Upcoming event
A symposium focusing on the development and implementation of national spectrum policies to support continuing U.S. leadership and innovation in wireless telecommunications and other spectrum-dependent technologies.
Welcoming Remarks: Paige Atkins, NTIA Associate Administrator and head of the Office of Spectrum Management
Keynote Address: Advancing the Nation’s Spectrum Strategy
David J. Redl, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator
A celebration of the extraordinary service of Mignon L. Clyburn as a Commissioner and Acting Chair of the Federal Communications Commission. Commissioner Clyburn recently announced that she will be stepping down from the FCC after more than eight years in that position. During that time, Commissioner Clyburn not only served with distinction and leadership but also served as a leader not just in name, but as the moral conscience of the agency.
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of five commissioners with many important responsibilities including network neutrality, media ownership, spectrum policy, universal service, and broadband deployment. These and other issues have often divided the commissioners on public, sometimes partisan, disputes about the direction of the Commission. What role does politics play in the FCC? How has the influence of Congress and the White House affected the Commission? Have the respective roles of the Chairman and Commissioners varied over the years?
The public deserves a voice in the decisions we make as a democracy, including the regulations that govern our economy, foster competitive markets, and protect individual rights. In recent decades, the public comment process for agency decision-making has been the principal way in which government agencies understand and reflect the view of not only experts but average citizens whose lives will be affected by these choices. In order to participate meaningfully in decisions, citizens also need access to information about the agency and the data it has collected.
Witnesses
- Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
- Diamond and Silk
- David Chavern, CEO News Media Alliance
"Antitrust and competition policy is exciting stuff," said no one ever (except, of course, the very few who follow this arcane field of economics and algorithms). Yet in recent months on Capitol Hill competition policy buzzwords have started to be overheard in conversations outside of the traditional antitrust policy bastions such as the Antitrust subcommittees. Is all this "excitement" around competition policy because folks are curious how the new Administration will approach mergers and market concentration?
Agenda:
1. S. 2717, Maritime Authorization and Enhancement Act for Fiscal Year 2019, Sponsors: Sens. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.)
Witness
- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai
The United States has grappled for more than a decade with how to regulate Internet access, and the issue has become increasingly partisan as it has moved from an academic discussion and technocratic debate into the hands of the Federal Communications Commission under successive administrations. Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recently rescinded not just the Obama administration’s common carriage rules grounded in the Title II framework, but the entirety of FCC authority over broadband.
Imagine a centralized database replete with your personal information that links together your and your family’s vital health, education, and social welfare records. Now imagine the database includes an entire country’s population.