ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 13, Number 98 November 24, 2004 In This Issue: Partial Release of E-rate Commitment Letters Does Not Fix E-rate Problem An Associated Press report released early this morning stated that the E-rate program has ended a four-month freeze on E-rate subsidies, and that the program is expected to release more funds (for 2004 requests) by the end of November. Although the E-rate program has partially resumed spending, this does not mean that the problem with the program has been fixed. While it is correct that a trickle of E-rate commitment letters are expected to be sent to a few libraries soon, thousands of libraries that depend on E-rate discounts will still be waiting for commitment letters. According to the Associated Press report, 194 letters worth $24.2 million were sent out last Monday, but since August applications worth $400 million have been delayed. Currently, there are two bills being negotiated in the Senate that would provide the remedy to get E-rate commitment letters flowing to schools and libraries again (HR 5419 and S2994). The bills are slightly different, but each bill exempts libraries from the Antideficiency Act (which requires the Universal Service Administrative Company, to have cash "in hand" before making a commitment of funds to E-rate applicants). Please continue to contact your Senators to ask them to support HR 5419 or S2994. Thank you for your continued support of this important issue. E-rate is a complicated if not confusing issue, so please feel free to call ALA's Washington office at 1-800-941-8478 if you have any questions about E-rate. Also, the Washington Office website provides an excellent overview of E-rate: Contact your members of Congress through our Legislative Action Center located http://capwiz.com/ala/home/ ****** Remember: You Can Call Any MEMBER OF CONGRESS Toll-Free: 1-800-839-5276 ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Carol Ashworth, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.