Anna Eshoo: “Today the House is taking an important step to bring our Nation's laws in line with the explosive growth of E-commerce.…”

“Today the House is taking an important step to bring our Nation's laws in line with the explosive growth of E-commerce. In 1997 my office was the first to establish a virtual district office in the Congress. I quickly realized my constituents were not permitted to provide their authorization for any casework with an electronic signature. Subsequently, I introduced the first piece of legislation addressing the issue of electronic signatures during the 105th Congress and succeeded in passing this bill into law. The legislation requires Federal agencies to make Government forms available online and accept a person's electronic signature on these forms. Following on this success, I introduced a bill in the 106th Congress to expand the legality of electronic signatures to the private sector. Today, we're voting on a bill that Chairman Bliley introduced which attempts to accomplish the same goal as H.R. 1320. The Congress must ensure that there are no roadblocks impeding the growth of E-commerce. E-commerce is expected to generate over $1.3 trillion worth of business by 2003. Our laws should not impede this staggering growth so we must act to bridge the gap between now and the time when every State has passed an updated form of the Uniform State Law Code. This legislation encourages States to pass a uniform law so that our Nation's consumers and businesses will not have to face 50 different sets of regulations to engage in E-commerce.”