and the chairmanship of the energy and commerce committee which deals with telecommunications policy is being contested. one of those running for the chairmanship is congressman joe barton who is currently the chief republican on the energy and commerce committee. and he's our guest this week on "the communicators." congressman barton, thank you for joining us from dallas. why do you want to be chairman of the energy and commerce committee again, and if so, what would be your legislative agenda when it comes to telecommunications policy? >> guest: i think the american people tuesday gave republicans a second chance. you don't get too many second chances in politics, but the american people have given the republicans one. i was chairman the last time that the republicans were in the majority back in 2005 and 2006, and i think, you know, the bills

that passed and became law we passed an energy policy act that was comprehensive, we passed the first reform act for the national institute of health in probably 30 years, we reauthorized the ryan white aids act. we just did a lot of what i thought were very positive things, and we did it in a bipartisan fashion. if i am given the privilege to be chairman again in the next congress by the republican conference, i want to actually deliver on the promises that we made many our pledge to america -- in our pledge to america. first and foremost is repealing the new health care law that most people genericically call obamacare. most of that will come through the energy and commerce committee. not all of it. some of it is ways and means and other committees, but the lion's share is energy and commerce. so my first priority would be to repeal that and follow up very

quickly with a replace and reform package that really addresses the health care needs of america. i think we have to do more than just repeal, go back to status quo. i think we also have to replace and improve the system so that every american has access to qualified health care. in telecommunication policy i think it is imperative that we maintain the freedom of the internet. i do not agree with the fcc's attempt to regulate the internet through title ii. we can certainly move legislation making that crystal clear that they don't have that authority. so we'll be doing aggressive oversight over the fcc. and if we can get a bipartisan agreement, i'm very open to reforming the universal service

fund. i think it's long overdue. and i think congressman stearns and congressman boucher in the last congress, the bill that they drafted together is a good first step or a good base on which to begin the legislative process there. but i guess just kind of yes nearbily -- generically the reason i would like to be chairman is i want to create a federal system that gives every american an opportunity to better themselves and their family and to do so on a level playing field. i don't support government mandates in all areas of our economy. i don't support the government telling people what they can and can't do except when it's necessary to protect the public health, public safety and on

occasion to provide for the common defense of this nation. so i'm a free market conservative, and i think if begin the privilege -- given the privilege to be the chairman, you'll see a very activist energy and commerce committee, but you'll see an open committee that works in a bipartisan fashion. >> host: given the republican conference's rules on term limits, what's the process that you could get elected and appointed chairman again of the committee when it comes to do you need a waiver? this. >> guest: well, thank you for asking that question. not many people bother to want to know the answer to that. we passed a rule in 1993 when we were in the minority before winning the majority in 1994 that says you can be ranking member or chairman for three terms. when that rule was put into place, the republicans had not been in the majority in the house since 1954, so we put the

term ranking member in there because that's all that we had. when we won with the contract of america and newt gingrich in 1994, we had 11 ranking members at the time who became chairmen, five of those had served as ranking member for three terms and all five of those served as chairmen for three terms. so we had the same rule in place in 1994 that we have now. we didn't apply the ranking member time towards their chairmanship time. i interpret the rule to be that i've served one full term as chairman, so i am eligible -- not entitled, but eligible -- to be chairman for two more terms. i'm going to ask the steering committee, the republican leadership in the conference to clarify the rule. i'm fine on having a term limit rule for chairmen. i wouldn't have gotten to be

chairman when i did if we hadn't have had term limits on chairmen because chairman bliley probably would have petitioned to continue to be chairman. so i'm an advocate of term limits, but i think you apply it in your majority time, and i don't think it's a consecutive minority majority. that's a rule clarification, so i think i'm eligible for two more terms. i'm going to petition on that process. if that's not successful, then i will ask for a waiver, and i think i'll be successful on the waiver. but that's -- the process is we have a transition team that puts a rules package together, try to get the rule clarified in the transition and then, if necessary, put it before the conference to have a vote, and then whatever the rule is play by that rule. >> host: joining us on "the communicators" this week is our guest reporter, the editor of

national journal's tech daily dose, juliana gruenwald. >> host: hi, mr. barton. what kind of feedback are you getting from mr. boehner and the other republican leaders on seeking this interpretation of the rules? >> guest: well, i'm getting very positive feedback in terms of support for chairmanship, in terms of a clarification of the rule what, what john boehner has said and also some of the other senior republicans is that's something to take up with the transition team. and greg wald on, who's on the energy and commerce committee, is in charge of it. there's also the republican study committee who the current chairman is tom price. we haven't picked on the committee who the chairman's going to be, but it appears that it's going to be congressman jordan. they're looking at some rule changes also.

so, you know, but the straight answer to your question is in my outreach effort i'm being very, very positively received for my chairmanship in terms of the rule. that's something the transition team is going to make a recommendation to the leadership and then to the full conference. >> host: now, congressman barton, election night here in washington, d.c. as john boehner was finishing his speech we happened to notice you at the bottom of the stage shaking hands with presumptive speaker boehner, right there. what were you doing in washington that night, and what's your relationship with john boehner? >> guest: well, my relationship with john boehner is very positive and very cordial. you know, we have, we worked together when he was chairman of the education committee, and we've worked together both when he was majority leader and then in the minority leadership position.

so we, we're both very positive, and we're also what i would say we're both adults. we've both been around the block a little bit and know that it's not necessarily what's good for either one of us individually, it's what's good for the entire republican conference. so we've got a very positive, open relationship. as to why i was in washington, in 1994 i stayed in my district on election night, and i didn't think we would ever go back into the minority. but as we got closer to this election and it looked like we might get back in the majority, i said i want to be in washington to share in that moment, and i was very pleased to be at the nrcc with pete sessions and kevin mccarthy and then to go over to the hotel when they made the big announcement. i just wanted to be there to

share in it because i had a feeling that we were going to win and win big, and i wanted to be a part of, a part of that celebration. and in terms of my congratulations to speaker-to-be boehner, i'm one of the first persons who had the sticker john boehner for speaker. and i just congratulated him. i also told him to get a little bit of rest because i can't tell you how many, how many campaign stops he had made, but he probably set a record for campaign stops for members of congress, and i told him to go, he and his wife to go get some rest and kind of enjoy the moment because you won't have too many like that. >> host: juliana gruenwald. >> host: mr. barton, did the committee -- if you're chairman, the committee has a broad

jurisdiction. where will tech and telecom issues fall on the committee's priorities? >> guest: the number one, immediate priority is going to be health care because of the emphasis on repealing obamacare. and then replacing it with something that's much more in tune with what the american people want. telecommunications is going to be a high priority, especially preventing the fcc from regulating the internet. and as i said earlier, if we can put together a bipartisan reform package on the universal service fund, i think that'd be something that we could, that we could move. so health care will be number one, i'd say energy and telco would be kind of co-equal, number two, and then oversight. we're one of the committees that has a specific oversight subcommittee, and it's going to

be very, very busy just having oversight over the various agencies in the obama administration that are within the jurisdiction of the energy and commerce committee. >> host: you recently said that privacy was an issue of importance to you. will you be writing a privacy bill, or would you pick up where mr. boucher and mr. stearns left off? also bobby rush who's also on the committee has a bill, and is he somebody you can work with? >> guest: sure. i was a little bit surprised or have been that we haven't moved a privacy bill in this congress. of course, we have probably one more week many this the lame duck. in the lame duck, but i doubt there's going to be a privacy bill come out that quickly, so that is certainly something we can work with our friends on the democrat side on a bipartisan basis. and as you pointed out, ed markey, bobby rush, cliff

stearns, mary bono, there are a number of republicans and democrats that are very interested in that, and i think that's something that we can work on. you know, we certainly have the issue -- facebook has recently admitted that some of their information on individuals was used, they claim, perhaps, without facebook's permission. we've had a number of other companies that have -- depending on who you believe -- you know, consciously or inadvertently allowed very private information be disseminated to marketers or folks without permission. so i think privacy's one of those issues that's gaining in importance and is something that, certainly, could be addressed. and if we can get the right coalition together, as chairman i'd certainly very, very willing to legislate in that area.

>> host: mr. barton, you talked about coalitions. in your incoming letter -- in your letter to incoming gop freshman campaigning for the chairmanship, you've written: i've worked hard to earn a reputation for fairness in dealing with policy opponents. but when i am chairman, you won't find many democrats applauding. [laughter] >> guest: well, that's more in reference to the cabinet heads in the obama administration. it goes without saying that when you're, when your president is of your party, you're not as aggressive in the overseeing the presidential executive agent is as when the -- agencies as when the president is of the opposition. chairman waxman and before him chairman dingell are both very aggressive overseers, but they focused their oversight out into the country. they really didn't, in my opinion, adequately oversee the

obama administration. so, you know, we're not going to be punitive, but we are going to insist that all these executive orders and these pending regulations and some of the actions that the epa and the fcc and the fda have initiated, that they're going to have to come before congress in an open, transparent fashion and justify that. so those are the folks that'll be a little unhappy. i really don't think the democrats on the committee are going to be unhappy because they're going to be a part of the process and fully engaged, and the hearings will be fair and balanced. it'll be their decision whether to participate. but my guess is that they will. as they they should.

>> host: you mentioned the fcc and chairman genachowski's proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service. do you think that they will be under more pressure to move forward with that now that republicans have control of the house and the chances of a net neutrality bill coming out of congress are definitely smaller? and you mentioned legislation. will you move legislation to block them from doing that? >> guest: well, i would think that they can read election returns as well as anybody. the three democrat commissioners on the fcc are very bright people. i happen to have a very positive personal relationship with all three of them, and i would, i would think that, you know, seeing that the republicans have gained six or seven seats in the senate and as of this program i think we're at plus, what, 63, 64 house seats? that they would see the wisdom of not trying to regulate the internet under title ii.

i am certainly willing in conjunction with coordination with speaker boehner and majority leader cantor willing to move a bill pretty quickly that says they can't. but i would think they could read the tea leaves as well as anybody and know that's something they shouldn't go forward with. >> host: congressman barton, on election night here on c-span we were taking calls all night, as you well know we take calls, and we were talking about the legislative agenda of the republicans and the democrats. a couple of callers brought up the issue of net neutrality. want to play one for you and get your response to this. t >> caller: i'm 20 years old, i'm a bit of a younger voter, and i want to talk about a specific issue that's, i think, often overlooked by both parties which is net neutrality. i think this is one of the biggest issues of our time, definitely a first amendment issue, and i think a lot of the time republicans seem to talk at

lot about how they want to keep the constitution, they seem to talk about how that's like kind of their fore running thing. but i notice that theorer republicans often overlook this as an issue and would rather let the internet become tiered. >> host: congressman barton? is. >> guest: well, i wish i had been on when that young man was asking his phone call or engaged in his phone call. republicans have insisted since the telecommunication act of 1996 that the internet be open and free and accessible, freely accessible to any and all comers. we don't allow any taxation of the internet, we have an open access policy. internet use has exploded as has cell phone use. so i, i think our policy of allowing the private sector to develop it under rules and

regulations developed by the fcc that are open and transparent has worked very, very well. you know, this, this concept of net neutrality is a little bit of a misnomer. what it mean in practice if fcc were to implement it is that the federal government could regulate the internet, and i don't think that caller wants the internet regulated by the fcc, and i know the new republican majority in congress on the house side doesn't want the internet regulated by the fcc. so we've got a policy that's working very, very well, you know, in the old colloquial phrase if it ain't broke, don't fix it. that's kind of where i am, and i think the majority of the republicans are. >> host: there was an april appeals court decision that put the fcc's authority over broadband into doubt. do you think that there needs to be any legislation to clarify their authority? i mean, should they have some rule in overseeing what broadband providers do?

i mean, is there a role for congress there? >> guest: well, that's, you know, that's a rephrasing of the question we've already had several times. [laughter] what happened was that the fcc tried to stipulate that it could regulate and it could command a private company, i believe it was comcast, and tell them how to manage their network. and the courts said no. that under the telecommunications act you don't have that authority. so the response of chairman genachowski to that court decision has, has been to threaten to regulate under title ii of the federal commune caigs act -- communications act in title ii is that section that regulates the old hard-line telephone service. going back to the 1930s and 1940s when you had a monopoly

situation because of technology and geography and telephone service was considered to be a natural monopoly, and so you had to regulate it to keep the companies from exercising too much market power and too much economic power over their subscribers. well, you don't have that situation in the internet. you've got numerous broadband providers both in terms of wireless and wired and very robust competition providing new services almost on a weekly basis. so there's just not the necessity to regulate under title ii. and if necessary as i've already said, we'll move a bill very quickly, and it will be a bipartisan bill. in the current congress i think every republican from john

boehner on down has signed a letter that we shouldn't regulate the internet under title ii. and, you know, i can't give you the exact count of democrats, but i think in the neighborhood of 60 democrats in in this congress have signed that letter or very similar letters. so there's, obviously, a bipartisan majority against regulating broadband under title ii of the federal communications act. >> host: you mentioned oversight would be an important role of the committee. the ftc recently informed google that it was dropped an investigation into what google called the mistaken collection of information from unsecured wi-fi networks. is that something -- critics of the ftc's decision have been calling on congress to look into this issue. is that something that you think your committee would look into if you were chairman? >> guest: that's, that's, again, very similar to a question about privacy that you've already asked in this interview, and the

answer to that is, yes. the google thing is is very troubling, and in that case there was, appears to have been a conscious effort to collect information. now, google said it was inadvertent, but it was -- it wasn't just kind of accidentally gathered. and so i do think that that's something that we could look at, and i know congressman markey's concerned about it on the democrat side, chairman waxman is concerned about it. so i think that's something in the next congress that we, we certainly could look at and maybe put together a bill to prevent that kind of activity from happening in the future. >> host: congressman barton, rick boucher, an active democrat on the enc committee on telecommunications, lost. what does his loss do to the

committee in your view? >> guest: well, you know, it's, you know, i'm a republican, and i'm always happy to get more republicans and have a majority. so, you know, obviously, the gentleman who won over rick is to be congratulated for his victory. and when you take aside the politics and the mathematics as a person, there's not a better person in congress than rick boucher as somebody knowledgeable on these issues of telecommunications, but also energy policy and many of the legal aspects. congressman boucher going to be really, really missed. he's subcommittee chairman on the energy committee, he was very active, also, on the judiciary committee, very bright

person, very flexible and somebody that was willing to work across the aisle. i had the privilege when i was subcommittee chairman back in the majority to have him as my ranking member on the energy subcommittee, and he was just very, very good person to work with. so on the political side, you know, i welcome his successor as a part of the new republican majority. obviously, i'll work with him, you know, on a personal take the politics out of it side rick boucher is one of the good, one of the good poke -- folks and is, you know, an example of what being a good congressman is. so i'm -- he'll be missed as a person, but again, on the political side of it the bigger

the republican majority, the better. and we're certainly pleased that we have a new republican from that district. >> host: another big issue is this need for spectrum from mobile broadband for lots of other uses. there's various bills out there dealing with spectrum. one would, calls for reallocating a chunk of spectrum known as the d block to public safety officials for a broadband interoperable communications america. where do you stand -- network. where do you stand on that issue? >> guest: that's a vexing issue, it's a very technical issue. depending on your view of government, there are various proposals on how to deal with it. it's obvious that we need adequate spectrum for our public safety officials. one way to do it is just allocate it and mandate it.

there are other proposals out there to have an auction, what's called an incentive auction where you create some sort of an incentive for the winner of the auction to voluntarily allocate spectrum for public safety, and then there are kind of proposals in between. i am not an advocate of a mandate. i have advocated, as have almost all the republicans for several years, to have an auction that's no strings attached and then try to deal with the spectrum allocation for public safety in a different way. i'm not an electrical engineer, so i don't really have the technical expertise to go into various types of spectrum and the bandwidth and all of that, but, you know, this is, obviously, something that's been festering for a while, and it is

something that we would like to see successfully solved here in the next two years, if possible. >> host: congressman barton, if you were chairman, could you see the ceos of companies such as facebook and google coming to testify on issues such as privacy in front of the committee? >> guest: we -- i think you could almost guarantee that. just as when i said earlier in the interview that i don't believe chairman waxman and chairman dingell had been aggressive in oversight over the obama administration, if they had focused their guns on the private sector, so to speak, it doesn't mean as a republican majority that we're just going to focus on the executive branch or president obama's cabinet and not take a look at the private sector. to use an example, when i was chairman back in 2005 and 2006,

we were very aggressive in the oversight of british petroleum. they had had an accident in their pipeline up on the north slope in alaska, and we had a number of hearings, and we ended up passing new legislation giving the federal energy regulatory commission additional authority to inspect and regulate the safety aspects of the pipeline systems not just in alaska, but everywhere in the united states as a consequence of british petroleum's negligence. so, you know, i am a free market, private sector congressman. i believe in markets, i believe in free market capitalism. but having said that, you have to have aggressive oversight over the private sector to make sure that they don't develop too much market power and that they do play by the rules. back in the