to oppose is there other discussion for moving towards embracing as a transitional step the dual carriage and delivery to consumers of both an analog and a digital picture to cable subscribers i think they really should be commended for that i think it's a  dollars for a good one very very likely scenario to be seen on an increasing basis as each year goes by all the amendment says is that if a cable operator takes and receives an h d t v signal from a broadcaster who is putting on the football game putting on whatever it is an h d t v and then the cable company down converts that signal to standard not high definition then the cable operator operation let the consumer know that that is not their t when the gentleman he'll just for a question i'll be glad to isn't it possible that the cable has to tell the broadcasters that they are doing that and when the broadcasters know that that cable is converting it from high definition down to digital and if  so it to the best interests of the broadcasters say ok if that's what you're doing mr cable then we're going to have a little notice with our logo saying this is available in high definition or you might want to reclaim my time and you might wind up in a situation where the some national program going out of the notre dame u s c game you know with fans from both teams all across the country and then different local cable operators all decide themselves that they're going to switch from high def to to standard out for those fans who have been planning all week to sit in front of that high def for that football game or whatever it does it's going to be impossible  market does well thank you mr markey let me simply say putting this burden on the broadcaster to provide notice when there's been a down conversion simply won't work cable systems could decide from day to day or even from program to program whether they intend to down convert the h d signal coming from the broadcaster there's no way the broadcaster necessarily would know whether a given programme that transmits an h d is going to be carried in h d on cable or stand carried in standard understand the thought behind the gentleman's member it seems to me the idea is to provide notice to the viewer of that cable television that it has been downgraded except if i'm not mistaken isn't it true that the bill does not require the broadcaster to broadcast in high definition but the gentleman yield no actually if you read the first paragraph of the bill that says that the broadcaster must transmitted when the signal that he receives from his affiliated at that point in time when they getting it from the broadcaster well typically the networks advertise the local t v stations also advertise when they're broadcasting in high definition in fact if you've seen a high def programme you'll see a trailer at the beginning controls the time and he ask unanimous consent for one additional minute and the clock got set for two additional i thank the gentleman for yielding and i would say to my friend that there's nothing voluntary here in terms of the television broadcaster the first paragraph in this bill clearly places the burden on the television broadcaster to broadcast in high definition when he is getting a high definition signal from the network with which he is affiliated that is a mandatory requirement we are not placing in this amendment a mandatory requirement on cable to carry that what we're saying is if they decide not to they simply have to put up a notice saying they have down converted at their own option standards you said earlier that you would interpret the purpose of this to be to provide the notice that is partly true the primary purpose of this is to encourage the cable and satellite operators to elect not to down convert but in lieu of putting the notice to actually carry the high definition so i'm really quite frankly general yield i'm viewing it from the perspective of the knowledge of the consumer and i guess my point is you've made the point that the bill requires them to rebroadcast in high definition if they get it in high definition and then you pointed out the date to disclose that as a voluntary matter that is whether or not they are broadcasting in high definition from the perspective of the consumer he or she does not know whether the signal that came to the broadcaster was standard definition or high definition so when you get the broadcast signal as a consumer from the broadcast you won't know what under your amendment you're compiling national policy is to create digital high definition television that's producing the spectrum that we're talking about today but beyond that our our purpose is to see to it that there is an ability of everybody to receive that kind of signal under the constituted the purchaser of cable services they receive high definition or in the opposite in the opinion or desire of the cable company they only receive analog or digital digital low quality signal the consumer has no basis and no way of knowing what is going on he's bought himself a set capable of receiving high quality high definition digital service but he ain't going to get it why because i'm curious coincidence the cable manufacturer of the cable company has decided they're not going to deliver him that kind of service  paid for the equipment he's paying for that kind of service from the cable company and the broadcaster is originating this kind of programming in digital hi management doesn't strike the provision of the bill which would permit this kind of action by the cable company i view it as close to misbehavior and perhaps worse than misbehavior but that's not important the only thing the amendment does here is to say if the cable company is going to do this downgrading of the quality of service which they are providing to the company to show what they're doing then perhaps they ought not be permitted to do it in the first place so i think that we have before choice looking after the consumer sixteen eyes thirty one days sixteen as thirty one the amendment is not agreed to is there mr wild and you mr chairman i have an amendment at the desk walden three walden three the clerk will report five minutes in support as the clerk distributes the amendment thank you very much mr chairman this is the amendment that we all sort of talked about earlier in the morning regarding translators and assisting them in the transition  through this process and as you know in many parts of the country people receive their television off of translators and what this amendment does is about three things one it requires the federal communications commission to finish their report in order at a date certain which needs to be done so they can reallocate this part of the spectrum second that allows these translators to continue to operate as a secondary status in analog and third it sets up a fund that will help in the transition in this part one of the concerns that i had and i think other members in this committee had is what happens when the analog broadcast stops and the main transmitters only transmitting  digital set up a fund to allow for a digital to analog bit of assistance no more than four hundred dollars to these translator outfits to be able to continue to broadcast an analog so if you're concerned about reaching out in the rural areas and helping people through this transition by be able to do their signals analog during the transition this will help it'll help these small independent translators a lot of these are are owned by individual or a local community organization or something like that it's a small way to help fix a little bit of a problem that i recognize in this bill and i would encourage your support but you gemini i'll be happy i just want to say i commend the gentleman for this amendment i have to say that there were a number of us republicans and democrats at the and maybe convention earlier this year this issue came up and i know the chairman committed himself to fixing this problem because it was then a fight is a real problem with the transition date  whatever date we picked and i commend your work for figuring out how we can resolve this particularly i have to say for more rural areas but particularly in western states and i think this amendment to deserves our attention and needs to be approved and is less than the two hundred million approved by the senate commerce committee and seventy five million dollars which is in the democratic my good friend the author of the committee is already  and my understanding is this is what the national broadcasters say they need for the translators to convert the digital signal to an analog signal it's in it's about six hundred dollars a all day we're talking about analog to digital this allow this is a minor device that will allow them to take the digital signal convert it so they can continue to transmit out there in analog so it's not the same as converting all of these that imposes a timetable when a complaint should be resolved my i'm a member that would impose a thirty day limitation on the resolution of any complaints filed the rationale for this amendment is simple it will allow it would allow consumers to get a quick response of their status so that they have an opportunity to get a coupon before the funds are exhausted for the program as you know the bill only allocates nine hundred ninety the i want to make sure now with jim when you yes i will ok i want to make sure i get this right you're first authority but it's only a study is that correct that's right monsieur mortified on that one and the third amendment allows religious organizations to help distribute the coupons is that correct that's correct i'm all the work you've done to bring this c t v bill forward i realize it has been a difficult task to bring all parties to the table in this light while do not wish to offer an amendment to the bill before us i would like to engage in a dialogue with you and about it about an important aspect which goes hand in hand with moving forward in the digital age called the broadcast flag i along with nineteen of my colleagues recently sent a letter to chairman upton and ranking member markey outlining the importance of the broadcast flag to our creative community i ask unanimous consent that letter be submitted for the record objection thank you the broadcast live protects free over the our digital television programming music and other entertainment from an authorized redistribution while at the same time respecting the personal use of programming as stated in the letter the flag quote is an important element for a successful transition to free over the air digital television as program producers will naturally be reluctant to license their high value programs for digital broadcast distribution without protection from widespread acts of infringement over the internet and quote i would add to this of the flag is equally critical to protecting and licensing music and other forms of entertainment all of which contribute to our economy unfortunately the court held that the f c c did not have the authority to implement a broadcast like mr chairman i ask if you'd be willing to work with me and the rest of my colleagues on this committee to codify the f c c is rule on the broadcast generally to you yes mr chairman i am i'm willing to work with the gentle lady it's my intent to do it in the context of she's right on the money with it intellectual property remains one of this country's most important exports and yet around the world and in our country people abuse technology and deny hardworking people the compensation they're rightly due i recently learned that it's estimated that ninety nine percent of computer software in china is pirated as we move into the digital television age the wholesale piracy of television broadcasts could become routine obviously we can't allow that to happen thank you for yelling i too have an interest in this issue not only as it applies to television but also i think this committee needs to focus on the potential effects as radio moves into a digital environment and the issues related to that when it comes to  copyrighted music and what happens there because i think we want to encourage that growth and development but we also have this issue with the intellectual property rights of the performers musicians that we need to deal with and deal with with the gentle lady comments and that this committee should sure that the f c c is granted the to reinstate the rule that are promulgated related to the video broadcast flag and in addition simultaneously granted authority to the commission to proceed to a rule making related to its current notice of inquiry regarding h d radio if it so chooses and i'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit two letters for the record of the proceedings and i ask unanimous consent that these be included in the record the first letter is from the senate majority leader senator frist and senator alexander which is on this issue the second letter is a response that they received from the chairman of the f c c kevin martin indicating his views that both the video gentle lady from california for raising the issue and i offer my support and will note that in the hearings in may i also brought the matter up and ask that it be addressed also wanted to bring to your attention a resolution that was recently adopted by music supporting content protection specifically concerning high definition writing the coalition includes such groups as the nashville songwriters association international standards the committee does not want to consider content protection working on  however the issue is very important to my constituents if this committee is going to look at issues concerning content protection such as the broadcast flag then we must give the f c c the authority to proceed to rule making regarding h television conversion were also reconciling the budget in this atmosphere of attempting to craft together a form of budgetary restraint and also in the wake of dealing with the issues of hurricane katrina and relief and rita relief efforts i cannot get my arms around a program that will cost almost one billion dollars so that americans can watch better television we have a deficit we're also about to commit this one billion to a program that has no basis in constitutional law or precedent i've heard so my colleagues over the last months and some today even stated that the conversion to digital is in fact taking as a fine by the constitution and i want to thank my colleagues for their creative argument because it allowed me to go back and read not only the constitution but also the court cases first let me assure you that nowhere in the constitution or in court cases can i find a basis in law the fifth a me constitution states that quote nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation and quote from that one line case law has the fine each intricate part of what our framers attempted to protect we can all envision how the need for this clause came to be landowners affectedly stripped of their land for public use whether was a new road a school or railroad etc but i've been scratching my head for months now trying to get to the logical argument of how we're doing what we're doing today is a taking and i just cannot get there the closest thing i could get would be perhaps the second paragraph of the declaration of independence where they talked about the pursuit of happiness so i can get is a feel good provision with a lot of happy talk but this is not something th basic constitutional law so when you look at the current situation plainly speaking what is the government taking away for the takings argument the fact that the analog spectrum is being quote taken away doesn't work because it's not private property now if we want to go to the private property argument then you look at a television set is it private property the answer is yes then you continue with the analysis you look at united states versus coal the u s supreme court stated the court decided that just compensation is required when there's a direct government appropriation or physical invasion of private property we can agree with that the next step you then take in laws the rick regulatory actions are generally dean per se takings number one where the government requires the owner to suffer a permanent physical invasion of his or her property and loretta versus teleprompter manhattan or at four fifty eight us for nineteen i had to really spend all day parsing words but in this case there is no physical invasion of property then go to number two where regulations completely deprive the owner of quote all economically beneficial use of his or her property meaning a total regulatory taking that case is called  lucas test and lucas vs south carolina coastal council does the transition completely deprive the owner of all economically beneficial use of property it's called the total regulatory taking the answer is no the television can still be used for its main purpose for the purchase of a septic box and it can still be used to watch videos or play games the conversion is not a total regulatory taking the lucas test stands then you can go to the next step outside these two categories of lucas when they cannot be appl of the government interference falls short of completely eliminating the use and value of regulatory takings are then governed by a case meaning a partial takings would be governed by the pen central transportation company versus new york city this is where the owner of the penn central station wanted to build on top of the property and matter fact the court held for the city who was siding with preservationists in their regulatory actions they identified a number of factors particularly significant determining whether regulatory effects in takings number one the regulations impact on the claimant number to the extent for which in a in a few years with the stink investment back expectations and three the character of the government action the inquiry turns in large part upon the magnitude of the regulations imposed economic impact on the degree  interferes with with legitimate public strike were public legitimate property interests but the court intent also decided that a takings may more readily be found when the interference with property can be characterized as a physical invasion by the government then when the interference which arises from some public program adjusting the benefits and the burdens of economic life to the common good in this instance we are trying to promote the common good whether the return of the spectrum is for our first responders to talk to each other or so that our viewers benefit from a clearer picture to view their favorite programming telemedicine or distance learning the conversion to digital television is for the common good and it cannot be classified as a takings in law that case either move forward to the issues about the coupon i do have some concerns on how we're going to administer the program how are we going to define households and under the household definitions are we going to separate the different difference in legal distinctions between an american citizen a legal resident alien and illegal aliens residing in america we've also seen even at desperate times when citizens will run afoul with procedures we all recognize with the fema try to hand out debit cards to hurricane victims people got in line that were even hurricane victims and some victims got back in line again so how are we going to maintain maintain integrity of this program and prevent fraud so i have some very strong concerns not only on budgetary wise but also on how this program would be administered and frankly i just have concerns think this is i think you don't want to miss this one this is a good amendment to vote for no funding for anybody in the transition from analog to digital and i think you've just heard some sound  right there right in the writing grandma's mind grampa grandpas mine really you know that you each voted to undermine with no compensation or consideration of the impact that it would have doyle that's now mr allen mr davis barton there are other members wishing to vote mr bass mr bass mr hall votes now mr green mr green votes temporarily and will come immediately back following these two votes minutes thank you mr chairman i offer this amendment with my two colleagues from the new york delegation who are on this committee miss difficile and mr towns and i am very very pleased that on this issue the three of us are able to speak with one voice chairman i also understand that i have yours and chairman barton support for this amendment so i will keep my remarks brief the simple reason i am here today is because of september eleventh on september tenth t had both their analog and digital transmission facilities atop the world trade center as it was w c b s could not find room atop the world trade center so actually had it digital transmitter on the empire state building now w c b s is subleasing its digital transmitter to five other broadcasters because the world trade center when the world trade center went down the  transmitters went to the empire state building now the empire state building is hundreds of feet shorter than the world trade center was therefore the t v signals simply cannot travel as far as they did when they were on top of the world trade center furthermore the w c b s transmitter is mounted on the side of the empire empire state buildings massed so instead of sending signals out in a circle as was the case with the world trade center the signals are directional mostly north leaving large areas of brooklyn queens and staten island with spotty in and inadequate service the borough castors of new york form the metropolitan television alliance to find new facilities in which to broadcast after a lengthy search process the alliance settled on the new freedom tower which is to be built on the site of the world trade center but unfortunately that facility will not be ready by the end of two thousand and eight as this bill mandates the transition at the end of two thousand and eight we approximate that it will be ready sometime two years later and ten i had as you know mr chairman been pursuing the waiver for the new york city broadcasters to stay in analog until the freedom tower would go up but the chairman has been clear that such a waiver would not be possible i was very happy then when the chairman instructed his staff to engage with us and others in discussions of alternatives the new york city broadcasters did have alternatives available to them but these a lternatives are costly to local broadcasters especially considering they had already spent sixty million dollars in fixing up the empire state building just to get it into the condition it is now so it would be suitable for broadcasting the funds this amendment sets aside will enable new york city broadcasters to deploy a system of small transmitters that will basically boost the signal in new york city and the adjoining counties of northern new jersey it sets aside thirty million dollars new york city has been working diligently to rebuild the broadcast industry is a great example of what has been going on but it also provides a great example of how long it will take but just one industry in new york to fully recover from the tragedy of september eleventh it will take almost ten years for the new york city media market to be as robust as it was prior to september eleventh so this is a very very important amendment for new york city although my district is north of the world trade center and north of the empire state building and would not be tremendously affected the  district of my colleagues mr townsend mr for salah would absolutely be affected we project that nine or ten percent of new york city would not have any kind of television  if we did not provide the funds for this and considering that september eleventh happened no fault of anybody's in new york city that would not be fair so i thank you again for your cooperation mr chairman you really have made a difference and i want to ask add is that again i'd like to personally thank mr upton the chairman board but also that this is a temporary measure that it's only happening as mr rangle said because of september eleventh and the fact that the antenna was on the world trade center and he deserves a lot of credit for working to get to this point and finally you mention the number of people will be affected adversely if this were not fixed the number stands as a best case more than five hundred thousand households and a worst case upwards of two million so even a five hundred thousand is a best case is larger than most cities in this country  and i think this reasonable compromise temporary compromise will serve both the public that will be deprived and then i'd what everybody else across the country will receive the same time recognize you'll be happy to yield to my good friend i would like to thank you mr chairman and of course for your support as a result of this amendment many new york citizens as a result of nine one one will not be the situation will not be made worse in two thousand and nine this funding will go a long way towards helping new york as we see the television coverage they will so desperately need five great cities suffers any future misfortune i've enjoyed working with my neighbors congressman for selling congressman ingle to craft this vision in conjunction with the majority staff and i hope my colleagues will look favorably on this i'd like to just thank all of them that worked on it and i say this means a great deal to all the citizens of new york and thanks again for your consideration i think it's the right thing thank you and let me just add thank you mr talented as you deserve a lot of credit for bring here as well so thank you for your back chair was prepared to say that talk this over was chairman barton i want to reiterate the comments made by all three of you that is a good amendment and chairman barton supports the amendment i would know that this is not in the senate bill and he and i plan to work reiterate because i think it's important that people on both sides of the aisle understand the very very positive and important role that you personally and chairman barton personally have provided in allowing this to happen this is an instance where we can tell the public and show the public how bipartisan cooperation gets things done and i just that once again want to both you and chairman barton for this well again it wouldn't happen if the three of you had not brought it to our attention boxes necessary for the digital transition without interference from state laws that set energy consumption standards far too low for production this amendment says the maximum maximum energy consumption for the passive standby mode of a digital to analog converter box at amendment directs the secretary of energy to enforce this requirement and the converter box as the secretary determines is not in compliance will not be eligible for purchase with assistance made available under the section the amendment also preempt state law from setting energy consumption standards with respect to digital at digital to analog converter boxes i'm introducing this menace because there are currently six states that are considering legislation or regulations to govern via the energy consumption of digital television adapter converter boxes california illinois massachusetts washington vermont in oregon are all considering legislation new york already has an active a law on this issue these state regulations would limit single function converter boxes to eight watts of maxim usage in a standby on mode and one watt in passive mode at night life for a night light for example consumes four watts of power and a high definition set top box can use anywhere from me to thirty five watt california in addition to the other states mentioned have bills that that energy efficiency standards lower than the eight watts according to some manufacturers there is not a converter box in the u s market didn't even come close to meeting the eight watt standard these energy efficiency standards appl only to d c a converter boxes but they're not applicable to satellite or cable set top boxes furthermore the standards do not apply to any d p a boxes that offer additional saving services such as d v d players and this means two things first it could reduce the incentive for manufacturers to make less expensive basic detail boxes in mass quantity by simply combining it with a more expensive add on feature like a d v d player to bypass the regulations and secondly these mandates will increase the cost of manufacturing the d converter boxes that could make it more difficult to sell them for less than the fifty dollars the amendment is very narrowly crafted to apply only to the d t a converter box is necessary for a digital transition furthermore the admin and levels of playing field with respect issues thank you mr chairman i'm i'm going to oppose this amendment and it's not because i don't as our ranking distinguished ranking member very often says  not because i don't have affection and respect for for ms bono because i i do i'm going to support an amendment that mr markey is going to offer which requires a digital converter boxes to meet minimum efficiency standards in order to be eligible for the consumer subsidy program now some people in the industry have said to me that there's no way that they can meet california and new york's energy efficiency standards for for the d t s the digital television converter boxes or the television tell of the digital television dept years and still bring a fifty to sixty dollars product to market before  the december thirty first two thousand and eight digital conversion deadline i have been convinced by the argument and this is not anything to do with anything partisan i think that it's a matter of taking a look at what some in the industry are saying and what others in the industry are saying there are manufacturers producing d t a devices today for european consumers that already exceed exceed not even even with what exceed the california a standard and although these devices are built to different specification than american devices will be the merrick american council for energy efficient economy the ac triple he has told my office that there are manufacturers who can make a device that meets california's standards and the standard that mr markey is going to set forth in his amendment so i think it's worth noting that the california energy commission standard setting process it wasn't secret it was open to the public into the industry and that most importantly the number that's being set in this in this amendment is an industry number it's a number that the industry said and was essentially given to us by the industry i don't think there's really been the kind of scrutiny that needs to be brought to it it's nine times higher than the california standard i mean for those of you that are into the mandates and regulations and what they stand for it's nine times higher than california standard  and i think that there should be a more thorough explanation and a review before the federal government sets a something in to federal law i'm also curious why the amendment doesn't carry a standard for the on mode i do recognize that there are some companies including some in my congressional district that support the amendment but i think there are just too many unanswered questions  mr markey is more than capable of and will speak to his amendment but i'm going to support it because it does the following things a pervert preserve the california standard and protect california consumers by raising the bar in efficiency for the rest of the country it ensures that all consumers will have access to the most efficient device possible and it ensures that if companies want to make a less efficient device for sale  bono's amendment and again i think the proponent is absolutely terrific and we work together on of the things i think that this one just called a little short so thank you mr chairman and my colleagues for listening to me make the electricity which you consume is nothing more then a collective demand of all of the devices which we use so if we turned out the lights didn't use a toaster had no air conditioning there would be no need for electricity but as each new product is added to mass consumption in the united states it increases the demand for electricity and we have to produce more electrical generating plants in the united states coal fired plants that will gas plants nuclear plants but on the other hand if we ensure that the devices which we use more energy efficient then we don't have to impose this extra consumer burden on electrical consumers which is which is every person in our country by having to pay for the cost of these new plants and then having to pay for all of the extra electricity which the consumer pass to consume each month because of the inefficiency of the device in this instance california has already acted on the digital adapter boxes and set a standard for energy efficiency which will reduce dramatically the need for a new electrical generating capacity and reduce the monthly electricity bills for every citizen in california it'll save tens of millions of dollars in california each and every month each and every year amendment not only affects california it affects every other state in the union so multiply california by the whole rest of the country in terms of all of the extra electricity that consumers will update bar because of the  adapter boxes which will be allowed to be installed in people's homes and you can see why the magnitude of this issue is so important so what clearly i happening across america and we'll see it in almost every home over the next decade or so is we'll have this extra device that's there and all were arguing here is that it should be efficient that's all california has done they're going to in this memo it will preempt massachusetts ability to put a higher standard in terms of electricity efficiency into into the into their own laws in new york and every other state my amendment conversely would require the digital adaptive boxes subsidized under this bill to consume no more than eight watts when turned on and no more than two watts when turned off by the consumer when it's just resting overnight the standby passive mode to watch in addition the m m it will require an automatic sleep feature that would power down boxes from an on mode to sleep mode after four hours or inactivity changing the channel adjusting the volume and cetera this is critical to achieving energy savings because many consumers will otherwise not power down their boxes into the low to watch  every wildlife refuge in the united states under the ostensible justification that we need more energy in america well again the united states only has two and a half percent of all the oil reserves in the world that's our weakness our str technological genius it is our ability to invent products that ultimately become the product of the world here what we're saying is that we could take a weakness our energy dependency and turn it into a strength by ensuring that this new device is made more energy efficient reducing our need to consume more electricity and if we can a mission to mars if we can deploy the entire internet globally if we can crack the human genome can we not make a set top box that is more energy efficient jim so i'm offering this amendment today to ensure that as we set up a program that provides a federal subsidy to those who are forced to buy a set top box to ensure that the analog t v will work with the digital transition transition that we also ensure that the set top boxes are actually energy efficient there are going to be an estimated seventy three million t v sets for which these boxes could be needed but in addition to that there's going to be many others that would many other devices which will be out there and it's important for this committee with the energy committee that's title energy and if we pass up this opportunity as we're touting the incredible revolution that can occur in underlying bono amendment for a couple reasons first of all this is not going to save extraordinary new routes of energy to the extent that the world would be safe certainly we need to do what's practical and reasonable and logical we don't want to create a situation  where you have fifty different standards and you don't want to create a situation where they can't design a box that works and fall under the criteria and so i think it's important to have a reasonable standard i think bono provides amendment beyond that i mean keep in mind we're talking about the power you get out of a night life if we don't cut our talk time here by say three minutes each day they could probably turn out these really high energy consuming bright lights shut off the t v cameras and save more energy then all the converter boxes combined let's not create a standard that will perhaps prevent the engineers from actually producing a box of the work in our and it's hard i think for members to understand because we have really not debated or discussed this i think the way it should be but i just want to ask the maker of the motion or the supporters of the motion why should determine whether or not the world standard right now is a nine watt passive mode standard you know what the world standard is i cannot say we had discussions about the world standard now did you have a discussion with can you tell me i had discussions with multiple people in the industry which we would with any any of the manufacturers yes did you talk to a nokia no i did not talk to you did you talk to pace i understand past not make retail product in the united states but they do in the united kingdom you know that right yet do you know what the standard is for i understand it's a different standard a different standard in the european and is council aware that the european union has already adopted the almost identical standard that i'm proposing and that actually even tougher and that right now there are already manufacturers who are making digital adapters who meet talking about this to council no that i understand you're at does have a standard yes and so the point i'm making here is that i'm not proposing something that is putting a man on the mars i'm talking about something that has already been done it meets the really to you mr markey i was under the understanding that the european standard though is different than ours when it comes to the digital conversion that they do that it's h h d r s the versus high definition i was there are different standards of play between what we're doing are they are they exactly the same here but the manufacturers in europe maintain that they can produce to the american standard and get the same result and so that's what the european manufacturers believe now if you talk to american manufacturers that's one thing but this is already happening over there and the manufacturers are waiting for this american market to open up with this more energy efficient device that they say they could manufacture to and why are we going to a standard that's four or five generate the electricity for this much weaker stand it and it also will result in twenty six million tons of additional c o two emissions into the atmosphere which would be the equivalent to taking four million cars off the road so from a pollution perspective you get four million cars of additional pollution because of the electrical generation of coal or natural gas and you also have you know the consequence of having consumers have to pick up the cost of all the new well generating costs although easily remedied if we just moved to this standard which the europeans are already meeting and ask our own domestic industry to just adapt and meet it  otherwise we kind of you know this is the this is the equivalent and i say this is the equivalent of my m m n n one hundred ninety seven saying that it should be a digital t v set standard by two thousand and one we can all buy him instead we've got a mess on our hands because we get this two thousand and six date that we've got to meet because it's all easily anticipated so the europeans are doing it and they get something very close to it you know mark twain said history doesn't repeat itself but it does tend to rhyme so maybe it's not identical but it's very close and they're saying that they can adapt to it and why would we miss the opportunity to reduce all that additional pollution all those additional electricity bills just because an industry doesn't want to meet a standard that will help america and all those fronts it just makes no sense to me after this i know it's not going to get adopted but just thought i'd raise that to that that we actually have a discussion about why max as we're moving over all of the digital spectrum and all get defeated i don't want to make a roll call fear what i get but that's what the discussion should be i'll be honest with you in this committee right now we should be talking about technology we should be talking about how we're going to move ahead of the rest of the how we're going to be the innovator we're going to pass everybody how we're going to sell this stuff to everybody else in the world they're going to be buying from a manufacturer is not going to and instead we're trying to go to a standard that was met ten years ago in terms of these converter boxes because we don't want to move ahead but we're going to pay a price a long run and i committee should be better than that and that's just my feeling about how we should position ourselves technologically from innovation perspective as a committee and and i'll be honest with the if the lights go out in this committee this week the country would be better off because we're going cutting we're going to be cutting medicaid we're going to be passing out a digital bill it really isn't dealing with the event i just want make two points about the market and that is a step to a high definition energy policy not just a high definition television policy and i was just about thirty minutes ago i was on the hallway right here in room and i was talking to a venture capitalist who belongs to a group called the environmental entrepreneur and what he was telling me was he couldn't understand why the u s congress had not taken commonsense measures to establish s tandards for appliances and the reason he told me that we are lagging behind the rest of the world in doing so and as a result of that we are losing our competitive advantage here domestically in manufacturing electronics that eventually are going to compete in the worldwide market and here was a capitalist with a capital a venture capitalist telling congress to wake up pull our heads out of the sand and adopt commonsense measures on all appliances second point this will not solve all of our energy woes it will not solve global warming but when you save energy it's a little bit like a diet it's one bite at a time this is a not insignificant bite mr allen mr davis mr gordon mr rush no mr allen mr davis barton's work and working with members from our side of the aisle to make this as good a bill as possible just as someone that's been around now for a while i'm thrilled that we're taking up the  transition i was beginning to wonder if i would see that day been dealing with it since i first came to the congress in ninety three so thank you for your role in this much of the debate on this title and on the d t v transition has focused on the billions of dollars that the auction of the spectrum are likely to bring into the u s treasury and that's important to focus on and some of which will pay for transition assistance to american consumers and again these are important issues that deserve careful consideration but i think of even greater significance in the long term will be how we distribute the spectrum that will be relinquished by television broadcasters this spectrum in the seven hundred megahertz band is it's considered what i call beach front property by telecommunications carriers because wireless signals at this frequency range pass easily through buildings through trees and other interferences so it's very very valuable the seven hundred megahertz band offers a historic the communications act number one promote the development and rapid deployment of new technologies products and services to promote economic opportunity and competition ensuring that innovative technologies are available to american consumers by avoiding excessive concentration of licenses and by december they need licenses among a wide variety of applicants and that really goes to the heart of the of the amendment including small businesses and rural telephone companies recovery of a portion of the value of the public spectrum and fourth efficient and intensive use of the electromagnetic spectrum that's really what the  think it's self explanatory and it deals with how we distribute the spectrum which is just as important maybe even more important some of the other issues i think we're talking about the chair would announce that he's prepared to accept the amendment million dollars public outreach fund which we passed in the manager's amendment from the hundred sixty million dollars set top box administrative permission to make grants to public television stations now public television stations are a little different others because they don't have advertisements at least theoretically and there is a different group that watches public television stations and i think it's important that they also have the ability or their viewers have the have the opportunity to be aware of what's going on during the process of the implementation of this issue that we're facing it's permissive it's not prescript deals with a very important group that needs it may need special attention and so i urge that the committee adopt this amendment and i will yield the balance of my time to my friend from california and i thank the gentleman it's been terrific working with him this is a good amendment i think that our nation's public television stations have been at the leading edge in making the transition to digital television and  chairman i am joining this amendment by congressman green my men will allow the f c c to delay implementation of the digital conversion for the us mexico border communities any community within fifty miles of the border will have until two thousand and fifteen to convert the language in the in this amendment trying to language offered by senator boxer last week in the senate as you're aware mr chairman the united states mexico border communities are unique media market citizens on both sides of the border robbery watch program and from both mexican and american broadcasting stations as you are aware approximately seventy five percent of the households on the american side of the border or spanish dominant households additionally cable penetration rates are much lower in the border communities this means that effectively american broadcasters share the same media market with mexican competitors in fact in many border towns there are more broadcast stations on the mexican side than there are on the american side for example in the brownsville harlington market there are ten television stations in matter morris and five on the united states side of the border in a radio there are six stations and we're all right all three in a  significant competitive advantage to the mexican base stations many television viewers in the united states side of the border simply may not get converter boxes at the rate of other americans for they will continue to have a full set of entertainment options from the mexican side second it many united states mexican border residents essentially stop watching american based broadcasting there will be outside of the american emergency broadcast system which given the increase in security issues involved in the border may result in many american citizens being jeopardized in the event of a major incident in essence what we will be doing is we will be rendering an american businessman or woman out of competition with the mexican competition and at this time  announced i do oppose the amendment i think would create havoc by allowing a five year delay for some of these areas it would it would create havoc as well with the with the public safety sector  would give some of the seven hundred megahertz megahertz band two and would interfere with the other other t v stations along the border so for those reasons i must say that for many of the same reasons why we had to oppose the new york situation in terms of allowing a two year extension there we did get a compromise or be glad to try and work with the gentleman but this amendment by delaying the d the t v transition time along the border simply spanish stations from mexico would actually dominate the market and they're not they're not covered under our amber plan or emergency alert they don't cover local news for example texas that i know and i understand along the whole border because digital i'd like to work with you and hopefully you'll work with mr gonzalez and see if there's some way we can deal with this problem i don't know if it's on the canadian border but i know it's on the texas border because growing up in texas i remember many times with analog particularly when you think about the poorest counties in our country are along the border with mexico starting with cameron and south texas all the way along the border and again that's going to cause the problems even if you can somehow get your sixty dollars or find your coupon that you may get or may not get it's going to even be a bigger problem but again i'm concerned about the ability to notify people from natural disasters amber alerts that we've changed in a real bipartisan basis here not being able to utilize along the would prevent a substantial loss of the stations to a nearby mexican television station but with the assurance that will work on this this is very unique i don't know of another situation where we would basically render the american side competitor totally out of the picture on this one because that's what will happen all along throughout the southern border of the united states within a fifty mile radius of our border none of those stations will be able to compete with what mexico will be producing but with that mr chairman i would withdraw the amendment this time thank you for yeoman withdraws amendment time thank you general draws a moment i would note that we have a number of votes in the house floor there's nine minutes left we will reconvene immediately following the last fall an amendment to just have to offer needs to come back ready to offer pretty quickly because i have to be at the dingell dinner no later than six o'clock so i have to move the previous question and go to passage of this title between five thirty and five forty five and i know they're we've got through most of the what i consider the big amendments but i'm told there may be one or two that are still lurking out there so come back ready to give it your best shot and we're going to we're going to recess until after the last vote and then we'll come back  amendment and then we have two other amendments that we're going to consider and then we're going to move to final passage and try to finish this next fifteen minutes so we're you know congresswoman   the pressure of time for the chairman and the members of the committee we want to finish by six this amendment pursue the funding for an issue that i pursued for nine years now and that's the whole issue of the nine one one i've had a wonderful partner in this committee and not mr shimkus the congress passed approve the enhanced nine one one act most frankly if the dollars that we are setting aside direct into law enforcement in the dea t v bill in this transition almost a half a billion dollars people have to be able to contact law enforcement and that's what this amendment is about i'm not going to go into detail but except to say that the that the senate in the answering points will actually be across the country again your constituents in mine most of them now in the country fifty one percent of our nation's emergency call centers have the under which we're operating on the unlikelihood of this amendments amendment being adopted i am not going to call for a roll call although i just think that it's important for us historically to have heard the words  why max as part of a discussion a debate about the reclaiming of sixty megahertz on the broadcasters my amendment has the intention of taking six megahertz of that sixty megahertz and making it available on license purposes we have already seen what has happened with wife by it has created a entrepreneurial revolution across the country if we took six megahertz detached from the budgetary imperative which is driving the republican telecommunications policy we could have a discussion about what six megahertz of why max could make in my opinion it would wind up having an impact in terms of giving incentives  tele communication sector which is been in the doldrums for five years would need when to jam with you i'm not prepared to accept the gentleman from him at this point in time but it gentleman's mimic does have merit and there there is support for it out in the in the general marketplace this is something that perhaps we could come to a meeting of the minds on conference with the senate i'd have to post it today but it is not without merit i thank the chair for his nice words about my amendment even in opposition i realize that we're on the on the brink of honoring our former chairman and at this point   mr roy blunt who is for the majority is also acting as majority leader and is not able to attend the stop of markups the republican steering committee this afternoon appointed  mr gresham barrett of south carolina as a temporary member of the committee he is only sitting in until such time as mr blunt is able to relinquish his duties as acting majority leader and come back to the committee so this is a temporary appointment deals with the announcements that are required for one year and it is very specific and prescriptive in terms of a sixty second commercial public service announcement between eight and nine every morning of the week for a year and eight and nine every evening of the the question now occurs on transmitting the recommendations of the committee and all appropriate accompanying material including additional supplemental or dissenting views to the house committee on the budget in order to comply with the reconciliation directive included in section two zero one of the concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year two thousand and six page con resolution ninety five and consistent with section three of the congressional budget and impound technical and conforming changes to the committee print considered today does the gentleman from massachusetts seek recognition mr chairman the minority requests the requisite number of days without objection that objection the chair stands in the committee stands in recess until eight a m tomorrow at which the first order of business will be consideration the medicare reform act title two and i thank i thank all members for their consideration this afternoon