Bill To Seek Congressional Backing for EDSAT

By Peter West

WASHINGTON--A federal lawmaker has told members of a newly chartered educational-telecommunications body that he will ask the Congress to mitigate the financial risks of orbiting a satellite to facilitate distance learning.

"Through federal loan guarantees, we hope to insure the acquisition of a dedicated education satellite,'' Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, told the board of the EDSAT Corporation earlier this month.

Mr. Burns, who often champions the educational uses of technology, is the co-author of a pending measure that would reward the nation's regional telephone companies for connecting schools with a fiber-optic network...