Our computer software industry is the envy of the world, a true American success story. It has grown more than twice as fast as our overall economy and has supported phenomenal job growth. Software innovations also have been the fulcrum for productivity gains throughout our economy. We are here today because we want to keep it vibrant and innovative -- not just today and tomorrow, but into the next century.

So where do we want to go today? Our first principles in this oversight hearing should be promoting innovation, competition and consumer choice.

Many software companies have blossomed and flourished in a climate of open competition. This is the climate we want and should preserve so that the young programmers, engineers and inventors developing the next "killer app" in their garages and grad school apartments have a chance to test the merit of their ideas in the market and to compete for a share of it. That is how we can protect long-term consumer choice and technological innovation and maintain the U.S. software industry as the world leader.

I have spoken in earlier hearings about the proper role of government in encouraging competition without stifling innovation. I have long sought ways to adapt our laws to the fast-changing technology of the information age, while honoring these first principles. I am proud of the law that Senator Thurmond and I worked to enact in 1993, the first high technology legislation signed by President Clinton, which clarified our antitrust laws so that companies could work together on research and production ventures. There are times when American companies need to pool their resources and enter into strategic alliances to convert scientific discoveries into commercial products and to compete effectively, and our law is helping them do that.

The United States is the cradle of the Internet and the software industry. When the United States takes steps to regulate the Internet, the world watches. Whenever we intervene, we need to be careful to do it right. That has not always been Congress's inclination. For example, two short years ago the Congress rushed to pass the so-called Communications Decency Act in an overreaching effort to control speech content on the Internet. The Supreme Court followed first principles and applied the First Amendment with full force to this relatively new communications medium. Similarly, as we examine whether the evolving structure or certain practices in the software industry have anticompetitive effects, we should look first for policy guidance to long-standing antitrust principles.

There are over 60 million users of the Internet throughout the world. Whether I am at home in Vermont, in my office, or on vacation, I can get on the Internet and interact with the world. Today we will hear from the leaders of the competing forces in the "browser war" that has captured so much recent attention. Should we be concerned that, even if consumers get the benefit of free browsers in the short-term, they will suffer in the long-run? Giving away free browsers does not generate much revenue or financial incentive for additional investment and for continuing innovation with this critical tool for maximizing use of the Web.

In skirmishing like this there are victims, and the Web itself is suffering collateral damage. More and more I have seen popular Web sites that are only accessible using Internet Explorer -- the Microsoft Gaming Zone is a good example. I have also seen many sites that are tagged as being "better viewed" with Netscape Navigator or with Internet Explorer. In fact, based on a rough search conducted just yesterday, 351,957 Web sites are enhanced for Internet Explorer and 692, 491 are enhanced for Netscape Navigator.

These notices have always disturbed me since they amount to fences on the Internet and can end up stifling the free flow of information. I am interested in learning from the leaders of this industry the implications of this partitioning of the Internet into these selective camps. And let me say that the Leahy home page will resist surrendering as long as it can.

Today we may also explore whether direct access to the Internet by keyboard and television set can compete with the desktop or laptop PC. Netscape, Novell, Oracle and Sun Microsystems are collaborating on Java software, on new programming techniques and on network computers that may give users with a $200 keyboard and an Internet link all the computing power of tomorrow's PCs. Are there barriers to that emerging competition? Is the market structure unduly sustaining one technology over the another?

Our antitrust laws are, at their core, consumer protection laws. They are predicated on the notion that competition benefits consumers. Those benefits include better service and cheaper prices, but they also include more choice in goods and services. These are both short-term benefits and long-range goals.

The software industry is effervescent with innovation. We should not recklessly shake the bottle and lose the fizz. We do not want to strangle the most innovative industry to emerge within the American economy since the telephone.

It takes little insight to ruminate about the thing that lies at your feet but it takes both wisdom and insight to know what direction to take with your next steps. It may take some self-restraint, but our challenge in Congress is to follow first principles, not first impulses.

This hearing can provide a window on how the software industry operates and put in perspective the structural conditions and marketing practices that have generated so much controversy.