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STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Date: Nov. 19, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Technology and Communication Business and Consumers

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Upton for yielding and for his leadership, as well as Chairman Walden of the subcommittee and the ranking members, for bringing a good bipartisan bill to the floor that addresses some real problems and starts to lay some groundwork for important future discussions about the video marketplace.

Let me first say, Mr. Speaker, that the STELA Reauthorization Act will give certainty and ensure that 1.5 million satellite consumers across the country don't have to fear losing their signal at the end of this year, which will happen without passage of this legislation. So it is very important that immediately we get this resolved so that we don't create that uncertainty across the country.

Also, Mr. Speaker, why this bill is important is it finally starts to implement some important and much-needed reforms to our video marketplace laws. I have been saying this a long time: If you look at the laws that we have on the books, we have a 21st century marketplace, we have a dynamic industry that has evolved and grown, and the technology has advanced in a dramatic way over the last few decades, but, unfortunately, the laws have not changed to reflect the current marketplace. We have started that conversation with a few of the provisions in this bill, and I was happy to work with the chairman, the ranking member, and others on some of those provisions; and we also talked about the need to have a deeper conversation about a Communications Act update next year in the new Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues on that as well. But in the meantime, it is important that we pass this bill and that we urge the Senate to move quickly as well to create that certainty for those customers all across the country that are counting on us to get this done.

Again, I congratulate the chairman and ranking member for working in a bipartisan way to bring this bill to the House floor and pass it along.

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