December 2016

Chairman Tom Wheeler, after more three years at the helm of the agency, announced he intends to leave the Federal Communications Commission on January 20, 2017. Chairman Wheeler issued the following statement:

“Serving as F.C.C. Chairman during this period of historic technological change has been the greatest honor of my professional life. I am deeply grateful to the President for giving me this opportunity. I am especially thankful to the talented Commission staff for their service and sacrifice during my tenure. Their achievements have contributed to a thriving communications sector, where robust investment and world-leading innovation continue to drive our economy and meaningful improvements in the lives of the American people. It has been a privilege to work with my fellow Commissioners to help protect consumers, strengthen public safety and cybersecurity, and ensure fast, fair and open networks for all Americans.”

This paper lists policies and principles we believe will promote innovation and allow the U.S. to maintain its technological leadership.
Recognize that the Unique Nature of Innovation Requires Global Linkages and Sufficient Investment in Research and Development
1. Enable the free movement of workers, investment capital, and information across borders to help ensure that resources are used efficiently. This will spur technological progress because innovation is a global phenomenon.
2. Maintain U.S. technological leadership by providing sufficient resources for our research institutions, including universities, national laboratories, NIH, NSF, and corporations. Focus public R&D spending on areas the private sector is least likely to fund—fundamental or basic research is more likely to fall into this category than is research aimed at commercialization.
Make Evaluation Fundamental to Proposed Programs
3. Evaluate programs rigorously to determine whether they are achieving their intended objectives in a cost-effective manner. Integrate evaluation criteria and methods into program design. Do not penalize agencies for finding that a program doesn’t work.
Encourage Innovation and Investment in ICT
4. Move away from public utility type regulation of broadband. Use antitrust enforcement based on sound economic analysis to address competition issues in the communications sector.
5. Allow innovative business models, a defining feature of the Internet economy, including ones based on price and non-price differentiation without requiring regulatory approval.
6. Streamline processes for making spectrum available, including by moving it from government to non-government control. Allow flexible uses for all spectrum licenses and continue to make them easier to trade. Develop economics-based criteria for allocating spectrum between licensed and unlicensed.
7. Recognize that 100 percent broadband connectivity is aspirational, but not realistic. Funds intended to boost broadband deployment should be distributed in ways that will generate the largest bang-for-the-buck, such as reverse auctions.
8. Adopt coherent privacy rules based on cost-benefit analysis and apply them consistently across the economy.
Promote Cybersecurity
9. Ensure that incentives are properly aligned for the private sector and government to implement effective cybersecurity procedures.
Ensure that Intellectual Property Rights Increase Innovation and Social Welfare
10. Ensure that intellectual property rights policies promote innovation and creativity and base reforms on sound data and analysis.

[Commentary] It’s often the little things that lead up to the big moments. At present, there’s legislation that’s about to head to President Barack Obama for signature that qualifies as one of those moments. Embedded in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is language aimed at streamlining the bureaucracy of the United States’ government-funded international media outlets. The proposed fix, the result of a hodgepodge compromise between the Hill, the White House, and some Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) officials, is to replace the part-time BBG with a full-time CEO who would have full authority to run the show.

The simplicity and likely efficiency of the new arrangement fits the pro-business zeitgeist of the new administration — except for one thing. The key to the success of US broadcasting has always been its professional reporting in alignment with democratic values. So, here’s a message to the president-elect: If it’s a bargain, if the brand is strong, and if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Our adversaries’ half-truths may sometimes look successful, but that does not mean we want to emulate them. American foreign broadcasting must continue to reflect the American values of free speech, openness to criticism, and tolerance of divergent opinions. That is why our democratic system is better, and in the long run, that is why it will win.

[Jeffrey Gedmin is a senior fellow at Georgetown University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He was president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 2007 to 2011.]