by Matt Stoller, Mon May 08, 2006 at 09:51:00 AM EST
The Austin American Statesman reports:
The House and Senate are preparing to vote on telecommunications legislation that could affect every American who surfs the Internet, watches cable TV or uses a phone.
But no one should waste much time watching the floor debates on C-SPAN. The lawmakers admit their goal is not to pass definitive legislation in public in the coming weeks.
Instead, they want to pass separate bills, regardless of how different they may be. The final version would be negotiated, largely in private, by about a dozen senators and representatives on a conference committee.
The Senate just needs to pass "anything to get us into conference," where the real decisions will be made, House telecommunications subcommittee chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Tuesday at a telecom forum hosted by National Journal's Technology Daily.
The conference committee is where House and Senate bills are reconciled, and differences are ironed out. What Upton is saying is that this process will be abused for the benefit of telecom interests. Usually lawmakers keep that kind of stuff secret. Pretty brazen, I have to say.
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