Senators Joe Lieberman (CT), Sam Brownback (KS), Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), and Rick Santorum (PA) today announced that the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has approved the Children Media Research and Advancement (CAMRA) Act, which they first introduced in May 2004. Senators Richard Durbin (IL) and Evan Bayh (IN) are also co-sponsors of the legislation. The bill goes to the Senate next for consideration.

CAMRA will enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will work in coordination with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to research "the effects of viewing and using electronic media, including television, computers, video games and the Internet on children's cognitive, social, physical, and psychological development."

"Today's vote by the HELP Committee is a big step toward helping parents get the information they need about the effect of media on their children," commented Lieberman. "America is a media-rich society, but despite the flood of information, we still lack critical information. As policymakers - and as parents - we have a responsibility to examine the effects of media on our children, a responsibility this legislation can better enable us to fulfill. No one is looking out, in a systematic way, for cumulative impact of today's newer electronic media on our children. The questions about the effects - positive or negative - of media on our children's health, education and development are too important to go unasked and unanswered."

"As parents and policymakers, we need to better understand the effect of the constant barrage of media on our children. Our children are growing up immersed in interactive, digital and wireless media that is constantly changing. We need better, more current research to study the impact of the new media dominating our kids' lives and we need to make sure our research keeps up with the times as technology continues to advance," added Clinton.

The senators also cite a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which notes that "the rapid changes in our media environment have not been accompanied by a similar growth in our knowledge of how new media may impact children's cognitive, social, emotional or physical development."

Although CAMRA does not seek restrictions on electronic media or video games, a report in Cnet (News.com) suggests that it could be used to justify anti-game legislation if research does find that playing video games can be harmful to children. All of these violent video games bills that have been found unconstitutional could suddenly find new life if that happens.

"Down the road when--if there is some sort of finding that there is harm in this--then we're going to see calls to regulate speech because of the potential harm," said Marv Johnson, legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. "That's where there's going to be a problem."