Carl’s goal:

By the end of the 110th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives could achieve the goal of providing broadcast-quality video of all hearings and the floor for download on the Internet.

Carl reports tremendous progress has been made and that a "recommendation to adopt that goal is currently awaiting action from the Office of the Speaker and the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration." In the mean time, some hearings are already being uploaded to archive.org (take a look here).

If this is approved, and it looks like it will be, broadcast quality video of all House hearings (not just those covered by c-span) will be available to all who have broadband access. Citizen journalists will be able to make clips, edit, mix, and post youtubes from these videos.

I asked Carl about audio files (for those without the bandwidth to download video) and Senate Hearings. He replied that he will see what can be done about audio and that his primary focus has been the House hearings, he suspects it will take more time to get the the Senate on board.

Many, many thanks to Carl.