September 2017

Former Vice President Joe Biden is getting into recording daily news briefings as his next job. In short podcasts (three to 15 minutes each), Biden will introduce articles on anything from health care to climate change. The briefings will be available as an Alexa skill on the Amazon Echo and also on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Assistant. The program is called Biden’s Briefing and will feature Biden-curated content from media partnerships with Axios, Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, New York Review of Books, Politico, Slate, Vice, Wired, and other publications. Biden’s criteria for choosing the articles is that they have to be thought-provoking and informative.

We recruited you to put you to work. As members of the Committee, your mission is to offer guidance so that the agency can take important steps toward increasing diversity throughout the communications industry and bringing digital opportunity to all Americans.

One of your tasks will be to identify issues that might not already be on the Federal Communications Commission’s radar. Another will be to advise us about issues that we’ve already identified. Another task we’ll assign you is to examine is how we can make sure that disadvantaged communities have access to next-generation networks. Broadband can be a great equalizer when it comes to jobs, health care, education, and civic engagement. But if we don’t bridge the digital divide, communities on the wrong side of that divide will fall further behind in each of these areas. Our goal should be ubiquitous, high-speed networks that bring together all Americans—and I do mean all Americans. Last but not least, we’ll ask you to take a hard look at diversity in Silicon Valley. I look forward to working with you to increase diversity throughout the communications industry and to bring digital opportunity to all Americans.

Depending on what happens with the Obamacare repeal bill, a Senate vote on the re-confirmation of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai could come as soon as the week of Sept 25. Before the recess, Republicans Sens agreed to give Chairman Pai's vote up to 30 hours of debate on the floor, providing Democrats a chance to air their grievances about issues like net neutrality and the pending Sinclair-Tribune merger. And Democratic Sens stand ready to make some noise, despite Chairman Pai having the necessary Republican support to advance. “We’re going to be very loud about it,” Sen Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said. Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) added: “This debate on net neutrality, on privacy, is at a defining historical moment, and we have to ensure there is a full public debate so everyone can understand its importance.”

[Commentary] At first glance, tomorrow’s Open Meeting at the Federal Communications Commission seems rather mundane — particularly after last summer’s high-profile internet freedom proceeding. But hidden among the seven items on the agenda is an intriguing proposal to reform the way the Commission allocates toll-free numbers. While the issue is not as sexy as internet freedom, the proposal is intriguing because it embraces a market-based solution to a problem that has long vexed the agency — a solution that (in another context) Nobel laureate Ronald Coase suggested almost a half-century ago.

The Commission’s decision to adopt a market solution to the similar problem of allocating toll-free numbers shows how far it has moved in Coase’s direction. While more work remains to be done, market-oriented reforms have helped make the communications marketplace industry more efficient and more innovative, which ultimately benefits the American public. The toll-free number modernization proposal is another, momentous reform in the right direction.

[Daniel Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]