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Vice President's Statement on Passage of Telecom Act
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release
February 1, 1996
STATEMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ON
PASSAGE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS REFORM LEGISLATION
Passage today of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 is an
historic event that will change forever the way every American lives,
works, learns, and communicates. The overwhelming bipartisan support for
this legislation demonstrates America's commitment to ensuring that all
citizens benefit from the information superhighway. This legislation
will not only create jobs, it will help connect every schoolchild in
every classroom in America to the information superhighway by the end of
this decade. As the President said in his State of the Union address,
this legislation is critical to give families control of the programming
that comes into their homes through television. Also, in the interest of
promoting diversity of voices and viewpoints that are so important to
our democracy, this legislation will prevent undue concentration in
television and radio ownership. For the past three years, this
Administration has promoted telecommunications reform that provides
private investment, competition, universal service, open access and
flexible regulation. With passage of this bill, we believe that this
goal has been met. I congratulate members of the House of
Representatives and the Senate on their diligence and vision in passing
this landmark legislation.