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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President

For Immediate Release February 1, 1996

                    STATEMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
          ON PASSAGE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS REFORM LEGISLATION

Passage today of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 is an historic event that will change forever the way every American lives, works, learns, and communicates. The overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation demonstrates America's commitment to ensuring that all citizens benefit from the information superhighway. This legislation will not only create jobs, it will help connect every schoolchild in every classroom in America to the information superhighway by the end of this decade.

As the President said in his State of the Union address, this legislation is critical to give families control of the programming that comes into their homes through television. Also, in the interest of promoting diversity of voices and viewpoints that are so important to our democracy, this legislation will prevent undue concentration in television and radio ownership.

For the past three years, this Administration has promoted telecommunications reform that provides private investment, competition, universal service, open access and flexible regulation. With passage of this bill, we believe that this goal has been met.

I congratulate members of the House of Representatives and the Senate on their diligence and vision in passing this landmark legislation.