ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 15, Number 67
Date: June 30, 2006

In this issue: RETRACTION of This Morning's Email and UPDATE on E-Rate and Net Neutrality

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RETRACTION: Please disregard this morning's email on E-rate and network neutrality. It was incorrectly labeled as ALAWON Volume 15, Number 66 and was sent out in error.

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UPDATE: The Senate Commerce Committee completed its work on S. 2686 -- the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 -- on Thursday, June 27.

The network neutrality proposal sponsored by Senators Snowe and Dorgan failed in an 11 to 11 vote. Most of the troubling amendments concerning the E-rate were removed during the Thursday mark-up.

S. 2686 will now go to the Senate floor. Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens indicated that this is unlikely to be scheduled until September. Some suspect he doesn't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

The situation remains fluid. Another grassroots alert will be sent in two weeks or so to start pressure on all Senators.

In the mean time, please tell ALL of your Members on Capitol Hill -- via the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121 -- to support the E-rate and to support strong language on network neutrality.

To learn more about these issues, please visit the Washington Office's website:

E-Rate: http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/techinttele/erate/erate.htm

Network Neutrality: http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/techinttele/networkneutrality/netneutrality.htm

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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.

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ALA Washington Office, 1615 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., First Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009-2520; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff; Contact the Washington Office: alawash@alawash.org; Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Melanie Anderson, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Andrew Bridges.