Byron Dorgan: “my colleague from Arizona talks about four issues. There are three of them we really ought to be able to reach agreement…”

“my colleague from Arizona talks about four issues. There are three of them we really ought to be able to reach agreement on reasonably soon, and the other one is a very difficult issue, there is no question about that. That is the definition. But on grandfathering and VOIP, for example, the length of time of a moratorium, frankly, I think we can reach an agreement on those three areas. Frankly, if we are able to reach an agreement on the definition, I do not care much about the grandfathering. I know some of my colleagues do, but that is a lot less important to me. I would also say that the length of a moratorium on Internet taxation is of much less importance to me as well. I would be willing to lengthen it by a substantial number of years provided we have the right definition. So I think the thing that is going to be difficult for us but one that we should attempt to resolve is this definition. I want to just make this point: If the purpose of those who are most insistent on moving this legislation--and there are several in the Chamber who have really worked on this a long time--would be, for example, to create a broad new exemption from taxation for certain services and certain parts of the backbone of the Internet and so on, then that is a problem. I do not support that. I do not think we ought to carve out things that are now being taxed by State and local governments and say, by the way, we are going to federally preempt that.”