Political Quotes

“a couple of weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined: ``U.S. lags behind in high speed Internet access, ranking slips to 12th spot among 30 nations.'' Today telecommunication providers offer a host of services, whether it be voice, data, or video. And this legislation, should it be enacted later this year like I think it will, will jump-start, jump-start that competition, as it will provide more competition, it will lower prices, probably in the range of $30 to $40 per household per month, nearly $400 for the year, and I have to tell you that that is great for America. Now, over the last year we have had plenty of hearings, lots of witnesses, input from almost every sector. It has been a fair and open process from the start. And I commend my chairman, Joe Barton. He has done a magnificent job pulling together folks from all sides of the aisle, all different sides of the issues, to put together a bipartisan bill that we debate tonight. Now, the document that we marked up in my subcommittee and then in full committee changed. It changed because of amendments that were debated and offered and accepted and voted on. And I have to tell you that after each step of that process, the bill was better. It was stronger and it was better. And the proof was in the pudding. We passed the bill in subcommittee 27-4. We passed the bill in full committee, changed, 42-12. And I would note that when we introduced H.R.…”