An amendment that would have prohibited the Federal Communications Commission from collecting money for the E-rate program was withdrawn and the House passed the FCC's fiscal 1999 appropriations bill on Wednesday by a vote of 225-203.
This bill, the appropriations measure covering the Commerce, State and Justice Departments and related agencies, now goes to a conference with the Senate to work out differences between the competing versions of the bill. The Senate version contains language that would require recipients of E-rate funding to use filtering software on computers that can access the Internet.
