Driving Innovation and Investment in the Clean Energy Economy

On October 5, Federal Communications Commission staffer Phoebe Yang addressed the 1st Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Smart Grid Communications. She talked about the energy-related aspects of the National Broadband Plan.

She said, "The FCC's efforts to enable and improve Smart Grid communications are just one part of the solution we will need to ensure a smart, cost-effective, and secure electric grid in the 21st century. As you in this hall know better than just about anyone, building the Smart Grid will continue to be a technologically challenging and expensive endeavor. But ultimately, it is an endeavor as worthy of our collective national efforts as the interstate highway system. Reflecting on the creation of the interstate highway system in his memoirs, its champion, President Dwight Eisenhower wrote that 'more than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America . . . Its impact on the American economy -- the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction, the rural areas it would open up—was beyond calculation.' These words were undoubtedly true of the interstate highway system. But I believe they will be equally true of our collective efforts to build out broadband and the smart grid across America in the years and decades to come. New construction of the interstate highway system has largely sunsetted in the United States today. But with the Smart Grid, we stand at a remarkable, and promising, dawn."