I’ve been commenting on the Higher Education Act (H.R. 4137) for the last couple of posts. Government bills always seem to be a buffet of different agendas. If you pay much attention to politics, you can see how so many politicians can end up voting for things that they might normally oppose. For instance, a Senator may really want to pass a transportation bill to get road construction for his or her home state. But the Senator opposes wildlife refuges in general, for whatever reason. Here comes a bill with the expansion of a wildlife refuge and expansion of freeways in his or her home state. Sure, this issue is a no-brainer for most of us, but it’s an example of how lawmakers get stuck voting for something they don’t support to get something that they do support.

Which is a long intro to an add-on to the Higher Education Act about illegal peer-to-peer downloading. Back in the late nineties, all of us college students realized that we could share all of our favorite music, and thus began one of the most prolific sharing/stealing times in music. I’m sure the music industry lost millions of dollars in potential sales. So, a bunch of lawsuits happened, and now, there’s a provision in this law to stop this sharing and create an easy way for students to legally download movies and music. Why this was so critical that it made it onto the bill, I don’t know, but there you have it. It seems like an after-the-fact piece of legislation, but such is how bills often collect a variety of extras before they get passed into law.

You can keep track of this bill at the GovTrack.us Web site.