Sreenivasan
xfdhe PBS-NEWSHOUR-00
<Show: PBS NEWSHOUR>
<Date: March 15, 2010>
<Time: 18:00:00>
<Tran: 031500cb.112>
<Type: SHOW>
<Head: PBS NewsHour For March 15, 2010 - Part 2>
<Sect: News; International>
<Byline: Jeffrey Brown, Kwame Holman, Judy Woodruff, Gwen Ifill,
Hari Sreenivasan>
<Guest: Julius Genachowski, Angela Kocherga>
<High: The State Department warns Americans to postpone
unnecessary travel to parts of Mexico after the weekend killings of two Americans and a
Mexican with ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez. The chairman of the
Senate Banking Committee unveils his plan to overhaul financial regulation.
The Congress and President Obama gear up for a decisive week in the debate
over health care reform. The chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission discusses the government's blueprint to expand broadband
access.>
<Spec: Internet; State Department; Mexico; Drugs; Violence;
Christopher Dodd; Economy; Senate; Congress; Health and Medicine; Policies; Barack
Obama; Democratic Party; Federal Communications Commission>
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Chris Dodd, who predicted today that this bill will pass this year -- Senator, thank you very much.SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And a footnote: Later this week, we will get the views of a Republican critic of the bill.
GWEN IFILL: Much of the capital's attention is now focused on what the White House is hoping will be a climactic vote on health care reform as soon as this week. It's all coming down to twisting arms and counting votes.
Congressional correspondent Kwame Holman has our report.
KWAME HOLMAN: The president arrived in a Cleveland suburb facing a make-or-break week for health care reform and a critical point for his young presidency.
Mr. Obama chose Strongsville, Ohio, close to the districts of Democrats Dennis Kucinich and John Boccieri. Both of them voted against the original House bill. The town also is home to Natoma Canfield, a cancer patient who wrote to the president saying she had to give up her medical coverage because it was too expensive.
The president said her case and many others are the reason Americans demand action.
BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: They don't want us putting our finger out to the wind. They don't want us reading polls. They want us to look and see what is the best thing for America, and then do what's right.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BARACK OBAMA: And so I'm calling on Congress to pass these reforms -- and I'm going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing, Ohio. And with your help, we're going to make it happen.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
KWAME HOLMAN: As the president was making his case in Ohio, Democratic leaders back in Washington stepped up the pressure on House members who remain undecided.
Those conversations continued in private, while the House Budget Committee began working on a health care bill containing changes under the process called reconciliation.
The way forward for Democrats calls for the House to pass the bill approved by the Senate last December. Then, a second bill would need to be adopted to make changes House Democrats have demanded. That bill would need only a simple majority in the Senate, instead of 60 votes.
As the House Budget Committee met this afternoon, Democrats defended the process, while Republicans objected.
REP. JOHN SPRATT (D), South Carolina: We're taking the next step in a long, arduous process to resolve the debate on health care reform. Critics may suggest that the process is moving too fast. But Congress has been considering how to reform our health care system and expand coverage for more than one year.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), Wisconsin: You can't pass this health care bill the right way, and so now you pass it the Washington way. We are not governing here today. We are greasing the skids for an abuse of the budget procedure intended to control the size of government, not expand it.
KWAME HOLMAN: With Republicans firmly opposed to the health care bill, it needs 216 House Democrats to vote yes. On Sunday, their chief vote-counter, Majority Whip James Clyburn, said they're not there yet.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), South Carolina: We don't have them as of this morning. But we have been working this thing all weekend. We will be working it going into the week. I'm also very confident that we will get this done. I have been talking to members for a long time on this. And they have the will to do it.
KWAME HOLMAN: But House Republican Leader John Boehner made clear Democrats also will feel pressure from the bill's opponents.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-Oh), House Minority Leader: I'm doing everything I can to prevent this bill from becoming law, plain and simple. And, so, what I'm doing is working with my colleagues to keep the American people engaged in this fight.
KWAME HOLMAN: At the same time, White House officials backed off a demand to drop special deals for individual states. Senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday they can stay in if they apply to more than one state.
DAVID AXELROD, Senior White House Adviser: The principle that we want to apply is that, are these -- are these applicable to all states? Even if they don't qualify now, would they qualify under certain sets of circumstances?
KWAME HOLMAN: In turn, Senator Republican leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats today of going to any length to win votes.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), Minority Leader: Apparently, they determined that removing the deals might jeopardize -- jeopardize efforts to pass the bill. So, now the White House says it won't object to all the special deals, just some of them.
The White House says it won't object to all the special deals, just some of them. What that means, of course, is that some senators and House members are getting special deals, on top of special deals.
KWAME HOLMAN: The final vote in the House could come by this weekend. Democratic leaders are hoping to push it through before the president leaves for his trip to the South Pacific on Sunday.
GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour : getting broadband Internet access to everyone.
But, first, this is pledge week on public television. We're taking a short break now, so that your public television station can ask for your support. That support helps keep programs like ours on the air.
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, a government plan for the future of high speed Internet service.
Jeffrey Brown talks to the man in charge.
JEFFREY BROWN: With more and more Americans checking their e-mail, watching movies and TV on fly, and demanding high-speed Internet in their homes and offices, questions and concerns about the nation's broadband capabilities, networks that move the written video and voice data, have also grown -- one issue, the speed of and increasing strain on existing networks.
According to a 2009 study, the U.S. ranked just 15th in the world in broadband speed -- another problem, access and affordability. A recent study by the Federal Communications Commission showed that 4 percent of Americans, mostly in rural areas, still don't have access to high-speed Internet. And among the rest, who do have access, about a third, some 93 million Americans, have chosen not to be connected, with most citing cost and lack of digital literacy as the main reasons.
MAN: It becomes like any other utility, water, electricity.
JEFFREY BROWN: As part of last year's stimulus bill, Congress mandated that the FCC come up with a plan to expand broadband speed and reach in the U.S. For many months, the agency has held a series of forums to hear and debate ideas.
MAN: What's the minimum set of applications that we expect every United States household to be able to have access to?
JEFFREY BROWN: Some public interest groups have called for the FCC to take a stronger regulatory hand and treat Internet service providers, The companies that sell access to the Internet, more like phone companies.
NARRATOR: Broadband innovation and investment.
JEFFREY BROWN: A number of those providers recently responded with TV ads to fend off any new regulation on the private sector.
NARRATOR: So, as Washington works on A national broadband plan, policy-makers should build on what's working.
JEFFREY BROWN: This week, the FCC is rolling out that plan --among its highlights, reallocating some of the broadcast spectrum for use by wireless broadband services, taking money from the $8 billion Universal Service Fund -- it now goes to help subsidize rural phone service -- and using it instead to subsidize broadband services for consumers who currently lack access, and requiring new consumer protections, such as more information on bills to make clearer what services, including actual Internet speed, are being provided.
The report doesn't include regulatory changes for Internet service providers, but the agency says it will look for inequality in service around the country and then address any issues it sees with unfair competition.
The commission report sets a goal of getting 90 percent of people to actually use broadband by 2020. It says that bringing high-speed access to all U.S. homes by that date is possible without new funding. But the Congress could speed up that process by allocating more money.
This morning, I sat down with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
How do you define the problem that you're trying to address with broadband?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission: The stakes are huge, because the rest of the world isn't standing still.
We are lagging behind globally when it comes to our broadband infrastructure, our high-speed Internet infrastructure, and its adoption. Other countries have moved ahead of us. Inside the United States, we're lagging. Some communities aren't using broadband or don't have access to broadband in numbers that are significantly higher than others, rural Americans, kids, low-income Americans, seniors.
But the critical thing is that the costs of digital exclusion, the costs of not being on our broadband grid, are high and getting higher.
JEFFREY BROWN: How should we think of broadband access now? Is it like the phone? Is it replacing the phone or broadcast TV now or some time in the near future? How do you think about it?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Sure.
Well, in terms of universal service, the answer is yes. You know, we recognized with telephone service, electricity, other services, that they were essential for our economy, essential platforms for innovation and job creation, and they needed to extend everywhere geographically in the United States, and that we needed to set a policy that made sure that all Americans adopted it.
Broadband is exactly like that.
JEFFREY BROWN: And why has the U.S. been slow on this? Why have we fallen behind?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Well, it's a good question.
I think one of the reasons is that we haven't taken seriously the need for a plan. We haven't set goals for the country. We haven't said, this is important. We haven't analyzed the gaps. We haven't developed a strategic plan.
JEFFREY BROWN: A lot of what you're doing is, you're reallocating some funds, some spectrum. That means making decisions to switch technological priorities in ways that some industries will gain, some industries will lose.
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Well, there's -- we need to be technologically neutral in how we move forward, but there are some things that are very clear obstacles to our success around broadband.
So, we want to promote both wired and wireless broadband. Let me talk for a minute about wireless. We have the ability to lead the world in wireless broadband. The smartphones that people are using, connecting your computers to air cards, fixed wireless broadband access, we can lead the world in this.
But there's one very large obstacle. And that is, will we have enough spectrum, which is the oxygen for all of these devices, to meet the demands? We're very concerned about that. And we think we have to move with urgency to free up enough spectrum, so that we can lead the world in mobile.
When it comes to other parts of our infrastructure, we still have policies that wake up every day and promote old telephone service. We need to finally take that program, cut and cap the money that's going to old telephone services, and transition that money to support a new broadband infrastructure.
JEFFREY BROWN: So, when you say we, who -- who -- what is the role of government in this vis-a-vis the private sector, which has developed most of this infrastructure?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Absolutely.
We will not succeed in our broadband goals, if we don't see massive investment from private sector companies. It's why some of our core goals involve removing barriers to private sector investment, lowering the costs of investment, cutting through red tape. We need to take very seriously the fact that, in this country, our infrastructures are going to be built by private money.
There's some areas where government needs to act. If we don't make sure that there's enough spectrum available for mobile broadband, we have real risks of not leading the world in mobile broadband.
JEFFREY BROWN: Even if some of the broadcasters don't want to give up some of that spectrum.
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: There -- there are real issues. We think, with respect to that, that we have developed a plan that's win-win, where broadcasters can move to sharing frequencies with other broadcasters, save operating costs, and free up spectrum that can be used for mobile broadband and that can be auctioned for the benefit of the American people.
JEFFREY BROWN: Some public interest groups, of course, wanted you to go a little further in regulating the Internet service providers, to treat them more like utilities or phone companies. You don't seem to be doing that in this plan.
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Well, we're focused in this plan on the right policies to promote universal broadband deployment and universal broadband adoption.
And they include things like unleashing spectrum, reforming the Universal Service Fund, removing barriers to investment, promoting universal adoption, making sure we have a public safety network for our cops and firefighters and other first-responders.
We will make sure that we have the ability to move forward on those policies, but the first thing to do is to make sure that we have -- we know what the policies are that are designed to produce global leadership for the United States when it comes to broadband.
JEFFREY BROWN: How do you ensure competition sufficiently to bring down costs for people who want access, but feel they can't afford it?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: It's vital that we have strong competition policies at the FCC. This is the best strategy in our country to produce investment and innovation, to produce lower prices and better services.
We will be moving forward with a series of initiatives that are in the plan. I will give you one example. Consumers right now are confused about many parts of their broadband service. What speeds are they actually getting? How do different parts work?
Often what consumers see is advertised speeds, but not what they actually get. And our broadband team found that what consumers actually get can be much lower.
One of the things we will do is move toward giving consumers more disclosure, more transparency, greater clarity about what service they're actually getting, so that they can make the market work.
The second thing is, we're going to be removing barriers to competition so that we can have robust competition. We're also going to be fixing, finally, the data that we get at the FCC, so that we understand exactly what's going on in multiple markets, so that we're in a position to act.
JEFFREY BROWN: And what's the goal? I mean, what is going to constitute success in, say, 10 years for you?
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Our goal is to lift adoption in this country from about 65 percent to over 90 percent in the next 10 years. That would be moving three times as fast as penetration for telephone service.
We have goals around speed. Right now, on average, people are getting about four, five, six megabits per second. These -- it's hard to understand, but that's what you're getting now.
In order for us to take full advantage of broadband, remote diagnostics, where whether it's an ambulance person or a doctor in a remote office can diagnose you remotely, or the best the teachers have to offer, remote tutoring, remote teachers, we will need to get those speeds up dramatically. We have set a goal of 100 megabits to 100 million households by 2020.
JEFFREY BROWN: One hundred, that's like 25-fold over what you're saying over where...
(CROSSTALK)
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: A very significant increase over where we are now.
It's ambitious, but I think it's what we need to do as a country to make sure we have the world-leading market for broadband, so that we keep our great entrepreneurs and innovators working here in the United States.
JEFFREY BROWN: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, thanks for talking to us.
JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: Thank you.
GWEN IFILL: Again, the other major developments of the day.
Federal investigators in the U.S. and Mexico joined to investigate the weekend murders of two Americans in drug violence in Juarez. Democratic Senator Chris Dodd rolled out his financial reform bill. It called for a new consumer protection division under the Federal Reserve, but not as a separate agency. And House Democratic leaders worked to find the votes for passing health care reform this week.
The NewsHour is always online.
Hari Sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there.
HARI SREENIVASAN: On our Web site, should the U.S. talk to terrorists? We get two different views from Mark Perry and Lee Smith, both of whom who have new books about terrorism in the Middle East. You can find those on our Rundown news blog. Also on the Rundown, a conversation about the new FCC plan to modernize the nation's broadband and wireless networks.
Finally, in our continuing series The Next Chapter of Reading, Jeffrey Brown talks to science writer James Gleick, a member of the Authors Guild, about authors' rights in the age of Google Books.
All that and more is on our Web site, NewsHour.PBS.org.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are nine more.
And that's the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff.
GWEN IFILL: And I'm Gwen Ifill.
We will see you online and again here tomorrow evening. Thank you, and good night.
END
Content and Programming Copyright 2010 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2010 Roll Call, Inc., which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and Roll Call, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
