Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here tonight to help pass the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008. The reason is I really do believe the upshot of this legislation will be the survival of webcasting as we know it in the United States, to really allow our consumers and our constituents to continue to enjoy tremendous opportunities to listen to great music and great news over the Internet, and allow the continued development of businesses around the business model of webcasting.

I am very appreciative of Chairman Berman and his efforts to facilitate discussions to help resolve this difficult issue and to the ranking member, Mr. Smith, who is a cosponsor of this legislation. This really is a bipartisan effort to find a resolution to a difficult issue.

As Mr. Berman indicated, there is a wide divergence on what the right royalty to pay is. Certainly a lot of businesses were jeopardized by this decision. I just note one that led to this relief. Big R Radio, it is actually in the State of Washington where I hail from, under the CRB decision that gave rise to this issue, it would have caused Big R Radio to exceed by 150 percent of their revenues what they would have to pay in royalties.

[Time: 20:15] We have heard many businesses would be in that situation.

We have been engaged now for some period of time, discussions to try to find a resolution and agreement between those who are webcasters, who have big dreams, and providing tremendous music to allow them to continue.

We hope that those will succeed. We think that we are close to a successful resolution of those discussions. Mr. Berman has been very helpful in that regard.

But to get there, we need to have this bill to make sure that when an agreement is reached, that it has, in fact, the sanction of the United States. This bill is really kind of simple. It just basically says that the parties, if they can reach an agreement, Uncle Sam will not get in the way. Certainly that makes sense from all standpoints on both sides of the aisle.

I just want to note how important it is. I know many people have been interested in this in the last few days to encourage Congress to pass this legislation. Webcasting really has become a fabric of people's daily lives.

I want to read one quote from Luis Jimenez, who is involved in Live365 network. He is from Frederick, Maryland. This is a quote: ``Internet radio gave me the freedom to put together my own format station without having to be a cookie-cutter station. Listeners and musicians love it because of the variety of music and the fact local and independent artists are played.'' That's a quote from the Frederick News Post.

This is really why our constituents love this service. We want to find a business model where webcasting can thrive, where consumers can listen, and, at some point, terrestrial broadcasters who will be able to simulcast under this the legislation, they will be able to access the benefit of this legislation, and they will be involved in negotiations to find a right, appropriate level.

I am delighted by the passage of this, and I thank all involved in this effort.