Burgess Owens: “there is an emergency in America right now, and it affects the students in school. It affects the students who go to use…”

“there is an emergency in America right now, and it affects the students in school. It affects the students who go to use our libraries. I would like to announce that it is only 7:10 Eastern Standard Time, and I hope that there are kids in America listening, because this is their fight and they ought to rally to defend their own interests, the E-Rate. The E-Rate belongs to the kids of America. What is the E-Rate? The E-Rate is a discount that is given through a universal service fund to schools and libraries in order to enable those schools and libraries to wire their computers to the Internet, to hook up to the Internet. Then the E-Rate also continues to provide a discount on the ongoing telecommunication services utilized by the schools. The E-Rate is the greatest thing that has happened to schools in a long, long time. The E-Rate is the result of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave the big corporations in broadcasting and telecommunications almost everything they asked for. The one concession they made is that they would provide discounted rates for schools and libraries. By the way, this is all schools, parochial schools, private schools, all schools are eligible for the utilization of this E-Rate, the discount from the universal fund. Libraries, all libraries, all public libraries are eligible for it. So we have started that. There was $2.25 billion made available or projected as the first year's expenditure.…”