Dole, Fields Say They’ll Support Telecom Bill

Paving the way for a final vote as early as today on a historic measure designed to deregulate the burgeoning telecommunications industry, two Republican congressional leaders who had been adamant about making changes in the long-stalled bill agreed Wednesday to support the legislation in its current form.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Rep. Jack Fields (R-Texas), chairman of the House Telecommunications subcommittee, had both been unhappy with compromise legislation being hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee. But on Wednesday they dropped their opposition to the bill, which is aimed at stimulating telecommunications competition by allowing local telephone companies, cable operators and long distance carriers to enter one another’s businesses.

Dole, who had opposed as “corporate welfare” a provision that would allow broadcasters to acquire new digital television channels for free, late Wednesday won a commitment from House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other lawmakers to hold hearings and introduce legislation to address that issue by next year.

Fields, meanwhile, lost his long battle to make the telecommunications bill even more deregulatory by permitting foreign ownership of U.S. communications facilities, permitting more pricing flexibility for telephone companies and allowing corporations and individual owners to amass more broadcast properties than currently permitted under federal law.

But Wednesday, after conference committee negotiators working to reconcile different House and Senate versions of the bill rejected a two-page memo of what Fields said were “common-sense changes,” he threw in the towel and embraced the legislation.

“We are going to bring this bill up and vote on it, and I predict a big vote in support,” Fields said. “Am I happy with everything that was done? No. But this is a democracy. Nobody can expect to get 100% of what they want.”

Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), who chairs the House Commerce Committee, said he was delighted “that the logjam holding up” the conference committee agreement had been broken.

Supporters of the legislation say it would encourage more competition in the $500-billion telecommunications industry and would lead to a plethora of new services such as advanced wireless communications, home banking and interactive TV. Although some of those services--such as home banking and wireless communications--have surged ahead already, the industry has pulled back on more expensive services such as interactive TV, citing lackluster consumer demand.

President Clinton, who gained many of the concessions he had sought during the conference committee negotiations, has signaled his eagerness to sign the legislation, which he says will create thousands of jobs in the communications industry.

The agreement Wednesday paves the way for a vote on the measure by the full House and Senate, perhaps today. But passage of the bill, which has been in the making in one legislative form or another for nearly a decade, is not guaranteed--even though both houses passed their own versions of the legislation handily last year.

Although lawmakers have virtually no chance of changing the bill once it reaches the House and Senate floor, it could still be derailed on procedural grounds, experts say. And some disgruntled lawmakers and civil liberties groups threatened to do just that late Wednesday.

Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y), chairwoman of the Congressional Women’s Caucus, said she is concerned that a highly controversial anti-indecency provision in the bill would make it illegal to discuss abortion over the Internet. She characterized the measure as “extreme and unacceptable” and vowed to fight it.

The anti-indecency provision prohibits online transmission of “any material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.” Violation of the provision--designed to curb pornography but regarded by many civil libertarians as a dangerous censorship measure--would be a felony punishable by five years in prison for the first offense.

“This provision would have a chilling effect on the ability of Americans to discuss medical procedures on the Internet,” Lowey said in a prepared statement. “We must not allow the radical right to criminalize” discussion of abortion on the Internet.

In addition, the American Civil Liberties Union said it was “poised to mount legal challenges” should the bill pass. The ACLU said the Internet anti-indecency provisions--as well as a separate provision that would require the television industry to develop a ratings system and an electronic block to enable parents to prevent their children from viewing objectionable programs--would violate the First Amendment. The ACLU also said the bill would lead to an undue concentration of media ownership.

“The bill will jeopardize the future of free speech in this country by criminalizing speech in cyberspace, imposing new censorship in television programming and destroying the diversity of media ownership,” the group said in a statement.

Congressional aides said opposition could also emerge from hard-liners seeking a more deregulatory bill. Some Republican conservatives were said to be discussing ways to block the bill because they say it mandates programs for which the government has not allocated funds.

The telecom logjam was broken after markets closed Wednesday, but one Wall Street analyst predicted that investors will be cheered that Congress is finally acting on telecommunications reform.

“The market has been gradually discounting the prospect of telecom legislation since the summer of 1993,” said William N. Deatherage, a telecommunications analyst for Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York.

“But I think people now will be glad to finally get this [legislation] behind us,” he added. “It’s definitely a real plus for the consumer” and will shake up an industry long “content with their monopolies, oligopolies and duopolies. This clearly will accelerate competition.”

* SPECIAL INTERESTS

Vote will end fight among powerful--and generous--special interests. D2