“The Internet provides an excellent resource for our nation’s schools and libraries, Jones said. “Unfortunately, it can also leave innocent children exposed to objectionable and potentially harmful material. This bill is necessary to help keep our children’s learning environment safe when schools and libraries use taxpayer-funded access to the Internet.”

 H.R. 4600, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, would require schools and libraries that accept federal funds from the E-rate to connect to the Internet take measures to ensure children do not encounter obscene, pornographic, or otherwise offensive material on the Internet. The E-rate is part of the Universal Service Fund, which was a provision in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that provided $1.6 billion in telecommunications discounts in 1998 to help connect more than 25,000 schools and libraries across the country to the Internet.

 The language of H.R. 4600 is identical to that of an amendment to the Juvenile Justice bill (H.R. 1501) supported by Rep. Jones and passed by the House last June. However, the House and Senate are still working out differences in their respective versions of the bill and it has not yet reached final passage.