================================================================= ALAWON Volume 7, Number 83 ISSN 1069-7799 July 14, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (219 lines) - ACTION NEEDED: TELL SENATORS NOT TO INCLUDE FILTERING FOR E-RATE; LOCAL USE POLICIES PREFERRED - SEN. COATS ATTEMPTS TO BRING S. 1482 TO SENATE FLOOR DEBATE - SENATE APPROVES HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REAUTHORIZATION - SENS. WARNER AND FORD INTRODUCE BILL TO REFORM TITLE 44 _________________________________________________________________ ACTION NEEDED: TELL SENATORS NOT TO INCLUDE FILTERING FOR E-RATE; LOCAL USE POLICIES PREFERRED Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has secured an agreement to bring S.1619, the Internet School Filtering Act, to the Senate floor for debate in about two weeks. The agreement allows debate not only on S. 1619, but on an alternative bill expected to be proposed by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and others. The McCain proposal would require libraries to use a filtering system on one or more of their computers so that at least one computer will be appropriate for minors' use. Schools receiving universal service discounts would have to install a filtering system on all of their computers so that objectionable online materials would not be accessible to students. The Burns alternative, originally proposed in March at the Senate Commerce Committee markup meeting on S. 1619, would require that all E-rate recipients have Internet local use policies. Such local use policies would not only deal with access to inappropriate material, but the use of chat rooms and e-mail as well. (In March Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) proposed another alternative which would require a kind of flexible or customized filtering, intended to allow access for adults. This alternative may also be part of the pending floor debate.) Fifteen national school and library groups, including ALA, sent a letter to the full Senate on July 10 objecting to the McCain bill. The letter read in part: States and communities are fully capable of working with schools and libraries to create a safe and educational environment for our children on the information superhighway. There is simply no substitute for careful supervision and prudent decision making on the local level. A federal mandate for filtering would usurp that local role and mandate a costly and burdensome "solution" while adding little to the protection of our children. We urge you to oppose S. 1619 as it presently stands when it is considered by the Senate. ACTION NEEDED: The message to Congress remains the same: (1) ALLOW local communities to determine appropriate use policies, (2) DO NOT include an inappropriate federal mandate requiring filtering/blocking, and (3) DO NOT tie filtering/blocking into eligibility for the telecommunications discount program. For calls to Senate offices, the U.S. Capitol Switchboard phone number is 202-224-3121. For more information please contact Lynne Bradley at the ALA Washington Office at 1-800-941-8478. For more detailed background on S. 1619 see an earlier report in ALAWON, v7, n32, March 25, 1998. _________________________________________________________________ SEN. COATS ATTEMPTS TO BRING S. 1482 TO SENATE FLOOR DEBATE Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) also tried to get an agreement to bring up S. 1482, but that effort was unsuccessful. S. 1482 would prohibit commercial distribution on the web of material deemed "harmful to minors." Sen. Coats will continue to seek an agreement to bring up the bill. If he is unsuccessful, he might attempt to attach S.1482 to another bill on the Senate floor. The agreement on S. 1619 however is structured so that bill cannot be used as a vehicle to bring up the Coats' bill. _________________________________________________________________ SENATE APPROVES HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REAUTHORIZATION On July 9 the Senate voted 96 to 1 to reauthorize the Higher Education Act for another five years. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) was the only senator to vote against the bill. The Senate version, S. 1882, much like its counterpart in the House, H.R. 6, deals primarily with student financial aid issues. Overall, S. 1882 authorizes $108 billion for various federal student financial aid programs, including work study and teacher training and recruitment. The Senate version would cut interest rates on student loans from 7.6 percent to 6.8 percent for students in school, and from 8.2 percent to 7.4 percent after college. In both the House and Senate bills, banks could get new incentives to stay in the student loan market; it is unclear whether the Clinton Administration would agree to such bank incentives. Other features of the Senate bill include: 1) an expansion of the eligibility and a graduated increase in the maximum for Pell grants; 2) an increase in the payback period for student loans over $30,000 from 10 years to 25 years; and 3) a provision for competitive block grants to improve teacher training and recruit teachers in under served urban and rural areas. A surprising development on S. 1882 was an amendment sponsored by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) which would allow welfare recipients to attend college or vocational training for two years without having to work at the same time (currently required by the 1996 welfare-reform law). Ten Republicans voted with 45 Democrats for Wellstone's amendment, which would also allow different types of postsecondary education, not just vocational training, to qualify. Preliminary analysis of the two bills suggests that only the House version contains a provision on international education for an electronic periodicals program exchange. Some library supporters had hoped to see this provision in the Senate bill. The House passed its version of the bill on May 6. No conferees have been designated at this writing, but it is assumed that they will be appointed shortly and the conference committee will meet later this month. ALAWON will post the names of the conferees when they are appointed. _________________________________________________________________ SENS. WARNER AND FORD INTRODUCE BILL TO REFORM TITLE 44 On July 10 Sens. John Warner (R-VA) and Wendell Ford (D-KY) jointly introduced S. 2288, "The Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Reform Act of 1998." The 165-page bill includes major revisions to Title 44 of the United States Code, including revisions to Chapter 19 of Title 44, the law governing dissemination and public access to government publications and the Federal Depository Library Program. The stated purposes of the Chapter 19 revisions of S. 2288 are to: (1) broaden, strengthen, and enhance public access to all government publications regardless of form or format, and (2) provide permanent public access to and ensure the authenticity of government publications regardless of form or format. The bill provides for the reorganization of the Government Printing Office into the Government Publications Office, and elevates the Superintendent of Documents to a new presidentially-appointed Superintendent of Government Publications Access Programs. The library community, working through the Inter-Association Working Group on Government Information Policy (IAWG), has had extensive discussions with Senate staff over the past several months on provisions to be included in the bill. Organizations represented on IAWG include the American Library Association, American Association of Law Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, Medical Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and the Urban Libraries Council. In his remarks on the Senate floor in introducing S. 2288, Sen. Ford acknowledged the work of ALA and IAWG in developing the bill. Also, Sens. Warner and Ford both acknowledged the support of the representatives of the GPO labor unions for the bill. S. 2288 is entitled "The Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Reform Act of 1998" in honor of Sen. Ford's commitment throughout his career to public access to government information, and for his long-standing efforts to reform Title 44 to improve the production, procurement, and dissemination of government publications. Included in the "findings" of the bill is text similar to ALA's resolution honoring Sen. Ford. The resolution was read and Sen. Ford received an honorary ALA membership at the June 27 Opening General Session of ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The full-text of S. 2288 is available via GPO Access http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/ in the Congressional Bills database. Chapter 19 revisions appear on pages 108-148 of the PDF version of the bill. The remarks of Sens. Warner and Ford in the Senate upon introducing the bill also are available via GPO Access in the Congressional Record database (Congressional Record, July 10, 1998, pp. S7953-S7955). The IAWG currently is reviewing S. 2288 and will provide additional comments and analysis on the bill as soon as possible. The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, under the leadership of Chairman Warner and Ranking Minority Member Wendell Ford, plans to hold a hearing on S. 2288 soon, possibly the week of July 27. Members of the library community and others will be invited to testify on the bill at the hearing. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Carol C. Henderson Anne Heanue All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================