Bill Nelson: “we have been through this only a few weeks ago on another appropriations bill. This is the identical amendment that was…”

“we have been through this only a few weeks ago on another appropriations bill. This is the identical amendment that was offered then. It was defeated by a very strong vote of 65 votes against it and 35 votes in favor of it. Senator Dorgan, who is one of the fiscal watchdogs of this Chamber, is clearly well motivated in his attempt to find waste, but I want to lay out why I do not think this is a good place for him to look. Cuba successfully jammed TV signals before, when we were beaming them from a tower located in the Keys or when we were beaming them off of the ionosphere coming down where the Castro government could get a fix on the signal. Likewise, they were successful in jamming it when they could get a fix on a signal coming from a satellite. That is the reason the airplane is so useful. They cannot get a fix on the signal because the airplane is moving. That is why I asked the Senator from North Dakota my question earlier: why is it not reasonable to think that we could save money, which is what the Broadcasting Board of Governors wants to do, instead of flying this C-130 all the way from Pennsylvania to off the coast of Cuba every Saturday? Let us have a smaller aircraft stationed nearby so that it can go more frequently and at much lower cost. Is there any reason why Castro wants to jam the broadcast? He wants to keep the information from getting in, but the Cuban people are hungry for this information.…”