abner back in 1986, he faced a republican primary challenge, by then governor william janklo, he did get the nomination, but lost to congress pman tom zashl. one of jim abner's young aides was john thun, who now has that senate seat, and john thun sent a letter praising senator allen. he was appointed by president reagan to serve as the head of the u.s. small business administration. jim abner was 89 years old, he passed away earlier today. we will continue the conversation tomorrow morning here on cspan radio. we'll have steve cane, republican from iowa, the

president's to do list, and the reauthorization of the violence against women act and the defense authorization bill which continues in the house of representatives. tune in tomorrow morning, thank you for joining us on this wednesday, enjoy the rest of your evening. >> a senate panel met with all five members of the federal -- that oversight hearing is next on cspan 3.

>> don't accept one else's construction on the way things ought to be. it's up to you to right wrongs, it's up to you to point out injustice, it's up to you to hold the system accountable, and sometimes upended entirely, it's up to you to stand up and be heard, to right and to lobby, to march, to organize, to vote. don't be content to just sit back and watch. >> president obama and mitt romney delivered commencement addresses in the past few days and you can watch them online any time at the cspan video library and over the next few weeks, look for other commencement addresses on the cspan networks which you can clip and share at cspan.org's

video library. >> the fcc commissioners testified on capitol hill, market competition were among the topics discussed. west virginia senator jay rockefeller cheers the congress committee. >> forget the fact that we're starting our votes at a much earlier time than i thought. but i have an opening statement which i just want to give so much, even though the chairman isn't here, but our two newest members are and we're very proud

of that. and then--julius, i'm breaking all rules, i'm going to give my statement for the first time they had nine members. 15 members. they had all their members there. which has nothing to do with this. anyway, the -- these two congressmen are wonderful additions to the board and this hearing follows on the heels of

a hearing we had a few weeks ago that exploited the future of video and how it's migrated from one platform to another. such migration is not limited however just to video. it's occurring across the communications landscape. we all need to be giving serious thought to how our communications laws are protecting consumers' basic rights in light of these changes. but i would be remiss if i did not start with acknowledging that you have accomplished on the commission, comprehensive reform of the high cost universal service fund and you've done a very good job at it. the committee has a hearing on it last year, on the need for reform. i know that it was not easy, you had to make hard choices, still to make difficult decisions on implementation, as expected your efforts have not pleased everyone. but it was imperative that the funding fund start targeting

areas of the country without service because they truly need it. the fcc is also has the responsibility or carrying out spectrum automatction and publi service provisions that need to be passed this year. specifically, the law gives the agency a simple and streamlined task to adopt minimum baseline technical requirements for the new first net authority. those would be national. national in scope. the fcc should not complicate or encumber first net's mission for public safety. we have a once in a lifetime to get this right and it's complicated already. and we have to do it for our nation's responders. i will make sure that this law is carried out consistent with the intent of the law. similarly, another program i

care deeply about is -- senator snow and i were responsible for passing that back in the mid '90s and it's made an enormous change in the nature of our country, it provides schools and libraries with as you know, affordable access communications and the internet, but also the demand from schools and from libraries is out streaking the supply of money available. by a 2-1 formula. and that is -- worries me greatly. that's why i'm troubled about the proposal that indicates that you will consider using e rate funds or authority to support digital literacy initiatives. ranking member hudson, i have been very, very bad, and i just started early. >> starting early. i know, but i got sort of permission from your guy.

>> does your chairman do that to you? >> let me be clear, i support broad band efforts. it's up to us to make that you are that broad band is adopted in rural communities on a nationwide basis. i believe any digital literacy commission should not compromise the -- program. finally in this hearing, we may hear calls for the agencies statutory authority that it be updated. any effort to revise or update the law must keep consumers front and center and is something that we will be watching extremely closely. because some might use that as a way to undermine the legal authority of erad or want to. we're not going to allow that to happen. that's the end of my rudeness.

i said what i wanted to say, we have questions, but we're time constrained, we have votes starting at what, 3:50? >> 3:45. >> they may last longer. >> are you going to read statements? i assumed you weren't. >> no, i wasn't meant to say this, i broke the law by doing this, that's why i started early. but i these you or senator demint should be able to say something and that will go directly to commission members unless senator kerry hits me with a sharp elbow. >> well, let me say that i'm glad that we are finally having this oversight hearing, i think it is very important. i think it's pretty obvious that -- well, first let me welcome the two new members. they both went through our committee with very large majorities and we're glad that

you're on board and that you have the full contingent now. i want to say, publicly, because i have said it before, that a lot has happened since our last hearing and the net neutrality regulations that were put forward by the fcc are those which i think overstepped and i'm in complete disagreement with. and i think the activities that you all are making must be confined to what you all are authorized to do that. so i just want to put that on the record. going forward, we did pass the bipartisan bill on auctioning the wireless bands and the incentive auctions will be going forward. so at today's meeting, i'm certainly going to ask some of the questions that i have on that and -- because i know others might want to speak i

think this is a very important effort going forward. we can explore that in the questions, thank you mr. chairman for going only two minutes early rather than ten. >> i would ask that senator kerry followed by senator demint has anything to say. obviously you have a lot to say, but do you wish to say it? >> you have a lot of reforms today reverend. i think a lot of good work has been done by this commission. i salute the bipartisan and thoughtful considerations that commissioner clyburn and commissioner mcdowell. and -- but obviously we have a

long way to go, we all know that. but one thing i just want to put on the table in my comments is a warning that i'm worried that some people -- i don't want to see this important entity get by on the partisan cross errors in congress. some are suggesting a weakened or inactive fcc minute much better. and, you know, i think that we have to be really careful of winding up with an unregulated communications behemuose group out there. i hope -- we need to have this discussion about where we're going post '92 and '96. it's entirely appropriate for us

to be doing this, but i think we need to be careful as we go forward, mr. chairman. >> okay, thank you, senator kerry, senator demint? >> thank you mr. chairman, i think you made the bests point starting out is our jobs is to make sure that consumers are protected and we know the best way to do that is through lots of -- i think that's what we're all about. and i hope that's the way we look at it. my concern as i have expressed to a number of you, and there seems to be a sense to the content producers are somehow a government property, or a government service. i think you know they're not. they're private companies, private investment, private management. our job is to make sure that competition works, if there's enough choices to make the market work.

sometimes i think we look at it as more of a public utility, it's our job not only to regulate it, but to manage it. and that's the sense i get sometimes with the decisions that are coming out of the fcc. pre-emptive regulation that solving problems that aren't there yet. that's what i want a chance to talk a little bit today. i think i have helped to usher most of you through this process. i appreciate your service and i think the way you approach your job has more to do with how we look at it, maybe than you, because if you feel like you want us to manage the industry, that's what you're going to do. our hope is that we can recognize that it is different than 20 years ago, we literally have dozens and dozens of competitors. the chances of someone being taken advantage of are getting less and less, and that has a

lot to do with some good things -- how to make competition choices work better, not necessarily how to run the industry industry. >> with due respect to my colleagues, i call now upon the chairman. what i thought we could do is have the chairman and commissioner mcdowell speak. and then we would come in with questions, as you can see, there's a lot of people here and a lot more coming. so we might want to use our time efficiently. >> jim rockefeller? >> thank you, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. congressional oversight is a vital function. this committee has also taken --

the provisions on incentive auctions and public safety, faithfully implementing the new law is a key priority of the fcc today. i'm pleased to be joined by a full complement of -- experience and accomplish the excellent additions, they join a commission that's been productive, colleague jal and focused on issues that are important to our country. engagement that has significantly improveded our decisions and our processes. at the fcc, the problem is to maximize the communications technology to further the public interest, to help grow our economy, create jobs, enhance u.s. competitiveness, and we have made tremendous progress in the past three years and indead private sector ---job creation are up across the broad band economy. these numbers are up by double

big -- the u.s. has now regained global leadership in mobile. and we're the first country rolling out the next generation 4g mobile to scale. first the spectrum gap, we're focussed on freeing up more spectrum for unlicensed use. removing regulatory and other barriers to flexible spectrum use and mobile broad band buildup. and moving forward on innovative approaches like small cells and on spectrum sharing as a new and additional tool to free up government spectrum for new use. i am proud that the idea was proposed in our national broad ban plan. and the national challenge of

impmenting -- continuing a proud tradition of u.s. leadership on mobile policy, and i look forward to working with my colleagues and the committee as we move forward. we're also tackling the broad band deployment gap, as you have mentioned today, about 18 million rural americans live in areas where there's no comprehensive infrastructure. to spur wired and wireless broad band to hundreds of thousands of rural -- and sets us on the path to employment by the decade while put the -- through our broad band acceleration issues, accelerated broad band buildout. we have adopted orders to ease orders and established a shot clock to establish cell tower and -- we are tacking the broad banged adoption gap, nearly 1/3

of americans, nearly 100 million people haven't adopted broad band. we need to tackle the barriers to broad band adoption and digital poliliteracy. has already helped connect virtually every library and classroom in america, last year we adopted several -- limited school's ability to strike the best deals for broad band and remain comitted to this important program. public safety communications is a core mission of the fcc and we're on schedule implementing the fcc helping first net deliver on the promise of nationwide broad band communication for our first responders, we have also worked on improving 911 and we're working on next generation 911,

that americans will be able to send texts or photos to 911. and the process culminating in isp concerning 19% of u.s. subscribers to commit to significant steps to commit to our country's cyber security. in the international yuan sit, we're proposing policies to countries the -- that has enabled the internet to flourish, consumer protection and empowerment is at the core -- smart phone etheft and cramming and the latter, i appreciate the excellent committee staff report on the subject. i want to highlight how we conduct our work. the fcc is committed to smart and workable government. we have taken many steps to modernize our programs, our major reforms are saving hundreds of millions of dollars, and in addition to our program mattic changes, we have --

unnecessary data collections, we have done everything i have listed in the statement and more with the lowest number of full-time employees in ten years. when i had the honor of being confirmed by the senate for this position in 2009, i promised that ould -- fostering competition and protecting consumers, those remain my goals and i look forward to working with this committee on unleashing communications technology for our congress and the american people. >> thank you mr. chairman, commissioner mcdell. >> thank you mr. chairman, this is my first opportunity to welcome our new colleagues, i want to thank the senate for confirming them and whenity senate did confirm them, i put out a statement saying how qualified they were. 48 hours after being sworn in, they can handle it i'm sure. so we have plenty of work to do together, in the coming months and years. i believe that america's future

is bright when it comes to putting the power of new communications technologies into the hands of consumers. specifically, i firmly believe that we are in the early days of the golden age of mobile broad band. due to america's light touch regulatory approach to the wireless sector, we have always led the world in that arena. we can encourage this and further strengthen america's global leadership in wireless if which implement the new spectrum law with humility and with regulatory restraint, second work hard to ensure that local and -- and third commence a comprehensive -- enhance speck torl eefficiency. when it comes to s ts to innov new spectrum law.

counter productive consequences as well. new auction rules should be appropriately minimal by adopting deregulatory flexible use policies that will make any rules future proof, for innovations we cannot even imagine today. rules also offer fair opportunities for small, medium and large players to bid for and secure licenses without excluding any player from the auctions as congress intended with the law. the fcc's inbox is full with many other matters as well. we must conclude our proceeding on universal service controversial reform as soon as possible. this silent and automatic tax increase is eating into consumers' wallets. it has been as high as 18% and it must be abated as soon as possible. further more we are overdue for modernizing our media ownership rules. based on the record before us, and recent court decisions, at a minimum, the 1975 vintage cross

ownership ban seems as out of place in today's digital marketplace than the long side burns and disco music of its birth year. not only must we stay energized to keep the international telecommunication union from swallowingen the high lehr -- multistake holder model for internet governance, but we must quickly find allies tlouy ies t the world, especially liz in the developing world for this effort. thank you for having me here today and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much commissioner, i'll start with the questions to be followed by senator hutchins and then senator kerry and senator demint. i appreciate the fcc's commitment to expandings broad band across the country, i also share your passion for making sure that broad band is both

wide liz widely deployed on a unified basis. the ga -- sustainable broad band adoption through the btop program. it's my hope that this study will allow us to identify the most successful elements of the program to focus resources on those only endeavors that have proved to be effective. so while i appreciate the fcc's recent efforts on promoting digital lit traszity, should not under any circumstances affect the newt of e rate funds is outmatching the money available by a 2-1 factor. during your confirmation hearings for the three of you, i asked each of you if you could commit to me that you will support and commit the e rate

program. i just love to remind you that i asked for a yes or no answer and i got all yeses. so we're asking for a repeat performance, because the world changes. and please give me a yes or no answer do you promise not to take -- digital literacy emissions. mr. chairman? >> yes, i think. the answer is yes, we're committed to strengthening, supporting and growing the e rate program, digital police rasity is important, we don'to won't do anything in the -- >> so that would allow you to answer yes? >> i believe so. >> yes. >> say yes, please. >> commissioner mcdowell? >> yes. >> -- commission never rose worth? >> yes. >> and commissioner pike? >> yes. >> excellent.

and not much time either on that. this is for the chairman and it has to do with theabili mobilit fund. in the context of service reform, you and i have spoken about the importance that requireless services -- in rural areas, the fcc -- areas that are under served today. prior to our fcc actions to reform the universal service fund, our offices together discussed the importance of making sure that the fcc's efforts help bring wireless service to rural areas that do not have it now. but it's my understanding that the largest holders in my state of west virginia may not participate in this fund. my question is can the mobile fund serve places like west virginia even if local carriers refuse to take part, number one,

and number two, if not what other steps could be taken to bring wireless services to these areas. >> we hope and expect that there will be broad participation in the upcoming auction for the mobility funneled. in our order, for the first time, we identified mobility as an independent service goal. so we're committed both to universal service to everyone in their homes, but also recognizing that people want and need mobile service when they're on the road, to and from work, elts. -that is the purpose of the mobile fund, we'll take the first step of these reverse auctions, as i said, we hope and expect broad participation on the goal of getting mobile broad band in parts of the country that don't have it, where the economics don't support it but where it's important to make sure that citizens have mobile access. >> i now call upon the ranking

member from texas. >> first i want to ask a parochial question and it's about the state of texas wireless broad band network for emergency responders. as you know, we have you -- it is further long in its efforts to comply with the parameters of the grand than any of the other jurisdictions in the country, i'm told, and they are prepared to start using the network u as early as this month, just for the start of hurricane season. and my question is, because texas has moved to try to meet this vy