Pete Domenici: “Mr. President, I understand and appreciate Senator Dorgan's concerns. I would disagree with the action of challenging…”

“Mr. President, I understand and appreciate Senator Dorgan's concerns. I would disagree with the action of challenging it. The Senator from North Dakota is quite correct in one sense; Federal finagling with the universal service fund ought to raise concerns over any potential impact on the provision of essential phone service to rural and high-cost areas and low-income consumers. Mr. President, I think it is important to put its genesis and its likely real life effect into perspective. I reluctantly concurred with the last-minute--I emphasize reluctantly--inclusion of this provision in the bill. I am sure I am telling the worst-kept secret in town when I tell you this provision was dreamed up by the Clinton administration and essentially imposed on the Commerce Committee conferees by OMB. It is not a provision we liked and not a provision we wanted, but it was made very clear to us that our failure to include it would likely result in our losing control of the bill. And if this were to occur, the probability was that not only this provision but numerous others that would be worse, such as spectrum fees, would get added to the bill if that happened. So including this provision was by far the lesser of two evils.”