tv Politics Public Policy Today CSPAN February 26, 2015 1:30pm-3:31pm EST
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whether a future practice like zero rating, for instance, or sponsored data plan from a wireless carrier is, in fact unreasonable? >> so unreasonable and just and reasonable is something that has developed over time. and it is something that you build a record on, and then you look at that record and you say, okay is this a just and reasonable activity? is this an activity that unreasonably interferes? is this an activity that unreasonably disadvantages or my favorite, is this an activity that hurts consumers hurts competition, or hurts innovation? and you milwaukee a decisionake a decision based on the record. >> tom with the wall street journal. >> hi, tom. >> when it comes to municipal broadband, why do you think the
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preemption of state laws by an agency is going to survive a court challenge and were there other routes you considered? >> were there other what? >> other routes to reaching the goal? >> routes. so as we laid out in the discussion, what we're dealing with is a situation where the states said to the localities, you have the authority to do this. and then put in place barriers to keep them from exercising that. section 706 explicitly says to us, take away barriers to broadband deployment. and so we did take away those barriers, but did not go to the overall state authority that in fact said to those folks you have the ability to do this. >> jim with the l.a. times.
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there have been a number of allegations both on capitol hill and by commissioner pai that president obama influenced improperly influenced this proposal. did the president or anyone at the white house either dictate to or influence your proposal? >> thanks for asking that question, jim. the president has been well known, on record, for a long time, in favor of net neutrality. so have i. presidents always communicate their opinions to the fcc. that's nothing new. we are the expert agency. we are the agency that has to take the concept that says i'm for an open internet, and say what is the best way to
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implement that based on the record. and that's what we did. and we produced a set of rules that are stronger and more expansive than the president even envisioned. we produced a set of rules based on our independent assessment of what the record told us. >> but he was very specific. you said you take a general statement, he came out with a number of specific things and the proposal addresses all of those specific items title two other things. >> and the proposal addresses a lot of things he didn't is what i'm saying. and the other part of that is you know maybe you've noticed, and there was a question that lynn asked but and there has been a lot of stuff in the press about interpretations of title two, going down to the 11th hour here on how you want to put it. so that's -- this has been a plus. title two is this -- it is title
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two. title two is 48 different sections. you got to deal with each of those and you got to deal with the specificity of how it is done. and that's what we did to produce an outcome that is, you know significantly different than the president was talking about. >> hi, mr. chairman. todd with bloomberg news. what do you say to critics who say this vote ushers in an era of regulatory instability since another fcc 3-2 party line vote could reverse what you've done? >> i think one of the things that is the challenges in dealing with public policy today is everything gets debated in terms of imaginary horribles. and let me tell you about my armageddon versus your armageddon kind of a situation. the fact of the matter is that for 22 years, the mobile industry has been regulated
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under rules that the industry sought. i know, because i did it, okay? rules that the industry sought to become title two common carriers and to have forbearance from the inappropriate regulation. and it has been wildly successful. we end up forebearing in this item from like 50% more sections of title two than the mobile policy that the mobile industry championed does. so i take real heart from that. and it was a very major part of my thinking because, like i said, i lived through this. i watched the mobile industry thrive. i listened to the -- to the ceos talk about how this kind of
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stability was important to them. and i think, again, you see, in the statements of some of the carriers, some of the isps, that they see the wisdom in that. >> good afternoon, mr. chairman. mari with light reading. regarding the interconnection agreements, what in an agreement that was decide upon would you consider to be unjust or unreasonable and how might you impose your enforcement on that? >> so we took real pains in this item not to get to that kind of specificity, but to rather say for the first time we're asserting jurisdiction over interconnection. and we will look at the issues that get brought to us, build the record, and in a public way so everybody has an opportunity to participate and mack anation a decision on the record based on the kind of unreasonable interference and unreasonable disadvantage we talked about.
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>> if the mobile providers or others -- the internet providers go in and ask for a stay, what would you argue in terms of being against a stay? >> gee i think it is going to be hard for them to get a stay, to put off the implementation of the rules because, i mean, let's go back, there are three actionable, specific, bright line rules in here. no blocking. no throttling. and no prioritized fast lanes. they all said oh we never intend to do that. so they're going to go into court now and say, no court you need to stay this because we intend to block we intend to throttle, we intend to have fast lanes. and so i think a stay is a high hurdle.
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>> jason from mashable. i have a question on forbearance. commissioner pai seemed to indicate in his reading of the rules that the forbearance is not explicit it says this is something we're not going to do and just trust us. is that wrong or are there, you know, things in these rules that will be explicit in saying like, we can't do this? >> the commission made a decision today saying we will forebear from these. it is quite similar to what the commission did in the mobile rules, section 332, of the act, in which the commission went in and full bore, i never know the right word to use forebear did not enforce multiple provisions of title two. and that's stayed that way for 22 years, through democratic chairman, through republican chairman, through changes in the nature of the -- i mean, you
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know. >> hi. brandon ross bloomberg. there has been talk that other end entities will seek the fcc to -- so will you grant similar petitions to -- for the fcc did today if -- >> we'll look at similar petitions. and we'll make a judgment based on the record in those. >> are there any other questions from this row? >> yes, sir. >> -- under the new rules can you address specifically how the commission might address the issue of zero rating especially free music services for mobile providers? >> again, we specifically did not go into that kind of detail but created a construct on which we could build a record which would then allow us to make that kind of a determination. >> peter cook of bloomburg television.
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mr. chairman, if i could, i wanted to go back to the question of the president's role in all of this. how confident are you that you would have arrived at this final rule had the president not done his november statement? would it really look the same today, mr. chairman? >> well this is something that, you know, i said repeatedly that i was working on how best to implement title two over the summer. he made a statement in november. i'm quite comfortable that we made this decision with independence and wisdom and based on the record. >> hi, mr. chairman. i wondered, now that you have the rules in place, does this lessen any concerns you might have about a comcast time warner deal and now that you have these approved, are you going to turn to that deal now? >> good try, but i'm not going to talk about the mergers.
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points for trying. >> all right. kyle bailey. i just wondered about the forbearance thing. you spoke a little bit forbearance, but, you know, there is this idea that the forbearance that is there could be eroded by adjudication or just sort of you know, de facto actions over the years. what do you say to that? >> so, you can't just wake up some morning and say, hey, let's change the rules okay? section 10 of the act says you have to make a finding as to why it is necessary. and so that establishes a whole process. but what i would go back to to saying is, to reminding you is what i said about mobile and other examples of forbearance, for 22 years the mobile forbearance has sat there, through multiple administrations, and not been changed.
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>> all right, great. >> thank you, everybody. >> if you guys have additional questions about the order itself senior staffers will come up and take those questions. so hang tight. >> go ahead. >> the order was 332 pages to start with. it is 317 pages now. what was taken out? >> i think it is fair to say, brooks, that we're not here to talk about the internal deliberations of the process. we're here to talk about how it came out. as the chairman discussed, we
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came out with a set of rules that we think are strong and sustainable and we're happy to talk about that. >> lynn? >> could you clarify what the letter does with respect to the -- what was once considered to be the separate broadband subscriber access service? was it -- is there no separate service and it is just a part or does it do both? >> let me take a minute to give you some context on that, and for people who are not as familiar with the ins and outs of this. in the verizon court opinion issued in january of 2014 the court found that isps were providing a service to edge providers. and further found that that service was being treated as a common carriage service, though it had not been classified as such. in making that determination, the court looked to the classification of information services that had been applied
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to retail broadband services. as we studied the courts order and as we studied the law we concluded that we could answer the court's question and indeed we wanted to very much answer the court's question but we could do so without creating a separate service. without classifying the separate service. and here's why. when an isp delivers internet access service to retail consumer, it says to the consume consume, i promise to give you access to all of the internet. you can go anywhere on the internet you want to, you can communicate with websites, you can search, you can send video pictures any form. when an isp makes that promise it is implicitly making the promise that it will engage in the necessary commercial arrangements to effectuate the ability of consumers to go everywhere. that turns out to be what the
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court was talking about when it talked about an edge service. what would be the relationships between isp and edge providers? what this order concludes is that those relationships are within the scope, are governed by the conditions, the terms underwhich the isp provides its retail service. and so the conclusion was reached, it was not necessary to classify a separate service, but simply to do what the order does do and that is to say, to reclassify the retail service under title two. >> just wanted to pick up one more time on brooks' question from earlier about timing of the publishing of the order. are we talking about hours here or weeks or months? >> well, we're going to move as soon as we can. the chairman talked about the process that will be used now to be able to get the order out. we would like to get the order out as quickly as we can and we'll be working hard to that
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end. >> i wanted to ask how you see in the future this orbit influencing adjudication about the potential complaints about what used to be known as specialized services. there is the broad protection, but there appears to be a bit of i guess discussion or debate about what happens to services that, i guess, don't exist yet or potentially come up in the future that don't neatly fall in the category. >> i don't know if you know stephanie who is an associate general console, but also the chairman special adviser on internet law and policy. >> hi. thanks for that question. so the order that we adopt today is about broadband internet access service and that's the service that travels over the public internet, and that ensures that as john just described, end users can reach all internet end points. the concept of specialized services we think is a bit of
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an odd one in that there is not a distinct category of services or nothing unifies those services other than the fact that they are not that broadband internet access service and they do not travel over the public internet in that way. what this order does say about those services that are therefore not covered is that we will ensure they will not undermine the open internet protections that we have put in place. so we'll be vigilant in monitoring them and ensuring they don't undercut the openness of the internet. >> so i guess for a scenario in which it is a brand-new service that hasn't come up yet, theoretically there could be a compliant filed and you would review it on an individual basis. >> i think for services that are not reached by this order, it could clue some services that we know about voip offered by a cable company is not a service that when you purchase that, you could reach everywhere on the internet. it is giving you a different kind of service. similarly new services that we can't imagine today would fit within that category.
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>> kerry from communications daily. in terms of the small providers there is from the transparency requirements, can you talk about that and how do you define what a small provider is? >> hi, kerry. so just to clarify so there is transparency requirement already in effect. that will continue to apply to all isps, that was adopted in 2010, upheld by the court. the order the commission adopted today adopts some targeted enhancements to that transparency requirement. we had heard from small isps, some concerns about the enhancement, the commission felt it was appropriate to take some more time to look at whether those enhancements should apply, so there is an exception for isps with 100,000 or fewer
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subscribers. for those enhancements to the transparency rules a temporary exception, it will apply until our consumer governmental affairs bureau makes a decision about whether to retain it, and if so, what the cutoff should be. and there is a date certain in the order by which cgb will make that decision. >> what were the enhanced transparency requirements? >> just to revisit the original -- the transparency rule that exists today has three basic categories of information. commercial terms network practices, network performance. so they're targeted and the press release will go into some information about this there are target enhancements. for example, commercial terms we have said previously that requires price, here the commission makes clear that price includes any sort of additional fees, so a modem rental fee, an early termination fee, things like that, making frankly in some ways making
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explicit what was implied in the earlier rule. for example the rule already requires disclosure of network -- actual network performance. the commission has said speed and latency were two piece os of that. so things like that. incremental enhancements. >> not a further notice. this is a delegation of authority to the consumer and governmental affairs bureau to determine whether they will retain. we talked about the rule here. whether to retain and that and what the cutoff should be. it's not a further notice. >> i think there will be some
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process, but there will be some processes. >> thank you. >> the chairman said that the order doesn't go into specifics about plans like zero rating, but can you confirm that existing plans that are in place in. the market aren't affected? and then also in the future how is the fcc going to ensure every time a wireless carrier wants to make changes to their business model that they don't have to get the yes or no from the fcc about whether or not it's unreasonable? do they? will they? >> the answer to your first question that the chairman made clear that the item doesn't greater endorse or condemn any plans that are out there right now. i think as far as how the agency will look in the future, the item makes clear that there are positive aspects about programs like zero rating or sponsored
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data and there's some areas of concern. the product is more developed overseas. in the u.s. it hasn't fully formed and would be premature if there was a good or bad thing. the general conduct standard provides some guidance for the agency to make those determinations. i think the chairman referred to a competitive effect on innovation and user control as the types of things that would matter. so going forward if there's a plan of concern, it would be evaluated that way. >> "the l.a. times." i want to try again on some amount of specificity on when the order might be public. until it's public, it's a secret plan just in terms of dictionary definition. how long would it typically take for an order of this length to be made public? >> it's not a secret plan, jim. it's part of a process. the process began with a public notice of proposed rule making.
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a lengthy process of obtaining public comment. the normal process of deliberation. now we're going to go into the normal process by which commissioners issue decent and the commission responds to those. i want to explain the last piece. a recent d.c. circuit opinion said it was an obligation of a regulatory commission to engage in arguments including the statements of any descending commissioners. so we will work, as i said, as quickly as possible. it's not possible to give an average. at least it's not possible to give me an average, but our goal is to get the process moving forward so that the whole order can be released with all commissioner statements it can be sent o to the federal register, published and the
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rules will become effective 60 days after that publication. >> do the lengths of the dissent, is that more than you need to respond to? >> it's not a question of the length of the dissent it's a question of this. let me read from the circuit opinion to which i referred. this is the circuit saying i'm eliminating citations it most emphatically remains the duty of this court to ensure that an agency engaged the arguments raised before it includeing the arguments of the dissenting commissioners. we will do that as quickly as we can. >> i'm still a little out to see on the general conduct rule. would i be right to say you'll judge both interconnection and
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zero rate inging plans under the general conduct standards and a little more color on the standards? what are they? thank you. >> sure, i'll try again. the general conduct standard things like zero rating, i think one of the commissioners mentioned the cap usage and that type of thing would be evaluate ed and some of the factors under that standard are things like whether the practice has an effect on e competition or consumer protection. but those would be evaluated case by case based on the facts and record specific to those things. for interconnection, the commission for the first time asserted its jurisdiction over
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the inter. connection, but none of the rules that have been adopted for that internet access, the retail service apply to interconnection. >> therefore it sounds like jurisdiction of zero rating by saying you will judge them case by case. >> so the general conduct standard applies to the retail service that providers are offering to their end users. and as john explained, em pedestrianbedded in that is providers. so that general conduct standard is a rule. for interconnection, none of the rules we adopted apply. >> you'll judge those against some set of standards? >> those would be judged against
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sections 201 and 202. >> will carriers be required to come under the general product standards before or is this only after the fact if someone brings a complaint. >> there's no requirement to come to the fcc to seek approval. there are opportunities to do so if a provider wants to and there are opportunities for customers to file complaints if they want to but there's no requirement to come forward first. >> thank you. >> as you may know, the enforcement standardstçi8$gt!tw5k)>d)-ñe1
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that the commission applies or i should just say out loud the enforcement approach that the commission generally applies will be applied in these instances. so typically three ways that issues come to the commission's attention. the commission may see evidence of that in the public and initiate his own investigation. it may respond to an informal complaint. it may respond to a formal complaint. in any of these instances, they would be an investigation, factual determination. then if circumstances warranted, the staff would recommend to the commission what action should be taken that could include, for example, damages equitable relief and such investigations may end with a find. ing that there's no problem or sometimes with a settlement of the claim.
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what i refer to as the communications act the commission looks carefully at the nature and severity of offenses. in this circumstance, of course, will look to the question of what the new rules require as the starting point of any determination. >> when are these rules in effect? now or after they are published in the federal register? >> with one technical exception they will be effective 60 days after publication in the federal register. >> so they are not effective yet? >> correct. the technical exception is that the enhancement to the transparency rule, not the
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underlie underlying rule which is in effect today, the enhancement is subject to an omb review and will be effective after that review is concluded. but the conduct rule, the bright line rule, the general conduct rule of which julie spoke will be effective 60 days after publication in the federal register. >> to follow up on the question about advisory opinions or advice on services like zero rating any kind of internal clock for making this decision if you're going to offer them advice about whether there's a clock or something? >> there's not a mandatory requirement here. but the purpose of the advisory opinion process is to allow the enforcement bureau to offer nonbinding staff views of perspective actions. it's totally voluntary, nobody has to come to the fcc.
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if they do, then the goal would be to give them timely response so they can make what decisions they wish going forward. those advisories are not binding on the commission, but we believe in the circumstances they can be helpful. >> are going to be made public? >> that's a great question. >>. do these rules effect broad band sold to businesses? >> they do not. there's a single service that's the subject o of the commission's order called broad band internet access. that's a a retail service. no other service including enterprise broadband is included
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in in the scope of today's order. >> just to summarize, what you said is the three bright line rules do not apply to situations such as those between netflix and comcast. those will be subject to general conduct rule. that general conduct rule exists already and you can point to a statute where ekwe can read it? >> thanks for the question and the opportunity to clarify. so interconnection as julie mentioned, they are asserting authority to address disputes, which have the potential to harm consumers. that will be under title two. that's a general assertion of authority under title ii under reasonable standards. it's not under one of the rules adopted today. the rules today apply to what we call last mile management or
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traffic within the network. so interconnection under the general conduct standard. i wanted to mention something about the standard just to provide some perspective. this is not a new concept of having a standard for addressing concerns with practices that aren't banned by a bright line rule. in 2010 the commission said no blocking. then they adopted a case by case general conduct standard. what we're doing is although we have adopted a different standard, we're trying to get at the same goal as in 2010 of having a standard by which to address conduct that might be problematic but wouldn't be. appropriate for a bright line at this time. >> the standard itself this is what the chairman was mentioning. isp should not unreasonably
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interfere with or disadvantage the ability of potentially consumers to reach edge providers to offer services to consumers. the press relief will go into. more detail. it's really the unreasonable interference and disadvantage standards. >> google and others have expressed concerns about the implications of that being regulated. have you done anything to e lay those concerns or is that coming true? >> that goes back to something that the chairman was talking about. google did not express concern with the assertion of authority over interconnection. they were expressing concern over a particular aspect of the legal theory as to how to support what was going on in the order. . >> i think that's right. that's the way i read the letter.
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it was focused on how to use how to use title ii. not whether inter. connection should be reached. >>. in terms of interconnection, there's some suggestions about a ban on access or some specific language saying certain conduct would be considered unjust. >> the chairman mentioned we were very careful u to note that we were asserting authority under title ii over interconnection, but did not adopt specific standards to say this practice is okay that practice is not okay. but the commission said the first time it will have authority to step in as opposed to the past when we have been able to do is express concern, ask for information butñi not do
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anything more. >> exactly case by case. >> if it applies on the carrier's network to the consumer but doesn't apply to interconnection, if you were doing it out of congestion concerns, it would block it at the point and to let all that traffic on to your network and block it from being delivered. >> let me give you some background about why the order makes the distinction it does. it's been ten years in which the commission has thought about practices. but extensive experience enough experience to conclude here that there are certain kinds of activities like blocking, like
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throttling that we know it will cause harm. we have enough experience to praise the interference disadvantage test as a means of assessing other harm. the issues do not go as far back. so a couple of conclusions are clear. one is this is possible for an isp to engage in activities at the interconnection point that reflect the inability to curb communications between end users and edge providers. that's clear. secondly, there's quite a bit of controversy about recent disputes and who did what to whom and the commission doesn't resolve those. thirdly, the commission in looking at the just and
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reasonable task concludes that the best way to move forward is through a case by case consideration of particular circumstances with an understanding, and this is the fourth point, that of course the commission will be looking to see whether alleged practices undermine the values of an open internet. >> they argue that the chairman makes a sort of legal r or historical error when he talks about mobile voice being the model for and that congress expli sicily put mobile broad band under a different framework.broadband under a different
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framework. from defining as a rid owe service. can you explain to me how you guys sort of are changing the definitions or reversing the opinion and what underpins that? >> i can respond to that. we respectfully disagree with their analysis. we think that congress and the statute gives the congress explicit authority to define certain terms that have to do with how we define mobile broadband internet access service and based on what's happened in the market over the last ten years especially since 2007, we think that the definitions merit an update and a revision to reflect what's going. on in the marketplace and how consumers are using the technology and how the technology has developed. using the authority that congress gave us in the statute it's in the terms as the commission shall define. we reached that conclusion.
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>> thank you. >> judging in the standards we discussed earlier, what gets a practice before you? would it be a complaint? what do the proper solutions run up to? >> as i said before in answer to your question from over here, the commission noting itself that there's a practice in the market. place that seems to require attention or a complaint either formal or informal. at that point under any one of those three methods, the commission can begin to investigate. >> and then the possible end point? >> the possible end point is any of the outcomes that the enforcement bureau typically provides. including, as i noted before, a settlement or finding that there is no practice or a finding that the normal range of action should be taken if a practice of violating the legal standard.
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it's just a normal application of enforcement. >> i'm not a lawyer, so would i u be correct to say normal range there includes you guys stopping that? >> we can certainly take actions where we can assess and state that a practice is against the legal standard absolutely. >> would there be any sort of preapproval process? a number of people have talked about whether the fcc would have to come to get preapproval for offering? would that be part of that process? >> nobody has to come to the fcc to get preapproval of offerings. there is an opportunity written into the order for isps to come and seek guidance before they offer a service if they want to, but they certainly don't have
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to. >> any other questions? >> there was concerns expressed by carriers that the effect of the reclassification would be to change the rates under which they pay for attachments. can you clarify? >> absolutely. and we met with a numb of those providers that were raising that concern. what they are referring to for background for folks is the rates that utilities and other entities can charge for accessing the polls. that's something that congress gave authority to regulate along with industry's urging. the order makes clear that if the commission sees utilities attempting to use this it decision today as an excuse to impose some new rate the
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commission can and the commission will take definitive action. that was because we were very clear in what they were doing in applying the statute section 224 is we want to open up access to infrastructure for broadband. that includes, for example, google fiber said by having access to polls that will help us building new broadband. so the goal in applying the poll attachment rules is in fact, to let more people get affordable access to poll attachments, not for the rate to go up. the commission will take action. that builds on action the commission already took in 2011 to address rates that were too high on poll attachments. >> the company is attaching it
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should not change under which it's billed. is that what i'm hearing? >> the order is clear that the commission they took steps to try to bring the rates closer into parody. and the point is that that is the o goal that the commission will protect and will take action to protect. >> since we didn't have time to cover this, are there any questions on municipal broadbands? sounds good, thank you, everybody.
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good afternoon. we may have lost this fight but over the last three weeks we have won the debate. across the country americans have woken up to the dangers of government. regulation of the internet. they have spoken out against president obama's plan. i'm grateful to all of the people who have sent me supportive e-mails, tweets, posts, you name it expressing their support for my position and internet freedom. i thank the commissioner and all of those who have helped to explain the problems with president obama's plan. our setback today was expected, but i expect that it will be
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temporary. in the words of fitzgerald never confuse a single defeat for a final defeat. there are multiple bat. ls ahead and i believe that we will win the war. president obama's plan could be vacated by the courts, could be overturned by congress or could be rejected by a future commission. i'm confident that at least one of these things will happen. we will return to the bipartisan market oriented policies that have built a thriving internet that exists today. with that, we'd be happy to take your questions. >> do you believe companies should be able to charge for an internet fast line? >> that's an entirely hypothetical question. there's no fast lane today. you would search in vain in the 317 pages of this order to find any evidence that such is the case. so rather than chasing these hypothetical demons, i would rather focus on the actual state
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of the record. >> i'm open to exploring the opportunity. i don't want to prejudge it before we actually have some experience with it. it seems consistent with the former chairman on the issue. i don't -- i heard general council talk about how we have a decade of experience. i just don't see that. i'm open to having conversation and seeing what people are talking about and seeing if there's value to be had. >> that's also consistent with the chairman's views in 2013 at ohio state. >> so two parts to this.
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one, i brought my handy rule book down. the privileges don't exist in this document. i tried to figure out what is it we're granting to the bureau. the rules do provide a mechanism for making changes by the commissioners, not but the bureaus. and that was the question that they were saying that the court had suggested that they do have a right to respond to the commissioners, but that's not in our rules. if some commissioner wants to agree to have a change to the document to respond to our complaint, let them put their name on it. we have had a a problem making changes to the text of the document when i have a problem when they make changes to the document to reflect arguments that they didn't make didn't think about.
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we make a good argument and they get to do that without input from the commissioners. >> just a very simple question. what do you commissioners do next? >> in life or? i think the public education function will have to continue in part because so much of this has remained under wraps. i think the last two press conferences are ill straightive of the fact that you have to ask about what the fcc just voted on. you heard statements, yet still had to learn about the basic details of what is in this plan. i think so long as this plan remains in flux and there are different interpretations of it certainly for myself i will continue to speak out about what i think is overreaching
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government regulation of the internet that jeopardizes bipartisan consensus that dates back to the clinton administration. >> i couldn't agree many more with my colleague. what i heard from the press conferences were that most of the specifics haven't been addressed. they are very vague. intention tallally vague, so i have to figure out what the commission is doing and making sure that it's actually consistent with what we have adopted or that what the protection are they imposing to stop some practice or behavior that we might find beneficial. we're going to spend a lot of time trying to decipher what is meant by the general conduct rule and all the other things they have invented. we have to figure out what the heck the new guidance is going to be. advisory guidance from the bureau that has no value. it's nonbind inging. and you actually have to be
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either offering the practice or in the course of getting ready to offer it. it can't be hypothetical. you have to be in alliance. so as soon as you offer it the enforcement bureau can impose fines on you for doing just that very thing. we have a backwards continual process for years on this in addition to the court process. >> just a a real quick follow-up. i think i saw some press reports earlier today saying that you guy. s had not submitted changes to the draft order. can you confirm that for me? >> so the first change we suggested was the publication of the document, which was repeatedly rejected. beyond that, we have been told by the white house that the plan was title ii. i oppose title ii. under no circumstances would i nibble around the edges in terms of allowing the fcc to inject
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itself into the internet economy. the chairman has been clear that he does not want the input of republican commissioners when it comes to the proposal. title ii was the proposal so there was no room for negotiation. secondly if i could also fallollow up on riley's point about where we go going forward in terms of public education. i think you saw -- i would be interested to see today how you try to write stories about what the fcc just did. you were told these rules are even stronger than what president obama suggested. on the other hand you were told that this is light touch regulation that won't affect a dime of consumer revenues that they have derived have consumers. you're told the standard sets a clear marker for people in the private sector so they can't pursue any competitive
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practices. on the other hand the standard disadvantages anyone who uses the internet. we don't really know. how will the fcc judge these things? quote, we will sit there as a referee and throw the flag. what does that mean? if you were an entrepreneur, what does that mean? if you're a company looking to make a splash you don't know. i frankly don't know. it's the whole point. it's uncertainty generated by the nontransparency of the proposal. it's going to desuede people from offering innovative and procompetitive options to the american consumer. >> do you have any legal obligation obligations to enforce them? if a bright line violation can you just decide not to enforce it because you don't like the
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rules? >> the constitution imposes a duty to take care of the laws to be faithfully executed. that constitutional obligation obviously applies to the executive branch. the s.fcc has to determine. all i would say is while -- i certainly disagree with the regulatory approach we have taken here and it depends on the particular case. who knows how it's going to pursue its authority. parts of it aren't even going to rise to the level of the full commission. as the commissioner pointed out, the advisory framework is something that's been delegated to the enforcement bureau. the decisions made are made on their own. the decisions won't be made available to the commissioners. that is substantiative regulation being done at the level that the five of us will never have a chance to see.
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>> first of all, my staff at my request did ask a number of fundamental questions on what the basis was once we had the document and sought the answers from the staff. the answers we got back were not only not sufficient, they didn't answer the question we wanted. then at the point, they were not actionable. we got to the point where we were so frustrated it wasn't an opening to submit pages and pages of changes. there's such fundamental disagreement with the direction of this item that it's problematic to seek how you could make this item better. there are a lot of components that i would have sought to have change. i think a litany of things are outrageous and you can see my statement. if you get to your second
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question in terms of what we have to do we'll have a process going forward. i suspect some provider is going to seek a court stay. we have to go through a number of rounds. if at that point, we'll have to see what it is because there's so much vagueness provided under this item. so much authority provided to determine -- you heard that from the press conference just before. . does an isp have to come before you? they don't have to come before us to get approval. no one is obligated to come before us. they are all existing plans grandfathered. no we're not saying that either. so it's a wide open field on what could be viewed as problematic going forward. >> you have talked about how the report is 3200 pages and
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criticize how it's not published. can you give us context and how long regulation usual uly is to the public before a vote? >> 332 pages. >> how long is regulation usually? >> it depends on the item itself. you had an auction that's quite large and some items that go by circulation. so it fluctuates depending on the item. usually items that we deal with here take an average between 70 pages is not unusual. i read them all. i would say somewhere in that ballpark for an item we consider. there are some that fluctuate more substantially u. i want to know how often is it published and is this abnormally long for even major things like
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the incentive auction. >> that's a great question. it has been made public. the chairman published in november 2007 the ownership proposal, which was voted on december 18th of 2007. to be sure the chairman is right. standard practice is not to publicly release documents that they are going to be voting on at public meetings until the document has been adopted. but i would argue for a number of reasons that if ever there were a reason to e depart from that practice, this is it. we heard from a a variety of people inhow critical the internet economy is. how fundamental it is to american life. the fcc is going to take its own proponents today. at least the american people should be given a chance to see what is in there. more over there's something going around that it's only eight pages regulations, what's the big deal? number one, eight pages if you
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could see the regulations, they are quite detailed. it's not apparent how they operate without some context. and you heard relative to the answers to your questions, it's unclear how those are going to be applied. there's a number of pages in the documents describing how these rules are going to be enforced. more over those arevk k
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make ing making that the fcc arrogates to itself that makes this problematic. >> with public meetings that's right. typically the chairman will circulate a document proposal to the commissioners three weeks in advance of the meeting. documents not made public, and i think commissioner has put it well. he's spoken out eloquently about the fact that from the perspective of accountability, it seems odd to most americans that the agency would adopt far reaching regulations and only then allow the american people to see what's in it. >> i want to follow up. this document was not made public. i wish it was. i made a larger push that we make all items that are made available for open meetings publicly available. we can put them on our website. i have two blogs on this issue. i have highlighted the arguments that people respond to me with.
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it's going to be a violate of the apa. i have gone through those arguments at length in my blog to try to shoot them down. the truth of the matter is it's a resource management issue. under the current rules, the chairman has the right to make those documents available if he so chooses. here he chose not to and i suspect he's going to continue that course of action. >> ever since the journal story came out, you referred to this as president obama's plan. to look back at the story it seems like when it describes the parallel in the white house, it's referring to an independent body generating the policy recommendation that the president ultimately came up with. the idea of title ii with forbearance is not unique to president obama. so is there any reason you have
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to believe that the white house did exert undo influence here? >> all i can say is what has been publically reported and what we have heard from the white house itself. if you look online today, net neutrality, president obama's plan for a free and open internet. further on down, i u ask the fcc to implement this plan. the notion that president obama's plan to regulate the internet is somehow hyperbolic is absurd. you just heard in the prior press conference that for the first time the agency is asserting jurisdiction over interconnection. you can o not have it both ways. you can't say that they are defending every aspect of the internet second guessing, adopting rules of stronger than those have that have ever been adopted before yet still say we're not regulating the internet. . so i think the phrase speaks for itself and it has complete substantiatation in what has
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been reported. >> you said it was odd that the commission was taking this route and the only ruling that the states could not preempt once authority was given that broadband be allowed to -- network be allowed to put somewhere it can't go everywhere. >> so i think what i was talking about was the juxtaposition of the agency's position. . number one that it had the power to preempt restrictions on broadband short of a prohibition. yet at the same time, conceded that the fcc would lack the power to adopt to preempt flat out bans on broadband.
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if tennessee said chattanooga this order appears to contemplate that they would lack the authority to do anything about it. but tennessee restricted the expansion of the broadband projects beyond the service areas. we do have the authority. ironically it would have the proverse impact of desueding municipalities precisely because the state would say if we give any power to municipality it would preempt it if we thought we were setting it too narrowly. under the supreme court's i don't see a way to thread that
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need needle. >> the question they wanted answered was where could they go outside of their existing.kcy reach? that's a question that i think the supreme court is very clear. the agd si can't grant authority over it may authorize to operate. that's something that's problematic and states have pushed back on and we're going to see a challenge on that part. >> there's been a lot of fire5tçg on this debate. do you think the well has been poisoned between you and the chairman's office? has it been crossed here and how this process has been carried out that you can walk back or are we going to show up next month and it's going to be football jokes?
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>> we never joke about football here. the kansas city chiefs are america's team and that's no laughing matter. but look i have been very consistent. i have been at this agency for two andw$ñ a half years and worked under the chairman every single month on every issue. i figure out is there some way u to reach a consensus. then i'll offer my separate views. i don't see the wells being poisoned. i don't think of the chairman -- i hope the chairman doesn't bare me ill will and whatever is on tap next we're going to approach it with an open mind. the whole point is we have to work on a variety of matters on which reasonable people can disagree and often do and those should be cabined within the four corners of the document we're voting on.
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>> i would look forward to my friendship even if we disagree on items. this is a fundamental shift for the agency. it's problematic not only to where we got today, but if i don't ask you to violate your principles, there's plenty in the middle where we can all agree on. they have not only asked us to violate principle they ran over our principles. i will certainly continue to work as best i can. we are going to be tied up in the questions that are applicable in this item.
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i hope that's not the case. >> back on the broadband, it seems like a lot of the objection is about jurisdiction. do you have problems building their own networks? >> i just don't agree with it personally. that's for something for the states to authorize and something for congress to authorize if they want us to preempt. my opinion doesn't matter. i don't get the write the law. that's for congress to do. i don't believe it's fundamental to the u.s. economy to have state acting not only as sometimes the regulator but also as the participant in the market actor. it has ability to manipulate how it enters the marketplace and what it does to the competition. it has the rights of way. it is the overseer of rights of
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way. so it coan take advantages of that. you're talking about taxpayer dollars being put at risk in many of these instances. they have had failures. so taxpayers have losses because of this. so i have fundamental problems, but it's not for my job to decide if they should or shouldn't exist. >> other presidents have publicly urged to take action. president bush on media ownership, president clinton. what was wrong with president obama publicly urging the fcc to do what as the chairman said the president has a been talking about for years? and what evidence do you have that there was any sort of -- that it went beyond what other presidents have done? >> a few different responses to that point. first, anybody who knows this agency and has followed it for a long time and who does not have
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an ideology in this fight will readily admit that the president's announcement on november 10th was unprecedented. it was unpress debited in terms o of its nature, in terms ofzé the setting it was made. very long statement and youtube video. and in terms of its specificity. when a president comments on a matter it will urge the fcc to look at a particular issue for example. here the president spestied not only what specific rules he wanted the fcc to implement but even the legal theory the foundation for those rules, that is something that i have never seen either in my capacity as a commissioner or previously as a staffer in the general council. i think that is what concerned me. i think if you were able to look in. the archives you would see memos
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during the bush administration from certain things that i apined an independent agency is independent for a reason. although an executive agency can act consistent with executive order, we have to make our own determination. second, what is unusual about this is it came in the wake of a very unusual administrative process. everybody knows what the fcc proposed in may because we published it. it was an approach that explicitly u minimized the importance of title ii relative to that discussion. the public outcry against that proposal was strong. however, it's been publically reported that through the spring well into the summer, that was the preferred approach. then it was reported that leadership was a hybrid
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solution. 706 proposal nor this hybrid solution was anything with title ii. when the president made the announcement, there's no question it dramatically changed the calculous throughout the country. once the president of the united states tells you i don't like a, that you proposed. i want c and magically the agency proposes c. you don't have to be fern gully to figure out what happened. that's part of the unfortunate part of this process. the american people never got to have a say once the agency shifted course to implement this plan. . that's part of the reason it was publically reported that the agency was debating whether or not to put this new plan out for public comment. they hadn't been contemplating going down this road before. the agency chose not to do that but i think you're going to see some significant battles in. the federal courts over whether
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under the administrative procedure acts sufficient notice was given that title ii was going to happen. a 317-page document adopting title ii regulations springing from two paragraphs i don't know which way a court is going to go on that. i knowdo know. the american people have made it loud and clear they wanted to have more input. >> i will answer it this way. i have been working on communication policy r for 20 years. i have never seen involvement from an administration like this activity. secondly, in terms of the specific evidence i think that's something that the congressional body is looking at and you look forward to whatever you may have come up with. i have had conversations with folks that said my colleague highlight ued that they were talking about the highybrid. model and set up meetings to do the hybrid model that the very
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week that the president pulled the rug out under their feet. i don't have evidence to that fact that something for the body to search throui2nf and the congressional oversight. >> what's your message for congress? you talk to senator thune's committee. what's your message? >> our message on this issue or generally? >> on this issue. >> i think certainly don't want to pine on particular legislation, but there are legislative u efforts to -- if there are legislate i have efforts to overturn the decision or deny funding to the agency to implement it, then that's something that the agency has to respect. >> i also want to get into some
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of the more fundamental and long standing conversations that we should have over process reform. it's not just about one item. when i talk about releasing the items, they should be on a monthly basis. it's not about net neutrality. it's all about things. hopefully we'll have a fuller conversation. >> is there anyone not sitting at the table that has a question? >> first off, thanks for taking all these questions. the commissioner said that the document was 332 pages originally and now it's 317. what got taken out? >> i don't know how much i can reveal without sharing nonpublic information. what has been publicly u reported is that in response to a last-minute submission from a major california-based company an entire core part of the
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document was removed with respect to access service. google was up front that this was a, quote nonexistent service and that the fcc insisted on pursuing this, quote, imaginary service classification. it should do x, y and z for judicial review. that's a major part of it. we only got revised document 36 hours ago. it has a number of changes that may have some more given their privileges so stay tuned. >> that's my understanding. i would say there are a number of versions that were circulating in the last 24 hours and 12 hours somewhere in that range, that changes were being made. so certainly that's one big component that you have read and some of my colleagues talked about in their statements.
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>> is there anything you'd like to see done in terms of process that might improve that a bit? i know some of the bills have included that kind of thing. >>. there are a lot of good ideas to improve the process. that's something for congress to decide. i don't want to get ahead of them. certainly the idea that's in legislation is that three members who are not the chairman have a right to put something on the agenda. that would be something that a number of items that have been in forums where we have generally agreed intellectually that wo we would be supportive of something. revitalization that we are sympathetic towards not to lock anyone in, but there seems to be three votes for that. but i haven't seen any activity
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that would suggest that some time is coming soon. that would be something on the agenda. that's one idea of many more. i have been using my experience and not only in the last year, but also in my old hat to try to think of things to improve the process here. >> there are two different category. s of process reform. things that the fcc can do without action from congress and there are things we need congressional authorization to be able to do. with respect to the first bucket i proposed a number of changes that would improve the agency's operation regardless of the political affiliation. such things as a process r for handling applications for review. i'm grateful to the chairman and to diane cornell for adopting that proposal to speed the consideration of some of these applications. some languish on the floor for a decade. there are a number of other things they can do to allow the american public to see how many petitions for reconsideration
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pending any given time when they were filed if they were disposed of, what was the disposition et cetera. a number of states have done this. that would be a great thing for us to do. with respect to the bucket of things we need congressional authorization, there are two major pieces of legislation. process reform act and consolidated reporting act. each has an effect on the way this agency works. just to give you an example, i saw this as a staffer because i was running point on it. there were any number of reports that we are required to compile that takes up a lot of time and resources and no one ever reads. the orbit act, i would be happy to send you my statement about that. over a decade ago, told them to privatize it. but. you have to report every single year. nonetheless, every year like clockwork we get this report.
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a lot of staffers have to handle. those common sense streamlining proposals don't know any partisan advantage. this is somethi to say last year by 415-0. i hope that congress passes it, and that the president signs it. there are a number of other process reforms things, as well. getting more to the gist of your proposal, though, i think there has to be an openness to accommodating minority commissioners that have well-founded substantive views that do not alter the core of the preferred proposal, and the example i can consistently give is erate. i was up front about the plan li to modernize the system so it was fair tore low income schools and libraries. i understand the chairman didn't like that plan, but working within this framework in the summer of 2014 i said look, here are a number of different changes and i'm not crazy about it, but in the spirit of com from myself i would be willing to adopt them. at the 11th hour, i was told
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before the friday sorry, you're going to be shut out and we've seen that process over and over again and in the incentive auction of 2014. i made 12 suggestions and it fundamentally altered the core of the document. nonetheless, i was told, no no no, no no, no no, and maybe. i mean, one of the suggestions i had that was shot down was extending the comment deadlines because this is such a complex document that i thought the american people deserved more time to digest it and give us informed feedback. i was told exblessplicitexplicitly, no, that would have the option. and they did it again after that, so what am i left to conclude? i'm sorry? [ inaudible question ] >> distracted by how aws3. >> no. not at all, if you talk to the people that were affected how does dynamic reserve pricing work? how does the structure of this
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option play out? those are complicated issues for people to understand and nonetheless, it's one thing to turn around comments on am radio as much as we love it and it is not the most complex issue in the world and for something like dynamic pricing to how it works and how you are able to participate in the auction. the only thing i am left to conclude with something as mundane as comment deadlines is the fact that the proposal is being made by a republican. if you look at my track record with chairman gronkowski and clyburn, each though i didn't necessarily agree with the overall framework that the commission was adopting and unless agreed to adopt it and work within it to improve the document. i like chairman wheeler and i get along with him personally and i hope to have a collaborative spirit going forward, but at this point, we are shut out in matters of significance. >> can i follow up on my own
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answer and that is that my colleague is completely right. there are things we can do by ourselves internally and there are things that will require congressional changes to the statute. there are things that i have and there are items and ideas that i've raised so far they wish were getting better attention internally, and that's something that congress is going to look at. cost benefit analysis is woefully done in this institution and i've highlighted that with a number of items and i've talked about the flexibility act and how weak our responses are into that and we dedicate time to it. it's very a matter of fact if you actually read what we put into an item on regulatory flexibility act analysis and there are things that, you know, i wish we would improve ourselves, but if they don't i think they're both items that the congress will tackle. >> yes? going back to the morning item. did you guys make any specific
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suggestions that were either taken or disregarded with regard to the morning item? i know it was more -- i guess for the commission granting petition, and of course, you guys were not for the overall granting since it seems to overstep the states, but -- yeah. >> for me the threshold question was a very simple legal one. does the fcc have the power under the constitution and the laws of the united states to preempt the state laws at issue? having answered that question for myself in the negative, was theren't really a way to reach a consensus that issue. i believe based on my reading of the statutes in questions and the precedence interpreting preemption that the fcc drpt have the power to do what it did, and it never got to the point of making such suggestions. >> i made public my objections to the scope of this item long
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ago. there's a blog item you can see on my web page that highlights all of the different activities that are reasonable that we're overrunning today and if there was one thing that we could have done and doesn't seem to be willing to do for whatever reason is focus the petitions filed before us. i met with the city of wilson and asked him those questions. do you have a problem with this this and this and all of the different components? and no we're okay with all of those. we want to deal with the territory. i'm there, and i don't think we have authority to help you there. i'm sorry. it's not my -- it's not my ability to change that scenario. that's something congress can do or the states and they said that they're already working and trying to get something moving and the states weren't having much success. >> is that all? >> commissioner they seem to agree a lot but do you agree that kansas city chiefs are america's team? >> it's on the line. >> i would only say since my team has not done very well and
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probably may not do well in the future that i probably don't have a lot of room to talk. >> that's the bills right? >> that's true. >> thank you very much, everyone. >> thank you. >> i'm sorry i didn't say hello. i came in late. >> we met before. so many championships. >> fcc commissioner aji pie on your screen, one of the two republican member, michael
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o'reilly and commissioner pay holding a news conference of the federal communications commission to approve tom wheeler's open internet proposal. you also saw a news conference with the fcc staff members and the chairman earlier. "the new york times" reporting on today's fcc action this way, the federal communications commission voted thursday9ç to regulate broadband internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed internet service into american homes. the new rules approved 3-2 along party lines and the two republicans dissenting are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the internet is not divided into pay to play fast lanes for internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept. again, that from the new york times reporting of today's fcc
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action. we've been asking for your opinion today with this question. do you think the internet should be considered a public utility? you can logon to our facebook page at facebook.com/c-span to leave more comments or tweet us use the #cspanchat. todd writes no. it is privately paid for by individual customers or corporate customers and it responds to market forces to meet needs fairly precisely. >> susan writes, definitely. if the republicans have their way it would cost more and the poor will only be able to afford slower internet. again, you can join the conversation at facebook.com/c-span or on twitter. if you missed any of today's fcc meeting it will be available online at cspan.org and it will air at 9:00 p.m. eastern time on our companion network cspan 2. >> here are some of our featured
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programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. on c-span2's book tv saturday night at 10:00 p.m. eastern on afterwards allen ryskind talks about the communist party in hollywood during the 1930s and sunday at noon on in-depth, our live three-hour conversation with harvard law professor and author lonny gwynn ear. lift every vice and the miner's canary. on american history tv on c-span3 on the civil war. a discussion of the burning of columbia, south carolina following the surrender of the city to union general william sherman and his troops in 1865, and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on oral histories, an interview with former consultant to the nixon white house daniel elsburg on the pentagon papers. a classified study on vietnam which he copped and gave to "the
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new york times" in 1971. find our complete schedule on c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or comments@c-span.org or or #comments. like us on facebook follow us on twitter. coming up later today at 5:00 p.m. eastern time we'll bring you live conk of the winter meeting of cpac, the conservative political action conference. this afternoon you'll hear from republican governor scott walker and bobby jindal as well as former alaska governor and republican vice presidential nominee sarah palin. live coverage again at 5:00 p.m. eastern time here on c-span3. now, though, some of the cpac event from earlier today beginning with dr. ben carson. ♪ ♪
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♪ >> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you. i am absolutely delighted to be here once again, and it seems like each time i'm here we're getting closer to critical time periods in our country. you know i started to talk about all of the failures of the current administration, but i figured that was too depressing and you know it's so depressing. i think that's why they always try to rename everything and redefine everything and it's probably why they're ready for hillary, too.
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it's interesting to me how the left in particular loves to relabel and name things. for instance, if you're pro-life then you're anti-woman. if you're pro-traditional family then you're a homophobe. if you're white and oppose a progressive black person, you're a racist. if you're black and you oppose a progressive agenda you're crazy, and if you're black and if you oppose a progressive agenda and you're pro-life and you're pro-family they don't even know what to call you. i mean, you end up on some kind of watch list for extremists. unbelievable, but you know what? we're not going to pay attention to that. [ applause ]
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what we do have to pay attention to is how do we use the incredible brains that god gave us to recognize when things don't work and to recognize when things do work and to fix problems. for instance you think about there's a large number of people in our country who are the downtrodden, and how do we treat them? well starting in the '60s with the great society programs, we figured if we just threw money at the problem and we had all these welfare programs that we could solve the problems. what has happened since then? in 19691.4% of our population was on foot stamps. today, more than 14% are on food stamps, a tenfold increase. we have more broken families, out of wedlock birth
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incarceration, crime. everything that these programs were supposed to fix have gotten worse. so what do people do about that? intelligent people would look at that and they would say we need to change course. people who -- [ applause ] people who perhaps failed to utilize their intellect all capability would look at that and say we need to do it more. we didn't do enough and you know, that's the difference, but we need to move in a very different direction. we need to understand what true compassion is in order to reach out to individuals who think that maybe being dependent is reasonable as long as they feel safe and it isn't. it really is not compassionate to pat people on the head and say there, there you poor little thing. i'm going to take care of all your needs your healthcare and
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your food and your housing. don't you worry about anything because there are all those bad people who are causing your problem, and i'm going to fix it. that's not compassion. that's the opposite of compassion. that is making people dependent. what real compassion is is using our intellect to find ways to allow those people to climb out of dependency and realize the american dream and that's what we need to be thinking about. [ cheers and applause ] it's about investing in our fellow human beings just like muhammad eunice who won a nobel prize in 2006 with his program of microlending lifted millions of people out of poverty in bangladesh in that area of the world, and you know we are very smart people and we're very
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compassionate people and we need to find out how do we strengthen the fabric of this country and it is our responsibility to take care of the indigent. it is not the government's responsibility. [ cheers and applause ] >> some people say well it doesn't sound very compassionate. it is compassionate. i was in the airport and a lady came down next to me an african-american lady and said i really like what you have to say. it makes sense, but why don't you want people to have health care? i said you've been listening to the propaganda. there's all this propaganda. i want everyone to have health care. we spend twice as much, and we have turbo access problems inefficiency, and we can do so much better and that's why i've advocated a system and i hope
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congress will listen very carefully to what i'm about to say because they need to grasp a health care alternative before they try to remove obamacare if they really want to get some traction, and what i'm talking about -- [ applause ] >> what i'm talking about is health savings account system. they work extremely well and available for everybody. we don't force people into them and i tell you, when people see how these work you won't have to force them into it and there are a variety of different ways to pay for it, but even the indigent and that's what i want to talk about because she said i don't care about poor people. we can fund the indigent how? we spend $400 billion a year according to the heritage foundation on medicaid, $400 billion a year. a quarter of our people are involved with medicaid and that's $80 million. divide $80 million into 400
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400,000,500,000. and you can put everyone in and have billions in healthcare. that's how wasteful we are. that's how wasteful we are. we don't have to use that much money, but i'm giving you an example of what we're doing and even asking for more. it really isn't the affordable healthcare. it's not affordable and it is absolutely about redistribution and control, and if we really want to use our intellect we would come up with somebody that wants to work for everyone. it makes a difference. what are the things that will destroy us as a nation. our debt, 18.1 trillion and rising. we need to get out of the mindset that says because the debt didn't go up as fast in
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this quarter it's a victory. the debt needs to be going down. the size of government needs to be going down. we need to be able to deal with that in a logical way. [ applause ] the other thing that threatens to destroy us radical islamic terrorists all over the world. [ cheers and applause ] >> and let's not get distracted by just isis. we need to recognize that the shia in iran are every bit as dangerous and perhaps more dangerous and we can take our eye off the ball as they develop nuclear weapons and we also need to recognize that we have friends over there and let's not turn our back on israel. let's listen to netanyahu and liss hear what he has to say. [ cheers and applause ] >> but i have so many things to talk about and only 12 minutes to do it and now i'm just down
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to just three or four, but you know, what am i for? what am i really ready for? i'm not ready for hillary, but what i am ready for -- i'm ready for a country that puts our constitution on the top shelf. every part of it. [ cheers and applause ] and for those that have any doubt, that includes the second amendment. i'm for a country where we take the restraints off the most dynamic economy the world has ever known. let that economic engine work for us. i'm for a country where we develop our natural energy resources. we have been blessed with them. let's not make that a curse. that's a wonderful thing. and it doesn't mean that we can't also look for alternatives and take care of the environment. some people think it's one or the other.
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it's not one or the other and that's why godl'ci gave us these fancy brains so we can do more than one thing at one time, you know? i'm ready for leadership on the world stage not just sitting around and waiting to see what other people do. i'm for -- i'm ready for school choice choice you know? we need to recognize that education is the great liberator in our country. no one needs to be a victim. i'm for putting health care in our hands and not in the hands of some bureaucrat and for balancing our budget and for a fair taxation system that allows us to get rid of the irs. [ cheers and applause ] >> and for a strong military wasn't it wonderful seeing those cadets from the citadel? [ cheers and applause ] >> and for taking care of our
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veterans the way they should be taken care of, and for honesty and integrity and common sense and courage because courage is what we really need. we don't -- we shouldn't submit to the pc police and to people who are trying to control us by intimidation and by irs audits and by messing with your job. you know the only reason they can do that is because we sit silently by. that's what they want us to do. we have to stop sitting silently by and not expressing ourselves. in the pre-revolutionary days our ancestors, they got together, they talked about what kind of country do they want. what were they willing to fight for and they did fight for it. we need to be willing to fight for it the baton is now in our
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hands. we need to talk to our uncle who hasn't voted in 27 years. go to your grandmother who is an invalid and make sure she has an absentee ballot and help her fill it out. the baton is ours. freedom is not free. it must be fought for and remember, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, but you cannot be free if you're not brave. thank you very much. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. thank you. now -- i think -- i think we're going to have for the first time at cpac we'll have a little q and a. >> yes. i'm here dr. carson. good morning.
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>> hi. >> hi. please behave for me. this is my first time doing this. we actually have conservatives all across the country via twitter sending questions for you to answer, and as you all know, it's a different format this year. so anyone that the media perceives as a presidential candidate will be subjected to these same questions and answers. >> no problem. >> let's start with the first question, and the question is what is your specific plan for national security and managing the threat against isis? >> okay. well, the key thing is concept. you have to recognize that if i decide to run, and if i were in the office of president i have to say those things i would recognize that there is a role for the commander in chief and his staff and that is to define the mission. what is the mission? the mission is recognizing that
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we have radical islamic terrorist groups in their adolescent stage that wish to destroy us. we have two choices. we can wait and see what they're going to do and react to it or we can destroy them first, and what i would -- the mission that i would give our military is to destroy them first, and i wouldn't tie their hands and let them get it done. [ cheers and applause ] >> are you ready for the second question? >> okay. that was good. the second question is how do you plan to restore the american dream and make us feel more united and less divided? >> well first of all, i think the bully pulpit and the position of the presidency is very, very important because it sets the tone and you know, we have a nation now where we have
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people in the highest levels who exacerbate the division. you know, they've created a war on women, race wars and income wars, age wars, religious wars. you name it, there is a war on it. the real enemies in our country are the people who are the purveyors of division no matter where they are and i think -- i think we have to call them out on that and recognize when we say a nation with liberty and justice for all, all means all. that means everybody. it means we don't pick and choose the laws that we want to enforce. we don't pick and choose the people that we want to favor. everybody gets treated the same and when our policies are that way and when our leadership begins to talk that way i think we're making a dramatic
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difference for our nation. >> thank you. thank you. we're moving right along here. you're good. so the next question is a simple one, but a complicated one and an important one. how do you feel about common core? >> well, i think as i mentioned before education is the great divide in our country. it doesn't matter what your ethnic background or any other background, you get a good education, you write your own ticket. now, the best education is the education that is closest to home, and i have found that, for instance, home schoolers do the best, private schoolers next best, charter schools are the next best and public schoolers worse. so that's why we need school choice. common core is not school choice. i do believe in standards but those standards obviously are set by parents and people who do home schooling or they wouldn't be doing so well.
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those standards obviously are set in our private schools and our public schools need to learn how to compete with that, but they don't need some central government telling them how to do it. [ applause ] >> okay. this is going to be the last question just because your answers are so succinct and concise. >> i'm a surgeon. [ laughter ] >> okay. so the last question is how do you plan to bring your message to the minority community and make them feel more included and also how do you plan on making them feel inclusive? >> i think the key is to tell them the truth, you know. no more of this hiding what's going on and to -- see what i want people to have is real freedom and to have real prosperity and you know i hear
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some people saying well, carson, when he was a kid, you know he benefitted from welfare and all this stuff and now he wants to get rid of it. i'm not interested in getting rid of a safety net. i'm interested in getting rid of dependency, and i want us to find a way to allow people to excel in our society, and as more and more people hear that message they will recognize who is truly on their side and who is trying to keep them suppressed and cultivate their votes. thank you. >> dr. carson we thank you for your remarks this morning and good luck to you. >> thank you. ♪ ♪ ♪
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thank you very much. it's a beautiful day in america. for those of you i haven't had a chance to meet yet, name is mike leigh, and i am not running for president. [ applause ] now i think i'm one of a very few people who can say that today and at least have any of you believe me in saying it, but that's exactly why i'm here, and i think it's part of the reason why i was asked to speak at the very beginning of the program today. as i see it, i have a different task up here than a lot of the other speakers today. i'm here to talk very candidly with you as one conservative not running for president to another conservative not running for president, and i'm here to talk to you about the immense task that lies before us over the next year or so because you and
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i, we have a job to do. i hope everyone here realizes that because over the next year and a half everyone in this room, for every single one of us, it's going to be our job very very soon to choose the next president of the united states of america. [ applause ] >> now that's going to be our job, if, that is, we're up to it. so i'm asking you right now what do you think? are we up to it? [ applause ] are we as conservatives, ready to pick the next great president of the united states? are you sure? i hope so because, let's be very, very honest here for a minute. in recent years we haven't been. since ronald reagan left the white house in 1989 we've had
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six presidential elections. my party's nominee the republican nominee, has lost the popular vote in five of those last six presidential elections. i'm here to tell you, if we don't choose a serious, principled conservative in 2016, that number is going to be six out of seven and we can't let that happen. those are the stakes. now for the conservatives running for president, the hardest part of their job will begin on january 20, 2017. that sounds great, by the way, doesn't it? the hardest part of their job will begin the day they take the oath of office. the day they assume the presidency, but for those of us conservatives who are not running for president, the hardest part of our job starts right now. now is the time right now before the campaign truly begins in earnest, for us to think long
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and hard about the kind of candidate that we're looking for. about the kind of candidate that we want, the kind of candidate that the country needs. i've been thinking a lot about that, lately, and if it's all right, i would like to tell you about the kind of leader that i'm looking for and why i think you might look for him or her, too, right along with me. principled, positive and proven. it seems to me that conservatives need to be looking for these three characteristics looking for a candidate who is principled, positive and proven. so let's go through each of these individually. first, what does it mean to be principled? i think it means that you're being a conservative every sickle day and not just during the campaign. principled means there are no buts in your conservative communication as if i'm personally pro-life but -- or i
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want to repeal obamacare, but -- a principled conservative doesn't hide behind talking points. he tells you what he thinks and he tells you why. that's not to say that we all have to agree on every single issue because we don't and we won't. serious conservatives disagree on issues all the time and real conservatives don't run from these disagreements, in fact, we embrace them and we run toward them and speaking at this very conference in 1977, rob ald reagan explained the importance of 6+[pen, robust dialogue, not only as a way to purify the conservative movement but more importantly as a way to expand it. here's what he said. he said, quote if we truly believe in our principles we should sit down and talk. talk with anyone anywhere at any time if it means talking about the principles for the republican party. conservatism is not a narrow
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ideology nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists. this is crucial for us to remember as we make our choices in 2016. very often you can learn a lot more about a candidate when he disagrees with you than when he agrees impeach when a principled conservative disagrees with you on an issue he admits it. he admits it right up front and he has an authentically conservative reason for doing so. you see, that's how you can tell the difference between someone who is a conservative on the stump on the one hand and on the other hand, someone who is truly a conservative in his head and in his heart all the time. okay, so that's principled and we talked about what it means to be principled. next, let's talk about what it means for a candidate to be positive. a great man once said that a true soldier fights not because he hates what's in front of him,
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but rather because he loves what's behind him. conservatives need to hold to this exact same standard because true conservatism isn't just about the kind of government we don't want. it's about the kind of country we do want. this has been true ever since america's founding. as much as we honor it, the boston tea party was just a protest. traumatic and inspirational and necessary, yes absolutely, but it was also inherently limited in its effect. today, the boston tea party would be remembered at best as only a minor footnote in history. if that very same generation of american, that same generation of americans whose patriots boarded ships in boston harbor and seized tea, english tea and cast it into the lasher in symbolic protest in overtaxing
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and overregulated government they did not want, it would have only been a footnote in history if that same generation of americans had not made their way to philadelphia 14 years later to write the constitution our 227-year-old founding document. [ applause ] >> like our founding patriots the positive conservative i'm looking for can tell us more about what he's against. he will always tell us what he's for. he's got a plan. he has specific political ideas about how to unite and grow our coalition and he has specific policy ideas to reform our government. now, he doesn't hesitate to tell you in specific and concrete terms exactly what those ideas are. specificity here is crucial. it's critical and it's
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essential. generalizations and abtractionstractions are the province of candidates who say one thing on the campaign trail, but do quite another thing once they're in office. so if conservatives truly want a government that is of by and for the people we need to demand that our candidates tell us specifically how they'll fix our tax code, how they'll reform our broken health care and education systems. how they'll put an end to corporate welfare like the export/import bank and too big to fail wall street banks. [ applause ] >> so we're looking here not just for platitudes but for policies. please join me in that effort to find that candidate. [ applause ] okay. so we've covered what it means to be principled and we've covered what it means to be positive. finally, let's talk about what that means for a candidate to be
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proven. to me, it means two things. first, i'm looking for someone who has proven himself by winning big, difficult fights on election days and then secondly i'm looking for someone who has won big differ cult fights after while in office and we shouldn't be looking at one of those and rolling the dice on the other. that won't work. conservatives must demand both and a candidate who has shown he can win elections and later shown that he deserved to win those same elections. [ applause ] in other words, we want someone who has stood on principle when the going got tough and someone who has the battle scars to prove it. [ applause ] yet, we also want someone who has shown he can win broad
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mandates and build diverse coalitions to overcome entrenched interest and not just the special interests in the other party, but those in his own party. the conservative candidate who ignores moderates is as misguided as the moderate candidate who ignores conservatives. the candidate we all deserve every one of us can attract both without alienating either. right now we don't have any candidates yet and everyone deserves an equal chance to meet that standard but make no mistake, that should be the standard. this leads me to my final point. meeting that standard that i've described, principled, positive and proven. it isn't just going to be
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