Testimony before the House Appropriations Committee

It has been a particularly busy time at the Federal Communications Commission since Inauguration Day, when President Trump designated me as Chairman of the agency.  We have hit the ground running, and I’d like to highlight some of the Commission’s critical work under my leadership thus far:

• To start, we have already taken steps to unleash new high-speed infrastructure builds.  We have done so by making it easier for providers to retire aging, copper-line networks and invest resources into fast, modern ones instead. 
• The FCC has taken steps to restore America’s leadership in wireless and free up more spectrum up for consumer use. We launched a new proceeding that looks at freeing up a large swath of prime, mid-band spectrum in the C-Band and started a proceeding to explore new and creative ways that we could allow more intensive use of spectrum in the 37 GHz band. We also kicked off the process of auctioning AWS-3 licenses after Congress authorized the FCC to conduct the auction
• The FCC has focused on boosting America’s space economy. We streamlined the FCC approval process for earth station siting requests to reduce burdens on satellite companies and ensure the agency can move faster as more of these requests come in.
• The FCC launched [sic] a massive deregulatory effort titled, “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete.”  Right now, the FCC is doing a top to bottom review of every rule, regulation, and guidance document for the purpose of eliminating unnecessary regulatory burdens.    
• The FCC has expanded its work to combat illegal robocalls and bolster our call blocking rules.
• The FCC is also taking steps to enhance our national security and public safety. I created a new Council on National Security within the FCC to leverage all of the agency’s authorities and relevant work streams to counter the threats posed by foreign adversaries.