Washington, D.C. – June 24, 2008 – U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14) issued the following statement today at a House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet hearing on the Universal Service Fund:

“Mister Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing and encouraging us not to get bogged down in details today, but to keep things very general.

“Generally, I think the Universal Service Fund needs to be blown up like the Deathstar.

“We need to reevaluate the program’s goals and establish new priorities. We need to completely reform the Fund by moving away from subsidizing telephone service and instead put our money toward the broadband future. For now, I’ll call this needed reform Universal Service 2.0

“I bet the rural residents of the Smoky Mountains, or rural Pennsylvania for that matter, don’t know what the Universal Service Fund has done for their ability to get affordable telephone service during the program’s 10 years. That’s too bad, because the Fund has also probably helped their school get high-speed access to the Internet. And it’s helped their library link up to other sources of information around the world. And if they’re struggling to get by, it might have helped them afford to keep connected to their community.

“Those parts of the Universal Service Fund haven’t grown too much. What also hasn’t grown is the percentage of American households who have a telephone. Can we get the chart I had prepared on the screen? But what has grown, up nearly 300 percent from where it first started 10 years ago, is the High Cost Fund for local telephone service in rural America. That growth is the columns you see on the screen. But the top line on the chart – telephone take rates -- that’s staying relatively flat.

“As those red bars have grown exponentially, the impact on my constituents has grown too. Pittsburghers are paying more, regardless of their ability to pay, to provide basic telephone service to rural America, regardless of its economic need.

“A single mom in my district with a wireline and wireless phone is paying roughly 55 dollars a year into the Universal Service Fund, when she might not even have broadband she needs in her own home to further her career or her children’s education.

“Perhaps that single mom’s 55 dollar a year investment in our infrastructure, into Universal Service 2.0, would be worth it if it paid off in economic growth for the nation and better opportunities for her children. Perhaps it’d be worth it if it helped wire her affordable housing project with broadband. Or if broadband in her parent’s home helped her dad manage his diabetes. Or if a portion of her investment went towards broadband in a community far away where her son will take a promotion to manage a plant years from now.

“1996 can be remembered for many things. The Telecommunications Act. The Macarena. One witness today was working on digitizing the Star Wars Trilogy. I won my first battle for re-election. So I remember 1996. Some things are timeless, like the Star Wars Trilogy. Some things are better left to that time, never to be heard again -- like the Macarena. And some things need to be completely revamped. Like the Universal Service Fund.

“Thank you for holding this hearing this morning on Universal Service 2.0, Mister Chairman, and I yield back my time.

Congressman Doyle is the Vice-Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.