A Walden Exit Interview on All Things Tech

Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), one of the most influential conservative figures in the technology and telecommunications policy landscape, is set to retire from Congress. He pushed back on GOP-led calls for the Federal Communications Commission to step in on Section 230, even as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai faces pressure to do so before he leaves the agencyin January: “I'm not so sure that I want the FCC in the middle of all of this,” Rep Walden said. “Even if some think they have the authority, I'm not convinced that's the case. And I'm not sure they're the right agency to be in the middle of speech police.” Walden said talk of amending Section 230 “needs to be hammered out in the halls of Congress.” He doesn’t think a Biden White House will re-energize data privacy talks. “This was the time to do it with the president that would have signed a balance [bill] into the law,” Rep Walden said. “I don't think that President-elect [Joe] Biden will be as interested in that.” Rep Walden argued that the way to break the partisan impasse on the issue is “by coming up the middle” politically, and perhaps by tapping the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

What's next? While Rep Walden said he’d like to “stay involved” in some of the key telecom and tech issues he’s worked on, he also name-checked energy and health care as two other sectors that intrigue him. “I'm genetically predisposed to telecom given my father started in the original wireless business in the 1930s,” he said. “So that's always been a passion, but I also enjoy these other issues a lot.”