William Tauzin: “I rise in support of H.R. 4201, the Noncommercial Broadcast Freedom of Expression Act of 2000. While this is indeed a…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 4201, the Noncommercial Broadcast Freedom of Expression Act of 2000. While this is indeed a good bill, I am frankly disappointed that it is necessary. It is necessary to correct a gross blunder by the FCC and to prevent it from ever happening again. Earlier this year, in the WQED Pittsburgh station case, a television transfer case, the FCC sought to quantify the service obligations of noncommercial television licenses by requiring that 'more than half of the hours of programming aired on a reserved channel must serve an educational, instructional, or cultural purpose in the station's community of license.' But they went on to say that while programming which teaches about religion would count toward that new benchmark, programming that was 'devoted to religious exhortation, proselytizing, or statements of personally held religious views and beliefs' would not. In short, the Commission was drawing substantive distinctions between what religious message would qualify in the content of that station's broadcasting.”