I spent Thursday and Friday of last week walking the halls of Congress primarily to get to know our local representatives better. On the Senate side, virtually everyone wanted to talk about the Stevens Bill and special access. You see, Congress is confused and doesn't know what to believe. Most large users are telling Congress that the special access market is dominated by the Bell Companies. But of course, the Bell Companies deny this and claim the special access market is robustly competitive. It has become a battle of lies, damn lies, and statistics. I have proposed a compromise which avoids this argument both before Congress and the FCC. My proposal is to allow parties to invoke baseball-style or final offer arbitration in the event they can't come to mutually agreeable terms for special access. Final offer arbitration is a market-oriented approach to special access disputes and is a familiar tool to carriers as many commercial agreements have arbitration clauses. Arbitration conserves regulators resources by keeping them out of carrier disputes and provides an incentive for parties to resolve their differences before arbitration. Also, parties have an incentive to put forth reasonable proposals in arbitration or risk having them rejected as unreasonable. Arbitration is a more efficient and faster dispute resolution process than the traditional regulatory process and avoids costly rate making proceeding before the FCC. Finally, arbitration supports the FCC's efforts to deregulate the special access market by giving competitors a tool to facilitate negotiations.