LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A report released Wednesday by a group of Democrats seeking a moral authority some say their party has lost says the number of pornographic Web pages has grown 3,000 percent since 1998 and federal laws must be changed to keep children away from them.

The think tank Third Way says there were 14 million pornographic Web pages in 1998 and 420 million today. Even amid broad discussion of morality issues, politicians are surprised by the sudden growth that has allowed adult Web sites to dominate the Internet almost unchecked, Third Way spokesman Matt Bennett said.

“The way this industry is exploding right now in real time is a problem,” Bennett said. “And this is a cascading problem. The pornographers are getting more sophisticated to lure children to sites.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., [pictured] said a common manipulation of the White House’s Web site is a prime example of how the whole industry preys on children.

“It’s outrageous that a 12-year-old doing a homework assignment can type in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov and get hard-core pornography,” she said. “That’s done on purpose to trick children.”

Tim Richardson, an Internet commerce professor at Seneca College in Toronto, said the actual number of pornographic Web pages is impossible to confirm because they are so often duplicated to force Internet search engines to list them more prominently.

But he said the growth has been astronomical because the pornography industry knows how to use technology to stay one step ahead of popular government regulations.

“The whole launching of the porn industry in the 1980s was tied to the VCR and the ability to watch XXX movies in your own home,” Richardson said. “There are precedents to how the porn industry has exploited technology, so the Internet is nothing new.”

Also, he said, identity theft is intimately tied to Internet pornography. Identity thieves know those who view pornography are less likely to complain to the authorities, he said.

The Third Way report was used by a group of Senate Democrats — Michigan’s Stabenow, Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman, Delaware’s Tom Carper, Indiana’s Evan Bayh, and North Dakota’s Kent Conrad — as the basis for a bill that would require age-verification filters and impose a 25 percent excise tax on transactions by adult sites.

Those who represent the $12 billion Internet pornography industry say the government’s slow reaction has botched efforts to keep children out of adult sites.

“The adult Internet works at laser speed, and that’s what makes it exciting,” said Tom Hymes, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, a lobbying group backed by the pornography industry. “But government and nonprofits work much slower than that and this report makes outdated assertions.”

The report says 12- to 17-year-olds are the top consumers of Internet pornography, based on older studies that found adult Web sites make their money based mainly on how many visitors they attract. Hymes said that business model didn’t work and was ditched by most Web sites around 2001.

“This is completely offensive to this industry because it has matured over the last couple years. It is not interested in children coming to Web sites anymore,” Hymes said. “We want verification, but we need a solution that works.”

Richardson agrees that the page-click business model is “so 2002” and the proposed legislation misses the mark.

“To tell you the truth, they don’t want young people on their sites because young people generally aren’t going to buy this stuff,” Richardson said. “It’s not underage customers the government should be worried about,” but minors pictured on the sites.

Lincoln, the bill’s lead sponsor, said that is what concerns her, and that’s why the 25 percent excise tax would raise funds for law enforcement to fight cyberspace crimes and for educating Internet users on how to keep children away from adult sites.

Hymes says it’s unfair to go after law-abiding Internet pornographers for the child-exploitation of a few. He also said pornography for adults is constitutionally protected speech. But Conrad said the report proves that predatory practices are more prevalent and a tax is justified.

“These people have to be taken on and it costs money to do it,” Conrad said. “So, where is the appropriate place to levy taxes to pay for fighting child exploitation? I think it’s entirely reasonable that it’s the porn industry that is so obviously targeting kids.”

Richardson warns the effect of the bill would be limited because so much of the industry already is based overseas and those that aren’t easily can switch to space on computer servers in other countries, beyond any U.S. legal jurisdiction.

Bennett acknowledged the bill is a chance for Democrats to push a moral issue after Republicans have laid claim to so-called “values issues.” Lincoln agrees, but said that was not her motivation.

“I don’t disagree this is perhaps an opportunity for a centrist to say I have a moral issue, but that’s secondary,” Lincoln said. “What stood out in the report to me is that 12-to-17-year-olds are the top consumers of Internet pornography.”

Lincoln is the mother of twin 9-year-old boys.

“This is all about the anxiousness that all parents feel about trying to keep their kids safe in their own homes, in a venue that we’re not as familiar with,” Lincoln said.