sunday on american artifacts on c-span 3, tour the library of congress exhibit on the centennial of world war i which showcases american ideas about the war through artwork, posters, photographs, film and documents. >> the idea of contributing to the war through labor, the idea of growing your own food so as to conserve larger quantities for the effort. she's a prominent illustrator in that day. again, another individual kind of rises to the surface from world war i. you see here also food conservation, wholesome nutrition corn. i know we make everything out of corn today. back then we didn't. in world war ii the government

would step in and rational food. you didn't need to impose it on them. >> watch american artifacts sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. up next a look at trends in mobile technology with representatives from the tech industry. this senate commerce subcommittee hearing is chaired by mississippi senator roger whittaker. it's an hour and a half. >> good afternoon. today the subcommittee meet to examine the state of the app committee and trends in mobile technologies. i'm glad to convene this hearing with my good friend and colleague. over the past several weeks consumer interactions with

mobile apps and the information these apps collect about americans has dominated news reports. this hearing is an opportunity to take a broader look at the app industry and to understand its contributions to our economy in creating jobs, driving investment and fostering innovation. it is also an opportunity to discuss emerging trend within apps such as virtual reality and ai apps. in addition i hope we'll examine policy issues related to broadband infrastructure, data privacy, work force development and other considerations important to the continued growth of the app economy. proliferation of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices has created an exciting market of mobile applications. mobile apps allow consumers to access virtually anything at their fingertips. consumers can watch tv, deposit checks at the bank, control the

lighting and security within their homes, start their cars or connect a loved one to face-to-face all through the touch of an app. in a short period of time a large economy has developed around the app industry. it has become a robust platform for job creation, investment, innovation, competition and new opportunities for american enterprise. increasingly consumers and businesses are turning to apps not just for entertainment but also for efficiency, convenience, productivity and cost savings. mississippi farmers, for example, are using apps for precision agriculture technologies. apps allow them to monitor the health of their crops and the welfare of their live stock remotely. this helps farmers accurately predict agricultural yields cutting down costs and increasing productivity.

mississippians are also using apps to access telemedicine services. it can provide patients to immediate professionals or other health services that are not readily available in their neighborhoods or communities. this technology helps improve patient outcomes and saves lives the foundation of app success is a reliable broadband network. significant success have enabled many on innovative apps consumers enjoy today. 5g promises even greater app capabilities. we need to ensure wider broadband networks are available to all americans whether that's through private investment or dedicated programs like face to mobility fund. broadband offers immediate access to economic opportunities and other resources that have

been shifting to the online marketplace. in addition to prioritizing the deployment of broadband infrastructure work force development is critical to growing the app economy. maintaining a trained and skilled work force will help meet industry needs and ensure that the united states remains a leader in the global digital economy. i'm grateful to have mr. forester here today representing innovate mississippi and the mississippi coding academies. i look forward to hearing more about his work to train the next generation of workers in mississippi and the country. in the last decade the app economy has clearly brought value to consumers and businesses. it promises to continue delivering this value as apps increase in personalization and

utility for users while adequately safeguarding consumer data. to that end i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about how to preserve the economic and societal benefits for years to come. before introducing the members of our panel i'll recognize my dear friend to make whatever opening remarks he'd like to make. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for holding this important hearing on this topic. before i get into my comments i think i'd be remiss if i didn't address the issue hitting the senate floor tomorrow, and that's net neutrality. it's hard for me to be in a hearing about apps or anything else about the internet and not mention this week we'll have an opportunity in the senate to take a vote on on a free and

open senate. back to apps, this hearing takes place during an important debate about whether technology is in fact bringing the positive changes that we hoped for. apps in particular have created a lot of ovalue, entertain us, make it easier for us to buy things and help us to communicate better. it also created an industry that employs millions of well paid software engineers, designers and marketers. but we haven't yet realized the potential of these technologies. and i personally worry too many companies are focused on the wrong problems and wrong question. we already live at a time of unprecedented convenience, but silicon valley continues to spend money to make things available and on-demand and make things frictionless. at least $9 billion was poured into 129 delivery startups

between 2006 and 2016. as one technologist tweeted san francisco tech culture is focused on solving one problem. what is my mother no longer doing for me? but behind this sort of sassy comment is more solemn truth, which is that weave the best tech available in the history of the world, and it should rise to solve the serious problems that we face as a society. and a lack of convenience is just not one of those problems. if anything, the overwhelming options at our fingertips are sometimes becoming an inconvenience in and of themselves. instead we need tech to focus on the most important and impactful problems on society. it's true they've provided tremendous benefits to consumers, but they also have costs. it costs us job in certain industries, created possible new forms of addiction and left behind an uneven distribution of

wealth. i understand the concept of creative destruction, but surely this once in a century tech logical transformation should have an impact beyond efficiency and convenience. i hope we are at the cusp of some big, profound and positive changes from the mobile revolution that will translate into meaningful progress for the whole country. i know our witnesses and the organizations they represent share this hope and are working to make it reality, and i look forward to hearing from the witnesses. >> thank you very much, senator schatz. and of course senator schatz and i will be canceling each other's vote out this week on the so-called issue of net

neutrality. over two decades the internet has prospered and become this great engine of economic development because of the light touch regulatory framework that we've had. only in the last few years did the fcc under the obama administration proceed to a heavier regulatory title 2 utility-style regulatory scheme, which i'm pleased the current fcc has moved away from, toward the more traditional type of light touch regulation, which has given us this great economy. we'll be redebating that on the floor later on. but since my friend chose to bring it up, i thought i would put in my 2 cents worth. i'm also told that the ranking member of the full committee, senator nelson, who has joined us would like to make an opening

statement also. so senator nelson, you are recognized at this point. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and there are those of us on the issue of net neutrality that are still ultimately trying to get a bipartisan solution in legislation to it so that we can stop this up one day and down the other kind of thing that we've ben experiencing over time. but let's talk about apps. and i want to say my concern for the senator from hawaii and his state of what's happening out there. is this thing really almost ready to blow? >> thank you to the ranking member of the full committee for the question. people on the big island are resilient. there are 25 homes destroyed, 36 structures totally destroyed. and the truth is that even

volcano scientists don't know what's going to happen next. it could subside completely tomorrow or this could go on for years. i appreciate the concern from you and the rest of our colleagues as we monitor and try to keep everyone safe. so thank you for that. >> well, while as we've been discussing the apps, they contribute billions to the economy, it's important to recognize that developers are also tackling significant social issues in the country. several companies are working on ways to address the issues surrounding climate change, sea level rise, which is afflicting especially southern florida right now. and others have developed apps to help keep our children safe. this is especially important given the recent tragic state of school shootings and the never

ending question of personally identifiable private information including the geolocation and specifically geo location of our children. joining us today is roger, the ceo of the shield group technologies. shield group is headquartered in west palm and has focused on the development of apps to improve communication between citizens and law enforcement. in particular the company has developed student protect to allow students and faculty to contact law enforcement about threats including providing precise information about the location of the threat. given the parkland tragedy, i'd like to learn more about student protect and how it can help law enforcement receive information

about school threats. more broadly we need to focus on making sure american workers have the right skills to participate in this part of the economy and push it forward. and colleges and universities throughout florida have stepped up. from florida atlantic with its tech runway to florida poly technic and university of south florida our institutions of higher education are training decoders and entrepreneurs that will be designing the new wave of apps. tomorrow the senate will vote on this resolution to restore strong net neutrality. i'll have more to say about this on the floor, but it is going to be a continuing discussion and

debate as we adjust to the ever changing technology that we are using in our daily lives. thank you, mr. chairman. >> and thank you, senator nelson. we're delighted to have our panelists with us today. they include mr. mike forster, dr. sarah oh, research fellow technology institute here in washington, d.c. mr. morgan reed, president of act, the app association here in washington. and mr. roger koch who mr. nelson already referred to, ceo of shield group technologies in west palm beach. we're delighted to have each and every one of you, and we'll begin to my left with your opening statement of no more

than five minutes. mr. forster. >> thank you, chairman whittaker, ranking member schatz and the subcommittee on behalf of the mississippi coding communities. i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on how we might be helping bridging this enormous gap that exists between hi-tech employer needs for entry level programmers and developers and the available resources they have from our community colleges and four-year colleges. before i delve into that, and i will be brief with my comments, i want to say a little bit about innovate mississippi. our mission is to accelerate startups in mississippi by connecting them to mentors, to investment capital, to service providers. we've helped transform over 1,200 ideas into real companies.

and those companies have raised over $170 million in capital, and they've produced about 6,000 jobs. all of that's very important, and we're proud of the fact we do that with a very small staff of six professionals. we've got a budget of a million dollar per year, and half of it comes from private partnerships. entrepreneurs, representatives, the institute of higher learn [the mississippi community college board. i'm serving a two-year term as the chairman. but we've not only focused on connecting these entrepreneurs with capital and providing mentors, we focus on an e ecosystem that allows those startups to thrive. and it was part of that charter that allowed us to form the mississippi coding academy.

in our state alone there are 1,200 open jobs for coding professionals. our colleges and universities produce 250 computer science graduates a year. about half of them leave the state. so enormous gap just in our state. at the national level it's even more compelling. code.org will tell you there's 500,000 open jobs in programming and development today. and it's going to grow to 1 million by the year 2020, and there's 43,000 computer science graduates to meet the 500,000 today. so the demands of the digital economy are just going to continue to grow, and things like the app economy like we're discussing here today are going to worsen that gap over time unless we do some things differently. here's what's interesting. at the other end of the spectrum there are a lot of highly motivated young people who for

various reasons mostly soc socioeconomic are not able to attend a two-year college. but many of them have the basic analytic skills to become coders. and those jobs will ensure them wages that are equivalent to what many graduates are going to get, and they are career-type positions not just dead end jobs. i know you'll find this hard to believe but i've had five decades in this information technology business. and i will tell you this. i have seen it time and time again. you cannot predict based on background, based on education when is going to be a good developer, who is going to be a good programmer or coder. some of the best i've ever known in my companies were music and arts majors. certainly a good number of them have math and science backgrounds, but you cannot predict who's going to be good

at this because there's definitely a creative as well as an analytical component. so what are we doing? well, in the spring of last year four of us, and i am one of it founders, senator. four of us from innovate mississippi went up to the little town of water valley, mississippi, where an innovative program had been started by a couple of c-level executives and they wanted to give something back. they established base camp coding academy up there. they wanted to prove that a high school graduate could go through an intensive 11-month program and emerge as what we would call a full stacked developer. that's a programmer who has the ability to see the big picture, the database, the front end, the back end, the user interface, all the various components. not necessarily they can do everything perfectly, but they have the ability to see the big picture and they have the ability to be productive.

well, all of the graduates of that first class were hired. hired by companies like cease-fire, a regional telecom from richmond, mississippi, and also fedex. and those kids have all now have new and exciting careers in information technology. well, the founders didn't want to expand beyond the areas they were in, so with their permission we took the idea and approached the mississippi development authority. and with the whole heart of the support of our governor who's our executive director of the mba, dr. mayfield, she recognized we were bringing a different spin to this problem and she worked jointly with us to make this happen.

we expect in those locations to adthr add three more classes in june of this year. and we're actively discussing more in the state in 2019. over in the mississippi delta and impover rgsed area as you all know, and actually a second location that's in the delta as we call it in vicksburg. i'll talk a minute more about that in a few minutes. we already have 130 plus candidates for the 60 positions that's starting in june. so we're feeling good about that. >> perhaps we can expound more on that during questioning. >> yes, sir, we could. >> dr. oh, you are recognized. >> chairman whitker, ranking member schatz and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the app community and mobile technology trends.

my name is sarah oh and i'm a research fellow at the technology research institute. the app economy is an important source of economic growth. as an economist my primary concern is growth in business formation, jobs, research development and economic opportunity. apps create new markets and make existing markets more efficient. thereby promoting growth. however, some app innovation has raised questions related to privacy, connectivity and artificial intelligence. the right policy responses require clearly identifying the problems we wish to solve and thinking carefully about the costs and benefits of any proposals. in short we need to be careful about how to reduce or remedy bad effects of this economy without discouraging the innovation that drives economic

growth and makes us all better off. as easy as it is for us to click our app buttons we should remember that apps call on a massive and deeply complex infrastructure to deliver goods and services. serve farms, cell towers, coders, math students and labs dedicated to research and development all work behind the scenes to deliver the apps that are simple and easy to use. apps deliver realtime data to billions of users not just here in our country but around the world. american companies reach a global market with apps. apps make life easier and faster with ai and cloud services. at tpi we use cloud services for big data analysis. i'm amazed by how much computing power you can access today. our team of researchers can access world class servers and only pay for the minutes that we use. our big data projects would have been impossible just a few years ago without these advances.

but these advances come with new policy challenges. regarding privacy, the economists question is whether firms underinvest in data protection relative to some optimal level. if data breach harms customers and firms aren't providing those harms there's room for intervention. regulations have real costs and benefits to the economy. it's important to remember that with any new regulation firms will still behave strategically around the rules. firms will use regulation to benefit themselves and hurt competitors. regulation can have unintended consequences, disadvantaged new interests over incumbent firms or vice versa. the european gdpr which starts on may 25th will provide an important data point for

scholars and regulators to measure the effects of privacy legislation on innovation and economic growth. regarding connectivity, the app economy requires continued investment in broadband. this subcommittee knows about deployment and adoption challenges, the universal service fund and the economics of last mile connections. for 5g 80,000 municipalities can hold up or speed up the wireless expansion of small cells. regarding radio spectrum, the government has a lot of spectrum and federal agencies still use old inefficient equipment. if economic growth is a priority then the federal government can help. regarding ai we at tpi recently hosted a conference on the

policy implications of ai. scholars discussed ais limitations and poejts in fields like medicine, central banking and traffic writing. how much human judgment still matters, our answer, it does a lot. in conclusion the app economy drives economic growth, but we need to know what computers can and kaecannot do, how to measur harm and whether rules are truly able to remedy these harms. we have more questions than we have answers, and it'll take careful thought and conversations like the one we're having today before we have good policy solutions. thank you for inviting me to testify today, and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much, dr. oh. mr. reed, you're now recognized. >> thank you. my name is morgan reed and i'm the president of the app association, which represents more than 5,000 app makers,

connected device companies and b2b software members. in our 2018 app economy report we put the value of the app economy at roughly $950 billion employ 4.7 million people throughout the u.s. the average salary is nearly doubled the median income at $86,000. our biggest single roadblock for growth is talent. with more than 500,000 open unfilled jobs in america today, how did we get here? well, smart phones have become the most -- single most rapidly adopted technology in human history out pacing innovations like the printing press, the wheel, fire or even the microwave. in less than a decade we have put 10,000 years of collective human knowledge into the hands of 3.4 billion people. from ancient scrolls to crop reports, the smart phone brings

the entire world to our fingertips and apps allow us to engage with it. gone are the days where who placed it on a cd and shipped it to a retail store. today software developers can reach a global market instantaneously. the modern app economy is based on four major tenants. connectivity to the network, continued 5g rollout and space technology, customer trust, consumer trust in mobile software products and services is inextricably linked to security and encryption is a fundamental part of that. off-loading overhead because my members getting an application market has moved from $10 billion to $100,000 and from

months or years to a matter of weeks. finally access to the global marketplace. the global digital economy makes my smallest member an equal player in the eyes of consumers. while some think of apps as colorful icons on their smart phone it's also revolutionizing business innovations in america. our companies develop the apps that connect the cash register to the sales department, integrate product inventories in the shipping department and link all the way to the line supervisor at the manufacturing plant. for american businesses mobile is no longer a luxury or value ad. it's a necessity to have a reliable platform and constant mobile connectivity. it's no surprise that the app economy is one of our nation's leading employers creating well paying jobs now and in the future. for example, in 2024 competing jobs are expected to grow in

mississippi and 6% in hawaii. health care is a particularly telling example. mobile saufoftware has revolutionized. residents in 53 of mississippi's 82 counties live more than a 40-minute drive from special care. but the telehealth services bring monitoring to patients in their homes without sacrificing quality of care. and if we can see passage of senator schatz's bill, new opportunities would arrive through cognitive exercises on their mobile phones. provides access to more than 10,000 trucking companies and matches frights with effective routes to reduce the carbon

footprint. senator masto, based in carson city. and one which helps maintain construction fleets. at the end of the day i have stories for every single member of our committee. and i want you to know that right now there's a product going online today that will change the lives of our constituents and the way they do business and the way they interact with their families. and i'm happy to spend all day talking about those stories, but i look forward to your questions and the way we can continue the growth. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. reed. mr. koch, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman and members of committee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and talk

briefly how shield group technologies use the future of mobile technology. while it may not get the headlines and attention other issues do at the moment your work may have a very real long-term impact on the lives and futures of the american people. who are in the midst of a period in our tech logical history where there are profound questions about the impact that certain technologies have on our lives. intrusions on our privacy, technology's effect on our children's growth and development and its ability to be used by hostile powers and individuals are a few among numerous concerns that americans rightly have. but equal to these legitimate concerns is the extent to which mobile technology, apps for short, are not being utilized anywhere near their potential to impact our daily lives. while there are excellent apps for banking, shopping, booking

reservations and media, the utilization of mobile technology has barely scratched the surface. the simple truth is that for many americans apps are used mostly for personal entertainment. if you have any question about this take a look sometime when you're flying home at what the person next to you is doing with their mobile device. chances are they're furiously trying to check players or swapping colored candies in some type of game. that's okay. i use apps i entertainment also. but there's so much more potential in mobile technology. what we've done at shield group technologies is to develop ways for law enforcement and government to better use mobile and connective technologies to keep us safer and communicate better. our student protect app is the most powerful app available today for students, parents, teachers and staff to provide threat and security tips and information to school administrators and law enforcement for its realtime use by law enforcement. it's not just a simple tip

forwarding app that simply sends an e-mail somewhere. it's a powerful technology that provides law enforcement and school administrators with information and intelligence that allows them to use it quickly and efficiently to prevent violence in our schools. information and intelligence before a threat becomes reality is critically important in the prevention of school shootings and other acts of violence. with student protect students and other users can provide intelligence routed by multiple agencies and school officials simultaneously. it has powerful gps technology that tags where it originates from and allows law enforcement to send out security information based on a wide variety of parameters including by a specific geographic area. this has led to the intervention

of mental health assistants and law enforcement. our other app technologies include connect protect which unites residents directly with law enforcement for two-way geo targeted communication, and crime reporting. and our state-of-the-art secure share mobile technology which provides law enforcement with a secure and encrypted means of distributing sensitive intelligence to law enforcement officers in the field without the use of e-mail. which when i turn on the news every day now i hear something about how it is not a secure means of communicating sensitive self-information. mr. chairman, america's ability to use mobile technology is accelerating at an amazing pace. the public sector, which is the area we operate in is its

fastest growing sphere. it's more than just entertainment. the adoption of mobile technologies by law enforcement and federal, state and local government will allow them to share information and save taxpayers money by vastly increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the services delivered. i wanted to end by thanking you, mr. chairman, and the members of the committee for this opportunity as well as the local government and law enforcement professionals that serve americans every day. we are proud to work with these men and women around the country and in particular in our senator nelson's home state of florida. there i want to acknowledge -- in his county. thank you again.

>> well, thanks to all four of you for some very, very intriguing testimony. let's see, mr. reed mentioned annual average salary of $86,000, nearly double the national average in this field of app technology. and apparently there's such a great demand that we're nowhere near filling those slots. so perhaps we need to talk about apprenticeships, and while you're thinking about that, mr. reed, let me ask mr. forster along those lines, what is it about your academies that frees you from government red tape and allows you to respond more quickly to the needs of

industry? and what do you think about the statistics of $86,000 salaries and 440,000 additional jobs? it seems like he's in the ballpark there? >> oh, yes, sir. i have every confidence that those numbers are real. and our state our average starting salaries are in the $50,000 to $60,000 range, but they quickly move up to the mid-80s to $100,000 range for experienced developers. what is the key, though, and the thing that eliminates this bureaucratic issue, if you will, we must start with private industry -- or industry because we do have a great partner that's a public entity as well, but we must start with the employer. they must be engaged with this.

they must set the curriculum. we don't want to be teaching what the technologists were teaching two years ago or five years ago. only through a very tight relationship with industry are we able to quickly respond to those needs. so they help us set the curriculum. they provide guest instructors. we go out and visit them on-site. our students get to see what it's like to be in the workplace. those are the kinds of things that make us different. it starts with that. >> mr. reed, what do you have to add to that? >> well, i want to echo everything he pretty much said. right now you have 28% of the population without broadband but more importantly 52% of the population in rural areas. >> where do you get those

statistics? >> fcc information and other data in the state. we recently had over 50 ceos in town and i had 100% of my 50 ceos said they're willing to work with people and do right now hire people who aren't in their state. and the problem we have in a state like mississippi when they train them and they go home and they don't have broadband, how are people going to hire them? frankly, i'll hire the people if they can do the job and trained them well. they've just got to have the broadband. there are several projects around the country right now you're seeing in place. and what you're seeing right now is its primary uses in rural. the difficulty with last mile, if you've got a rural population

that's 9 miles from the nearest, it's incredibly spensive to pull a line down for five or six family. but if we can use tv white spaces, the gaps in between to get connectivity to rural populations then we can change their future in term of living where their from and competing in the global job market. >> which companies -- don't name the names of the companies, but what type of entity actually takes this tv white space and actually makes an agreement with the household that gets it there. >> that's exactly right. the tv white spaces are being based out of a company in senator cantwell's home state. what they've been doing is partnering with local isps and others. >> the local isps are part of

this. >> that's right. how do we get wi-fi to get going better? we need better spectrum. >> back to the statistic you gave about mississippi, i'm sure you have similar statistics about all the other states. >> yes, senator. >> and is that in a form that you could enter into the record? >> absolutely, senator. >> okay, then without objection that will be entered into the record at this point. you know we're having a debate, mr. reed, with the fcc about the reliability of their maps on this very topic. are you telling me you've done a study -- your group has done a study that is different and uses different information? >> we've done some combination of studies but you point out one of the major problems. at the root of all of these

trees is still the fcc's data. and we would love to have more accurate data. in fact, we had meetings with all the commissioners on the floor of both parties to talk about getting us better data. so right now we find almost every one source of data if you dig deep enough, it all goes back to the fcc. >> pardon me my fellow subcommittee members, how do we get better data, mr. reed? do you have suggestions for us? dr. oh? >> i can pipe in. so we use fcc data as well, and what we find is it's often delayed by two or three years, 2014, 2016 data. i'm not part of that conversation about getting better data, but i'd be interested to know how expensive it is to update those data sets faster and whether money

allocated for other things can be put towards maps. senator, you know, there are a lot of other things that the fcc is spending on, and that could just -- prioritying maizing map be one way. >> nobody's really happy with these maps. >> that's correct. >> and you seem to suggest that there is is a better set of data. >> there are, but given our time constraints right now i'm happy to sit down with your committee staff and talk about the ways some of our data scientists as well as folks, you know dr. oh, you can pull data from existing sources and most americans are carrying a smart phone in their pocket. how do we use and pull information on the wireless side right from the phone themselves? >> just to follow up on the maps

question this is something there's bipartisan concern about initial cut of the maps. it seems the basic problem is that they're switching the onus of responsibility onto the states and individual communities to disprove that their maps are incorrect, and in fact, everyone knows their maps are not accurate. and i think we're going to have to shift that conversation. i know chairman pii has said if you've got data points we'll be happy to assimilate it. what we want is the most accurate map, and if an individual of a state is unable for resource reasons able to martial the data to disprove their maps, that shouldn't penalize them. this is literally the fcc's job to get this right, and they're getting it wrong, ve. we could not agree more strongly on this issue. it seems to me when it comes to the app economy you have the

kind of infrastructure piece. you've got a work force problem, and then you've got everything related to connectivity from broadband, wi-fi potential solutions, white space, 5g and everything else. we kind of know that, although i think it's important to get the neckic technical pieces right. the question is we have to best tech in history, and although we're talking in this instance about telehealth and some really exciting technology that can transform society in a positive way, i would like to be reassured from you and i'll start from my right and go down, that we are not simply providing infrastructure for people to allow them to purchase what they want, a good or service just a little faster. it seems to me that tech money is in that space, and i think it's not coincidence that 80%,

85% of vcs are white males and the problem they have are different from the rest of society. so they think about what is the killer app, they often think about something that's related solving big problems with this big tech? >> i agree with you, there is bigger problems with this. we do have a connectivity problem, though. when you can go to places and people cannot use their smartphones, we have huge problems. you see it every day. my partner just yesterday had to buy a new phone because he was in a place in virginia that he could not use his phone. he had to buy a different phone from a different service. >> listen, we have these conversations about connectivity every time we have a subcommittee hearing. my question s what big problem

are we going to solve, not just that i'd like a slurpee now and how quickly and cheaply can i have one in my possession. so tell me since you're the app association person, what big problem are we going to solve? we're short on time, so i'd like to move along. >> well, it's funny that you bring that up, because you talked about telehealth and you have the bill that would make one of the largest changes possible. last year, they spent $1 trillion reimbursing for health care. for telemedicine, 14 million. that's an embarrassment. so when you talk about the way we can make changes, i'll give you the biggest one you can have. if you see a doctor at the top of his game, her game, she's likely to have seen about 29,000 patients by the time she sees you. but a patient with your history, your geno type, you're lucky if she's seen 500 people. she's going to make a determination about how to treat you based on what she learned in school, what she took in some continuing education classes and 500 data points. what we're looking to do,

through mobile applications and access to data is the ability to arm that physician with augmented intelligence, so when they walk in to treat you, they know you respond better to this medication, she responds better to treatment along these lines. that's about the most important problem i think we can solve. and that's saving lives that are there to be saved. so i'd say we are able to make that difference. >> dr. oh, with a final comment. >> one of the hopes of ai is that we can have robots to do complex tasks. something i didn't put in my comment, if we have robots that can fold laundry, that's millions of hours of manual labor done mostly by women that can be used for something else. and folding laundry for a robot is a complex task. it's not easy. and that's what ai scientists are doing. robotics are going to be able to do those manual tasks that people don't have to do anymore.

so is ai jetsons or terminator? there are many, many things that if we could get a robot to do it, it would save a lot of time. >> my final comment before going on to the next member is that, it is not obvious to me that every time you can have something done by a computer or by a robot, that it is an unalloyed good. i think there are some instances, as regards safety, it's a clearly moral choice. but it's not obvious to me that the purpose of the app economy is to eviscerate employment along the way and create some frictionless future where very few people are paid to do anything. thank you. >> may i add a quick comment, please. >> with the permission of the chairman. and i'm sure he will say so because he's from your state. [ laughter ] >> if you visit our classes,

you'll see they're 50% women, 80% minority, three of the four instructors are minority. several of those -- so we don't exactly have white male dominated academies. and several of those students have already expressed that they've got a stated interest in building their own apps and being entrepreneurial in that standpoint. so it's just another aspect of bringing that portion of our citizenry and our young people into really, really productive jobs. and those demographics, i think, are compelling. >> thank you. >> i might note that senator schatz connect for health act has four original co-sponsors, including wicker, carden, thune, and warner. and he's to be congratulated for now having 23 co-sponsors.

senator cantwell. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for mentioning code.org and for your work in your home state. i've always said we need to be more aggressive about our coding education. unfortunately, the federal role is so much more minimal than the states' role in that aspect, but i always referred to my own experience of having to take typing and latin and that having a mandatory language requirement that today our mandatory language requirement should be one year of coding in our schools. that would give everybody access to your point about the diversity of never being able to predict what student is going to be really good at coding. so it's something everybody should be exposed to. i invite you to come to seattle and visit code.org or any of our institutions on this subject. we're working very hard at it. mr. reed, i wanted to talk to you about the app economy, since you represent the association, and your comments about efficiency and constant mobile connectivity.

i thought you hit it right on the head about this issue, which is exactly what the app economy needs and what the businesses who rely on the app economy need. so whether that's -- i can't tell you the list of farming applications i have seen that are everything from managing live stock to predictability about weather to all sorts of things, it's a very science-based sector. and needs that kind of connectivity. i see that you are for net neutrality, you're for open internet and codifying that information so that we can have that. what does it mean if we don't have that kind of rule of the road for efficiency and connectivity of those devices? and, you don't have to talk just about the farm economy. but writ large, what are people looking for? >> i think that's why i started

the comment about the fact that it's worth remembering that we've connected 3.4 billion people with the world's collected information. i think what you're getting to is that people seek knowledge about what they want to do. if it's farming, if it's anything else. i think to senator schatz' point, it shouldn't all be fun and games, but what we see is people saying, i want to do more, i want to do something different, i want to reach a different group of people that i can in my hometown. so the door that's opened is amazing. it's knowledge, it's access, it's interactivity. and the thing you point out, without the internet access, without certainty about the rules of the road and how do we get to the rural communities -- your state is fascinated. one state, everybody's connected and the other side has blank spots in it. we've got to make sure all people in the state have access

to activity and the rules of road are established and there are codified rules for how we get there. figuring how out the senate codifies that is an important next step. >> well, i think having just visited spokane and seen how start-up incubator is saying, we use these apps every day to manage our business on behalf of our customers. if somebody starts artificially slowing that down today, i'm going to be less efficient in delivering services. and so that, i think, is the concern for us. the fact that in vancouver, washington, a cable company is saying, well, i'll give you higher speed broadband today, but only if you take our expensive bundle. and so, they'll give you less expensive higher speed but only if you take the expensive bundle. so i think what consumers are worried about, the app economy is going to get hijacked and that they're going to be so dependent as small businesses on these applications, that if somehow they're artificially

slowed down or throttled that's going to be a problem for them. so, i guess i'm with our colleague from hawaii, i'm very much in support of clarifying this now, that we're protected. but i just think to your point, whether you're in seattle, as you said, one of the most connected places in the country, or on the other side of the state, you still want the same thing. you want the efficiency that comes from all these applications. and if that is information in the cloud, you don't want to be slowed down from getting access to it. because otherwise you're not going to be running an efficient business. isn't that what so many of the apps are based on? >> well, we are certainly based on greater efficiency, but as senator schatz said, we're not only about efficiency, we're about solving problems. but i take your points to heart and it's something that our community is very aware of and

engaged on. >> thank you. well, i hope our colleagues will take time to really deeply understand how much this access is about small businesses, starting something new and being competitive and that's why we need to have net neutrality. thank you. >> thank you, senator cantwell. senator cortez masto is next. >> thank you, mr. chair. good afternoon, welcome. so i want to touch on an area that i'm really interested in coming from nevada. and it kind of touches on what senator schatz is saying, we should be developing the apps for more than just ordering a slurpee. what is happening in nevada right now is very exciting. i call it the innovation state, because we are actual utilizing the smart technology and transportation apps to seamlessly really integrate the user's experience in the community. and i think that addresses

safety, right, efficiency, and accessibility. what we've seen in northern nevada is the app token transit, which our regional transportation commission put together in washoe county. the ride rtc app, and so much more and so much potential. so my question is, i'm going to open it up to the panel. i know, mr. reed, you've talked a little about this. can you talk about how you envision these apps particularly with the intersection of smart technology and smart communities, how you envision or how these will be transforming the future in our communities? >> well, i think it's a great point you raised because you used a key word there, community. if you think about a community, it's about the bonds you have with people, common interest or

locality, and functionally, the way we go about our lives, where we go to church, where we go to eat. and you're looking at the way people use mobile apps to connect, it's exactly that. it's about how they build their community. the web of interaction they have with other people. with states and localities now, how do we have those people who have been outside the community, who don't have access to transportation, who have a hard time with emergency care -- one of the members that we have as built an ai-based chat bot to deal with language barriers for emergency personnel. you don't use the community health center, you don't use the

community emergency room if you're worried they won't understand you at the front door. so what we're looking at, how do you take the brilliance of applications and the back-end power of an application and turn it into something small in the right way? and that is small, meaning that it makes it part of your community. so if we can help with language, with access to facilities, with transportation, then you've gained what you want, which is an improved community. >> and that's it, right, it's about the individuals living in the community and the impact on them? >> that's correct. >> and it's the internet of things, and it's bringing that connectivity and utilizing it in these smart -- we'll call them smart communities, whatever you want to call it, it's that interaction. >> yeah. so we've had the pleasure of working with national league of cities on smart city issues, and i recently did a panel with them on this exact topic. and the real lesson to learn that i found from the mayors and others as part of the national league of cities was that idea of community building blocks. and it was very simple. what i heard was transportation, how do you get to and from your house and work and place of worship or other activities. how do you engage with the services the city needs to

provide. and frankly, how do you enjoy yourself. i thought one of the most profound things i heard, a smart city is also a fun city. it's not boring. it's not just gray buildings. it's gotta be a city that gives you something vibrant to interact with. so i think that you're right on point. and the question is, how do we use iot and connected cities and how do cities become enablers of a better community? >> that's right. and so part of what i also saw happening as i work with our regional transportation commission in nevada and across the country, this new technology and the internet of things, as we build this infrastructure, we better be building the guard rails for privacy and security, cyber security. it's the easiest time for us to incorporate those into the new infrastructure. we've talked about coding and the need to ensure that we are teaching the next generation, younger generation in the schools coding. but how do we get the talent on the security side?

how do we ensure we're incorporating the security piece of that? that has been my biggest challenge. particularly with somebody who is a former attorney general of nevada and focused on that cyber security piece. and let me just open up the panel. this has been part of our discussion as well. >> well, you put your finger on what is clearly going to be an increasingly important part of, let's just say the development community's responsibilities. and we are working right now with dr. mayfield who i mentioned in the community colleges, to perhaps co-partner -- to partner with them to put in a cyber curriculum, if you will, that might be a next level of coursework for our people, or to provide it more generally to our existing i.t. professionals to get us all more aware, more capable, what have you. like all the other techniques and technologies that we need to use, it's going to have to be developed.

it's going to have to be given a lot of emphasis and investment because it's ultimately an achilles heel. >> and i would agree with that also. >> what we see constantly, there are older technologies that just don't talk to each other. people are still using things that were written 15, 20 years ago, that they now say, okay, we want to share this information between, we're talking about law enforcement and local government, they're trying to talk to each other and share information. they can't right now, because their systems don't talk to each other. so we're having to write code to have those systems be able to be integrated and get one database so you can actually have deconfliction and be able to share information and cross-reference things. >> we're short 270,000 jobs in the cyber security area. so anything that you can do to help make more nevadans potential people that i can hire, i'm looking forward to that. >> thank you. >> senator blumenthal? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to talk about privacy. mr. reed, your organization stated after the ftc's enforcement action four years ago, quote, when the punishment

rarely changes and never seems to fit the offense, the likeliest outcome is that emerging tech companies will approach ftc enforcement as nothing more than the cost of doing business. you were commenting on the penalties against snapchat over security abuses as nothing more than the cost of doing business. apparently, the same was true of facebook, as we now learn from the recent revelations about cambridge analytica. aren't there models of privacy rules or enforcement that congress should impose at this point? haven't we learned our lesson, and shouldn't we begin, in fact, with the new european rules? the general data protection regulation that everybody in europe is now going to have to follow.

why should americans be guaranteed less privacy than europeans? >> well, a couple of quick things. i think that that comment from four years ago, boy, it made me sound smart. because it's still true today. i think one of the things that congress can do, this committee in particular, the full committee in general, the think more pressure needs to be put on ftc to do a better job. we're about to have a full slate of ftc commissioners. the group over there needs to look at enforcement from two lenses, one, which is how do you fix a problem, and two, how do you use the bully pulpit to make a difference. and on the gdpr question, the problem with that, we don't know

which gdpr it is. less than four weeks ago, we had a series of letters out of the article 29 working party that radically changed most interpretations of gdpr. so on gdpr writ large, i think there's still a lot to be seen. what does it mean, how do we implement it. my members are, in fact, taking it seriously. we have a whole series of blogs on how do small businesses comply with gdpr, because you may have missed my earlier testimony. what's worth noting, every single one of my members, the one-man shops to the largest, they're part of the global economy and they have eu citizens. so we're taking gdpr seriously. unfortunately, with 27 nations, we're not sure what it means in all places yet. >> well, we may not be sure what it means in all places, but we know about the general principle. minimizing data, providing for consent. enabling transparency, that is, consumers should know what data has been collected. there are basic principles here that the ftc is nowhere near adopting, correct?

>> so it's great that it's coming from you, with your legal background. one of the problems we have are the basic principles and how we want to communicate them to our customers and users. and then the legal requirements that avoid liability, which you brought up earlier. so how do we, for example, on machine learning, data minimization is great in concept and something we helped build and we're really proud of. the know what's inside program with 500-plus developers, thousands of apps for kids, all of which comply with copa. but one of the problems with machine learning, how do i do data minimization but also provide tools for health care? on the point about transparency, that's great, but i spent a year working with ntia and others to try to develop the short-form privacy notice. when we field-tested that with users, they wanted something very different. so it's a work in progress. the best results i've seen so far were what we saw out of apple, microsoft, and eventually

google and just in time notification. meet the customer where they are. tell them how the data is being used, when it's being grabbed or taken, and then tell them how you're going to use it later, and then finally, provide another interface if they want to say, hey, i want that back. but all the points you raise and the key principles you're outlining are important. how we get there and deal with the liability that you raised on the beginning is the part that we're still working on. >> i know that it's a complex area. but my feeling is that the absence of some line in the sand, some bright line, even though in practice there may have to be complexity in all the sub headings of those principles, as it applied to different apps and so forth. that that absence will mean nothing is done. and five years from now, we'll be having this same conversation. and i just fear that your prediction that the punishment

really changing and never fitting the offense, meaning that it's just the cost of doing business, will mean that these app developers will just keep pushing the envelope against privacy interests. so my time has expired. i'm sorry to end on a pessimistic note. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator blumenthal. i need to apologize to senator hassan. she should have been recognized before senator blumenthal -- >> you can blame it on me, mr. chairman. >> okay. and so senator hassan is now recognized. >> thank you, chairman wicker, and ranking member schatz. i'm having an afternoon where i'd like to have roller skates. so sitting still for a couple minutes is a good thing. to all of the panelists, thanks so much for being here. it's excellent to hear from all of you about what the future holds for the mobile economy. from jobs to new efficiencies to medical uses, our mobile

capabilities really do hold great promise. and that's why i work with senator gardner and we're working with others. we introduced the air waves act, legislation to creates a pipeline for the valuable, limited resource the mobile economy depends on, spectrum. dr. oh, you mentioned it before i left to go to my other hearing. the air waves act will promote innovation and incentivize ongoing investment in this space. it will also help ensure that the united states is prepared to engage in the global race to 5 g. do you agree additional spectrum is necessary to promote the mobile economy of the future? and if you do, do you agree that the steps like those outlined in the airwaves act are necessary for the mobile economy to thrive

and for us to remain a leader in global 5 g? >> yes, absolutely. i think congress is one of the only bodies that can actually push federal spectrum out to the private sector. and i think every legislative act that does so is really good for the economy. and 20 years from now, the app economy is going to be devices and internet of things. so any way that you can release spectrum now with a ten-year time frame, is a good thing. >> thank you. anyone else want to comment? i'm getting thumbs up. thank you for that answer. another reason i am glad to be working with senator gardner on the air waves act, we developed a mechanism within the act to really focus on rural economies and communities. new hampshire has significant rural areas that lack the kind of connectivity that we take for

granted in urban markets. and i expect that that's true in some of the other states represented at this table as well. the air waves act would set aside 10% of proceeds from the auction to deploy wireless in underserved areas. this won't be immediate, but it's a real down payment on the mobile future for america's rural consumers. it could mean billions of dollars for rural deployment, which is serious money, even in washington, d.c. do you have thoughts on what other steps we might take to bring the mobile economy to rural areas in new hampshire and throughout the country? and again, anybody who wants to answer. >> i'll pass this to mr. forster quickly, but i'm from an even larger state of alaska, so we know about the distance. and i'll tell you from your state, one of the areas earlier i discussed was the need to look at how to expand tv wide spaces to make it possible to do broadband for rural communities. and i think that the area that's really important to hit on that is, empowering rural communities

with broadband isn't merely about giving them something to look at or play with. it empowers them to stay there and get a job, and in mr. forster's case, they're training people in rural areas that my members can then hire. and they don't have to leave mississippi or my great state to work for my companies. so that's exactly right. empowering rural broadband is not something to make people happy, it's to make people employed. >> thank you. mr. forster, do you have anything to add? >> in the near term, we're highly focused on employment opportunities that exist with traditional employers. but i can tell you that we must provide this capability broadly across states like yours and mine because so many of these people will be in areas that are not serviced well otherwise. and they can't realize the potential of what they might wish to do.

i could see a time when if we are doing a good enough job, we not only meet mississippi's requirements, but perhaps we are providing resources to other states. well, as soon as we're in that position, guess what, we're limited unless we can provide the very, very high broadband access that they're gonna need, to be working in austin, but living in mississippi. >> well, thank you. i know others have mentioned this issue, but i just wanted to touch on the whole issue of our mapping. the fcc, as you know is working to implement a program called mobility fun phase 2, providing qualifying communities to build our mobile networks. unfortunately, the fcc's map of eligible areas is inaccurate and leaves rural communities in my

state, in kansas, and mississippi without much resource. we're working on get the maps updated, however, in the meantime, what additional advice do you have for rural communities that hope to keep pace with innovation? and what more can we do here at the federal government, states' localities and private sectors to assist our rural communities? >> i'd like to note the universal services fund and the other is $4 billion a year. what this group can do is take a closer look at where is the money going, are we getting the best bang for our buck. and it really is a constant stream of money. so -- and there's an additional $500 million for rural broadband recently. where's the money going? so i think more studies and just more inquiries to the fcc -- status updates and studies. >> thank you, i see i'm over time. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, senator hassan. senator marquee. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i love hearings on mobile technologies. back in -- unbelievably back in the early 1980s, the chairman of at&t was asked, how many people will have a wireless device that they can carry around by the year 2000, and the chairman of at&t testifying before congress said, one million people in america will have that. and we had given them the spectrum for free. that was their vision, at&t. so that wasn't good. we had given another company the spectrum for free. so i got a little discouraged in that vision of at&t. so in 1993, i was able to move over 200 mega hertz of spectrum for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh licenses. they were charging 50 cents a minute and the phone of the size of a brick. you saw it in gordon gekko in wall street. by 1995, '96, everyone had one of these phones in their pocket, flip phone. under ten cents a minute. it was digital, not analog,

which is all at&t could figure out up until 1993. but then ten years later, along comes steve jobs and we're moving this way. so we just keep moving, moving, you know, in the right direction. but, you know, one of the key ingredients is going to be having net neutrality on the books for wireless devices as well. because everything is moving over to wireless. and we know the history -- and the history is not good. it's a rich, long history that informs everything that we're doing here, and net neutrality is something that by necessity has to be on the books. in 2005, a north carolina-based

provider blocked the online voice service of vonage to favor their own service. in 2007, a.p. found that comcast was blocking or severely slowing down bittorrent, a website that offered users to share files, but comcast wasn't happy with that. in 2007 and 2009, at&t forced apple to block skype and other similar services so that they would just use their power of network control to push people towards their own services. so the long, rich history is that the innovation comes from the competitors, but when you're in control of the network, your innovation is really in how do you block, how do you stop, how do you push around those who are seeking to innovate in the space. and it just went on and on, year

after year, i can just go through all of the different examples of why net neutrality is needed. so as we move deeper and deeper into this wireless world, can we just go down the line and just ask each of you, did you support the obama era net neutrality rules when they were put on the books? did you support that, mr. forster? >> i'm probably not a really good source for comment there. i -- >> if you don't have a view, you don't have a view on it? >> i have a personal view. >> what's your personal view? >> that the net should be free and open as it can be. and it's gonna drive continued growth of our economy as a result of that. >> thank you. dr. oh? >> my view is that title 1 was the regime for the last ten, 12 years, and so i would say title 1. >> mr. reed?

>> we support the four principles of net neutrality and are looking forward to having a solution that holds up over the length of time. >> so you would not put the existing rules back on the books, is that what you're saying? >> we don't have a position on which versions of the rules of the books that go on with more than 5,000 members -- >> no, i appreciate that. i just wondered if you wanted the strongest version, that's the version we're going to vote on tomorrow, the strongest version. and you? >> mr. koch. us being a small company, we of course want equal representation and we want to have the same speed and access that everybody else, including the large and the small companies. >> yeah, thank you. and as you know, dr. oh, the court struck down the rules when they were in title 1. and the courts instructed the fcc to use title 2. so i know what your preference is, but the courts struck them down when they moved in that direction.

so this is a big historic vote that we're going to have to tomorrow. and again, in the wireless world it's going to be imperative that you can't be discriminated against, you can't be blocked, you can't be told what you can do and can't do, because this is like oxygen. you know, to young people. and to people who aren't so young as well. it's now an indispensable part of living in the 21st century. i think if we want to preach openness around the rest of the world, that we shouldn't be trying to teach temperance, we should stand up for it ourselves, and that's why this vote tomorrow is historic, the most important vote we're going to have to keeping the internet as open and free as it could be. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator marquee. i'm not sure you got the answers you were hoping for. but thank you for the questions. senator udall? >> thank you, chairman wicker. all of you have pointed out that the app economy is an innovative

part of the economy and has revolutionized how we navigate our lives. we heard senate marquee talk about that history and overview. however, these innovations raise questions about children growing up in a digital world. as a result, parents are being forced to make difficult choices between their children's privacy, and allowing their kids to engage in an increasingly online world. i, along with my colleague, senator hassan and cortez masto, have written to youtube, about youtube kids app, directing children to conspiracy theory videos and about the need to respect the privacy of children. and i also plan on contacting other major app developers and platforms as part of the effort to ensure that children's privacy is protected. mr. reed, last month, "the washington post" reported on a study by the international computer science institute at the university of california berkeley, finding that thousands of children's apps on google playstore, may be violating the

children's online privacy protection act. the article identified popular apps such as disney's where's my water, and the game loft minion rush. what does your association believe the federal trade commission should and can do to help prevent violations of copa? >> well, first of all, it has been one of my most interesting exercises over the more than ten years -- 15 years i've been working on this, to try to figure out the breadth and scope of copa. i testified before senator marquee when he was congressman marquee on copa. one of the things that's been fascinating about the problem is that we have to figure out how to meet parents where they are.

when it comes to developers abiding by copa, that's the law. ask they need to do it. we built a network called the know what's inside program with more than 500 -- it started out called moms with apps, dads became involved as well. 500 developers putting apps out that were fully copa compliant. the interesting part we ran into, the parents found the friction difficult, and the parents were the ones that we had to figure out, how do you engage better. that's when you saw platforms and others starting to take a just in time notification. how do i get the parents' attention when it matters? not at the front end when i load them up with a bunch of consent mechanisms and then have them move forward. so we're looking at a world under copa where, how do we comply with copa's rigors? there are 150 items on the faq at this point and yet also meet parents with the way they behave. that's been one of the most difficult challenges on making copa work. both from a financial perspective, from our members who abide by copa, and also from

a parental perspective, which is, they want to make sure the kid sees what the kid wants to see. so enforcement is really critical, to get to your main thing. the ftc needs to do more and frankly, i think they need to do more publicly. i personally and our association brought examples of copa violations to them. they were solved, but they were solved quietly. the company fixed their terms of service or made the correction and there was no visible flurry in the water. and we think ultimately that hurts the eco system and the ftc needs to use its bully pulpit to make the most obvious offenders and make something out of it so people understand this is what's allowed, this is what's not. but keeping in mind, it's really the parents that we have to make sure that we educate. >> yeah, focusing a little bit and drilling down on the ftc enforcement, in the past two years, how often has the ftc enforced copa violations with app developers? >> so this is the ftc, the reality of the situation.

which is, the ftc has been active behind the scenes in meeting with hundreds and maybe thousands of developers. but in terms of big, public enforcements, i think we're at a pretty small number at this point in time. >> just a handful, you would say? >> yes. but that's not to say that they haven't been doing meetings and bringing people in, and haven't been making corrections. my point to you, which i think supports what where you're headed is, we need to do some of these publicly, so that there can be some understanding by both my community and the parental community what's expected of them, what's expected of us and how do we meet in the middle. >> and many of the app developers identified in the study are based in lithuania and china. do you think most app developers, including ones located overseas are fully aware of the requirements of copa? and that what you're saying would help is the ftc being aggressive, do you think they're

aware? >> it's fascinating because the worlds are converging. everybody is global. and now with gdpr, it's creating a whole new series of regimes. esrb has done a great job on verifiable criminal consent in the united states, but they can't do it in europe. you talked about lithuania and some of the european actors, i'm having those people come to me and say how do i meet with gdpr and copa at the same time? so i think weirdly enough, where we are with gdpr is going to help and i would like the ftc to use its powers to go after specific companies to make that -- make people more aware of their requirements. >> thank you very much. i know i'm over time, mr. chairman. and i'll submit a couple of additional questions for the record. thank you for the courtesies, chairman wicker. >> well, many of us went over time today. because it's such a good topic. i want to thank the members of the subcommittee and the members

of the panel for a very, very fine hearing today. my staff has told me i have to close with a statement that the hearing record will remain open for two weeks. during this time, senators are asked to submit any questions for the record. upon receipt the witnesses are requested to submit their written answers to the committee as soon as possible. and that's about as flexible as i've ever heard. so thank you very much, ranking member schatz and other members of the subcommittee. and thank you to our panelists. this hearing is adjourned.

white house press secretary sarah sanders meets with reporters. her first briefing since the president returned from singapore and his summit with kim jong-un. we'll have live coverage on c-span 3 at 2rks 2:30 eastern. later today the justice department's inspector general releases its report on fbi conduct in the 2016 campaign. ahead of that, house and senate democratic leaders including nancy pelosi and charles schumer will hold briefing on the report at 4:15 p.m. here on c-span 3. the fbi will be holding a briefing on the report at 5:30

and c-span 3 will cover that live as well. you can watch on c-span.org or listenen on our radio app. today democratic and republican members of congress face-off in the 57th annual congressional baseball game for charity. the game will be played at nationals park. live coverage begins at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 3. the chairs of the federal communications commission and the federal trade commission testified at a senate hearing on their agency's budgets. they answered questions about net neutrality, broadband internet access in rural areas and efforts to prevent robocalls. we'll show you as much of this as we can until the start of today's white house briefing.