Washington, DC - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today blasted the “Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act (H.R. 1542),” better known as Tauzin-Dingell in a letter to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  The group said it would rate the vote on Tauzin-Dingell in its annual Congressional Ratings.

"Passage of Tauzin-Dingell would not increase telecommunications industry competition, and could lead to the loss of some 70,000 jobs," CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  "A handful of companies control practically every phone line in the United States.  Few consumers believe there is competition in their local service, many complain about their rates, and access to the Internet is becoming more expensive.

"The 1996 Telecom Act was supposed to prevent putting the telecommunications industry into the hands of a powerful few.  Consumers were lead to believe that there were going to be more choices and better local phone service.  In practice, the Telecom Act allowed traditional long-distance carriers to provide local service and local carriers (Bells) to provide long-distance service once they open their markets to others.  However, most Bells failed to grant access to either long-distance providers or the new competitive companies that sprang up as a result of the Telecom Act.  This has not prevented the Bells from aggressively entering the broadband market, as the Bells control 90 percent of the residential DSL market and have increased the number of their customers by more than 40 percent in the last year," Schatz said. 

"The Bells are pressing for a change in the Telecom Act through H.R. 1542 in spite of their dominance in the residential DSL market and their refusal to provide access to competitors as required by law," Schatz said.  The bill would exempt them from providing access to their market before they offer long-distance data service and virtually assure their continued domination of residential DSL service.  Essentially, Tauzin-Dingell will reward the Bells for violating their legal obligations and gut the intent of the Telecom Act," Schatz concluded.

CCAGW's annual Congressional Ratings are used to distinguish which members of Congress are fighting to eliminate waste, inefficiency and mismanagement in the federal government and which are not doing so.  CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest taxpayer advocacy group with over one million members and supporters nationwide.  It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.