Why The Trump Team Should Adopt Bill Clinton's Plan To Reform The FCC

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump’s advisors, along with leading Members of Congress and the agency’s two Republican Commissioners, have already made clear their first priority: to end the agency’s misguided intrusions into the Internet economy, and to reinstate policies that encourage continued private investment. A visionary plan to transform the agency into an effective 21st century enabler of continued digital innovation is sitting on the Commission’s shelf, just waiting to be dusted off.

Ironically, or not, it was written almost twenty years ago, under the direction of William Kennard, appointed to Chair the agency from 1997 to 2001 by Democratic President Bill Clinton. In two drafts prepared in 1999, Kennard’s Office of Plans and Policy laid out the design for a dramatically redesigned Commission. “The FCC as we know it today will be very different both in structure and mission,” the proposal said, transitioning over five years “from an industry regulator to a market facilitator.”

[Larry Downes is an Internet industry analyst and author on business strategies and information technology.]