Cannon said he had to politely remind them that the representatives from the West could just as easily turn the tables and behave in the same manner. Since then, he cannot recall a time an amendment proposed by Western representatives has been shot down.

"It was done without being harsh but by being very clear, saying, 'You guys have interests in the East, and we have interests in the West, and we need to work together on those issues,'" Cannon said. "It think it's important to be on the one hand tough but on the other hand understanding the people you're dealing with and what their constraints are."

Among his proudest achievements in the past 10 years, Cannon lists his work in preventing companies in the telecommunications industry from creating a new monopoly.

"The market has worked powerfully, and the Baby Bells have serious competition," he said. "I hope new forms of competition continue to emerge, so that we, over time, continue to significantly decrease our telecommunications costs and our data costs."

Looking ahead

Like most incumbents, Cannon said he will continue to run for re-election as long as he feels his influence rising. And with so many important issues coming before Congress in the upcoming sessions, he believes there is much more he can do.

"This is an important time," he said. "There are all kinds of other things I'd like to do in life, but this is where we're driving the future. The decisions we make over the next two, three, four or five years are going to be profoundly important, not just for Americans but for the rest of the world."

Cannon points to the small nation of Bangladesh, where residents can now make a phone call anywhere in the world for a penny a minute or now get a bank card and protect their money — using technologies developed in America.

"That's a case of huge, complex institutions being brought to bear on the poorest in the world and giving them a much, much better life," he said. "That's what America represents."

Cannon called it a "moral imperative" for the United States to use its technology and institutions to help other nations create a similar quality of life.

He still remembers his first paid job, in the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Services. At the time, the World Health Organization and the DOA both released reports suggesting that there would be widespread hunger throughout the world by 1985.

But by incorporating modern technologies of irrigation and pest control, both of which were developed primarily in the United States, the only people starving in 1985 were those living in regimes whose leaders withheld food as a means of control, Cannon said.