Wednesday we ran a post about the successful effort to defeat draconian anti-billboard legislation in the (federal) 1991 Highway Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Our united industry convinced the US Senate to remove the anti-billboard provisions; the bipartisan vote was 60-39. Today we’re publishing excerpts from Senator Barbara Mikulski’s articulate support for billboards (June 11, 1991) during Senate debate prior to the vote.

On the function of billboards

I am going to support the amendment to strike the anti-billboard provision.  I happen to like billboards.  I like billboards a lot.  I think billboards play an important function.  They inform, they give information about products, they often give drivers on highways very important information…

Billboards as political speech

Billboards are important.  I know that Billboards play in important role in political campaigns.  When I first ran for Baltimore City Council…I challenged two political machines…I got out there and knocked on 15,000 doors and had a sweat equity campaign.  I did not have big radio, big TV, but I sure had big billboards because I could afford it…they were a low-cost, no-frills way of me communicating with a large number of people.

 The need for just compensation when you take a billboard down

…I happen to believe that the Government should only take private property in rare, absolutely necessary circumstances.  Under this legislation it looks like we are about to take private property.  When the Government takes private property, it should pay cash to compensate the owners.

Billboards are not polluters

…Others say that billboards are a serious environmental problem.  Good people could differ on that and I am one who differs on that.  You see I chair the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the EPA, so I am kind of up to my earrings in environmental problems…I have not found billboards to be polluters.  They are not a hazardous substance; they are not a toxic substance.  I am sure billboards are even recyclable.  They do not make noise; they do not end up as a Superfund site; they do not give off emissions; they do not pollute the bay; they do not pollute Baltimore; they do not pollute Maryland.  I do not know how they pollute.

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