Cspan audience, and i want to welcome them again. We are grateful that cspan is here. Im sure it has quite a bit to do with our next guest here, chairman pai, but we are glad all of you are here. So in keeping, chairman pai knows that i do this because hes been here before. Hes got an illustrious biography. I could go on and on and on about it, but weve got it in the brochure. And for those of you that are in the cspan audience, our brochure is on the website, on the homepage of the website. Its got sec chairman ajit pai bio in it. So i commend that to you but i would just say, state what everyone here knows that chairman pai serve as a commissioner prior to assuming the chairmanship of the sec. How soon after the inauguration, was that two days later . It was on a monday, january 233. So about three days after. Three days he was appointed by President Trump to be chair of the fcc. What i will say about chairman pai is this, without going over each of the particular offices which you can read about, and i pointed this out before but i think its important, hes actually serve in all three branches of government, spent a lot of time in senior positions on the hill and, of course, in the agencies over at the justice department, and i think all of those experiences are of course important and provide insights that are useful, i think. Thats a charitable explanation. I think my explanation was really the correct one, but i appreciate that. So as i said, weve actually done this before. Chairman pai and myself. And really the only difference today is i have a bigger chair here for you, because of your new office. By the way, i was looking directly at it didnt see, did you bring your weed wacker with you . I did not. I had a feeling it wouldnt travel well so i just left it at home. Okay. I mentioned that because the Free State Foundation stiff Anniversary Gala back in december when then commissioner, now chairman pai, you know, offered whats now famous illusion to the weed wacker, referring i think not to his front yard but to the regulatory underbrush at the fcc. And i noticed just last week, i think, john edgerton, the reporter at broadcasting and cable, he said in reference to your weed wacker speech, a reference to the weed wacker, he said that term quote, has gained cultural currency within and beyond communication circles. Thats quite a bit. Do you have anything else about the weed wacker you want to say before we move on . I think its probably best we move on at this point. [laughing] alright, okay. We do like to create cultural currency, things are at the Free State Foundation conference of pics i thank you for that. So ive had, as you know, ajit, weve had a House Majority whip for the same lunch conversation. We had several fcc commissioners, other notables do this conversation, but never the chairman of the fcc. So im really honored to have you here. Thank you for having me. And i do just want to say for the record really bad year that tom wheeler was chair of the commission, i did invite into, and do the same thing, or really do whatever he wanted to, and with a lot of advance notice, and he always declined. But i made a point of letting him know that he would be welcomed. I would of course be my usual polite self, but he didnt come, but im really pleased that you are here as well. We will see how this goes. I dont want to be too hasty here. You mean youre not making any promises about next time . You never know. You might get demoted cspan eight. Right now were on cspan2. For those of you who want to watch the reruns. Okay. So again a lot of us are familiar with your vital as it sits on just going to ask for questions, and this is, were going to do a lightning round, so to speak, upfront as opposed to sometimes towards the end. Because these are pretty straightforward questions. Did you always know when you were growing up that you wanted to be chairman of the fcc . [laughing] absolutely. What indian growing up in american late 70s would not say of course, the chairmanship, ive got my on it. No, never wouldve anticipated it. Even coming out of law school i did know what is going to do. I thought i would a lawyer in kansas city, and sort of testament not to my own skill and expertise but just to the power of the American Dream that someone like me or any of us really cant aspire to such heights. Its really humbling and blessing and gratifying at once probable you youngsters watching cspan right now that think when i grow up i want to be like pai. Im emphasizing one of your previous positions do you think best prepared you for the job of chairman other than serving as commissioner . Thats a good question. Ive had a number of jobs as you adverted to. Working on the hill helped me with the political calculus, judicial law clerk help med understand how federal courts interpret statutes and apply them, but the job that prepared me the most was deputy counsel. The reason i say that is twofold. Number one, from a substantive perspective it gave me a birdseye view the agency was doing and interpreting section 332, Communications Act understanding how foia and environmental law and physical law applied. That was the first time i had managed a lot of people and gave me an experience that was helpful to me when youre chief when he executive officer of the bier agency. Little did i know that the experience i would be getting would be important in this current role. Okay. Which one person has been most influential in helping your thinking regard your role in fcc . Besides you . [laughter] always a wise move. There are have been a number of people, obviously my family has been supportive. One of the great things about the job is you get to establish connections with the people that came before you and one of the connections that i have been able to make in addition to dick wiley. He was the chair during the time of great change in the industry. The teleCommunications Act was barely on the page when he ascended the chairmanship and i admire the way he led the agency and i would be very fortunate after my time is done that people mention me in the same breath. I agree. I have great fondness for the job he did. The last in this series of one questions is, what one personality trait of yours will be most important to succeeding as chairman . Personality trait. There i would say the external and externally. Externally what i would like to say i bring into the job is what is call a sense of energy in the executive. The Founding Fathers called it one of the key ingredients, leading ingredients to good government. Thats something the Agency Benefits from. I would like to think as having a chairman and commissioners who embrace the task with vigor, they put things on the agenda thats important and they move them quickly and try to create a sense of dispatch and transparency. Thats something that ive really enjoyed embracing and explaining to the outside world that i want to be active, chairman, because the role is not standing still and rules cannot standstill. I love my coworkers and its been such a privilege to work with them. Last friday with your indulgence i got email, we will see. I look forward to seeing how the agency develops, im impressed with actual knowledge and appreciation from what we all do even though in support roles like hr. Thank you for taking on the tough challenges youre facing. I admire your no nonsense approach. Those are things that lift my spirit to know i dont want to be the ceos who sits on the floor and doesnt know care about what the many members of the fcc members do. I really want them to enjoy what they do. I had a chance to meet with them. When you get up in the morning that i do and gratifying honestly to get feedback like that regardless of people might agree or disagree with a particular policy position. At tend of the day, we are all striving for Public Interest and all members of the team. If i can recognize anyone in the audience who is currently or has ever been member of fcc, if you wouldnt mind raising your hand so that i can salute you. [applause] these guys are the best. People like me get the credit, or occasionally the blame. Its just its really humbling to walk along side them in the labors. I appreciate that sentiment and i know the audience does as well. I happen to serve at the agency for three years myself, a long, long time ago. It was close in time to chairman wiley and i often tell people even even my wife sometimes that those years were some of the best professional years of my life. So i know everyone appreciates the way that youve expressed that sentiment. Thanks for that. Lets talk about making the fcc great again. [laughter] thats a joke, okay. [laughter] but lets start actually in this place. Theres a lot of has been a lot of discussion including quite a bit by you as well and michael riley, i think, too about the supposed loss of collegiality of the commission during tom wheelers years. So if you believe there was such breakdown in college the fact that there was split votes in and of itself is not evidence of any lack of god faith by your fellow commissioners, so just talk to us about what you perceived the problems if there were any in collegiality back then and then what you would like to do to restore a greater sense of collegeiality during your administration. I will say that a lot has been written about this. A lot has been said about this. I have a great deal of respect for my predecessor. Going forward, im focused on trying to create an environment in which every commissioner, stakeholder who wants to come to the agency feels that he or she can have a fair hearing and we can exchange views in collegial matter and by constitution who i am. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person. I hope they would say, at least he heard us out and explained why he was taking a different route. Thats the goal ive got Going Forward. No matter what the partisan or policy differences might b at the end of the day we have an environment thats conducive to consensus more often than not. Okay, ive asked this question almost every commissioner thats been on the chair, maybe yourself before but its relevant to the collegiality issue and ive been involved in efforts to try and change the sunshine act in some way to, you know, even aside from repealing, maybe ways to modify it that would be conducive to more collaboration or collegiality. So youve been on the commission for a long enough time that you have an opinion, what say you about the sunshine act . I think some of the provisions that you have talked about or others have talked about can be a well considered and the purpose of the sunshine act which was very well intentioned has actually worked to impede collaboration in a way that would benefit the american people. The example that i always give, when i was a commissioner in serving in the joint board, i still remember the telephone calls with a variety of state counterparts and as the time commissioner and i and no more than two of us could be on the call together, two of us would be on the call, one of the staffers says it would be 15 minutes and commissioner pai had you had to jump off and i had to get briefed on what happened with the call and random game of television. The more serious, not serious but the more intense issues on the monthly basis were the agenda items and there to three of us can get together and hash out a deal. They would have to report back to us and it was just very unsufficient process and so i think specially in digital age and specially now with some of the process reforms in terms of getting items published three weeks in advance, i would hope that congress, take a more modern, forwardlooking view if it decides to review the sunshine act. Sounds like the sunshine act runs up the telephone bill up there at the fcc the way you describe. [laughter] sticking with process a bit longer, you anticipated just now my next question, but before i ask, i do want to say this because ive been involved in other Foundation Scholars for a long time, discussing process reform and offering process reform in addition to substantive matters that we are going talk about and i have to say that in my book youre to be commended for the way that you tackled some fright the getgo. Its more common, of course, to have another committee at the commission or someone study some of these things and so at least from my part i appreciate the way that youve gotten off to a good start on process reform. And i guess, the biggest, perhaps one thats most important or at least most noted so far is the the change in the way that draft items are handled in terms of releasing them to the public and they are now released at the time the items are circulated to the commissioners, three weeks before the commission actually votes on the item, i should say the last week before the Commission Votes and thats whats called the sunshine period and there are no outside contacts during that time but the public has the draft order and when i talked about this, maybe its part of just being an oldtimer but i always, you know, had some concerns about how it would affect the commissions work and i think i even suggested doing on environmental basis and you did in a relatively short experiment but now that its been in effect, really, what we all want to know is how do you think thats working what was considered this radical reform really because it was considered pretty radical before it was done, but specifically when youre answering the question, talk about whether its putting an additional burden on the Communications Staff or the commissioners themselves or has this new practice has changed the nature or quality of the presentations to the commission and the commissions decisionmaking process as youve observed it so far . I think by in large its been a fantastic success. I never understood why the agency would only let the American Public see what it was doing after it had actually done it. To me it was a simple analogy to the hill, before that bill was voted on, before its referred to the committee, you will get the see the legislation on the internet and everyone can understand what it is and debate it. It seems to me that the fcc should take the same step with respect to the issues that the fcc puts on the agenda. For years, i talked about it. The world has gone on. Things have actually worked out just fine and in fact, i hear from the most heartening emails i get are from people who typically dont follow our proceedings, dont work in the field so much but citizens out there in the country say, thanks for publishing. At least i can see now what you were actually doing and so there the openness and transparency has been significant and i dont think its too much to ask for us and i dont think its been a burden. Instead of hush conversation which you have the parties, we heard this might be in paragraph and you can deny this. You can describe what was nonpublic information. I cant confirm it or deny it but you might be on the right track of wink, wink, nod, nod. For the staff, the burden has changed. I wouldnt say its increased but it has changed. Previously, what would typically happen is the staff would work really hard to get an item together and circulated by the chairman three weeks in advance and then the staff would just wait for a weekend and then two weeks and sometimes even almost three weeks for it to get direction from the floor as to how the items are going to change. Sometimes it would change pretty significantly and i felt sorry for the staff, the 11th hour at 10 00 p. M. Right before meeting the majority of the commissioners are going on the opposite and thats when the fccs decisionmaking can run into trouble, legally speaking that you often see problematic issues pop up at the 11th hour because you are putting stuff in there without thinking through all the implications and its hard for the staff to think through, if we do this here, what does it mean for issues like this. I would like to think the staffs work is front load sod in the weeks leading off to three weeks before the fcc meeting they work exceptionally hard, all of our bureaus work exceptionally hard to get the item in shape. If im asking fellow commissioners to vote on something in may or june or whatever, the item that we post three weeks in advance, should be publicly ready for prime time, so to speak, and they do a terrific job of doing it. I know its harder on the front end but in the back end they dont have latenight marathons where theyre not sure where the direction is going to be and not sure how late they will have to stay. The end result is good for everybody. At least youll know exactly what is in paragraph 78 or footnote 332 or whatever. You have orders that dont get up to footnotes 332. [laughter] i want to say here, i was thinking as you were talking that i know commissioner riley has championed the change that you were talking about so i want to give a shotout to him and i know that you share that sentiment, im sure. Absolutely. Lets shift from the process matters to substantive matters. As im doing that, i just want to call your attention, weve got a few copies left in our inventory that are out at the desk. You may have heard me say it before but i really do mean it this time. Two books, new directions and communications policies, written published in 2009 and then in 2012, Communications Law and policy in the digital age. So this is five years old now and they are actually on sale for 10. Thats not the reason that i bring them up although you may want to you may want to grab a copy but a lot of the ideas that are in these two books, both publish bid Caroline Academic press, concerned matter that is we are going to be talking about Net Neutrality and broadband deployment and the substantive issues, theyre actually, you know, discussed by freestate Foundation Scholars, in these books, and i guess i will say this because the administration that has been in place after the books were published, theyre still timely. Not a lot of the things that we recommended necessarily have been adopted but, you know, im hopeful that you can help make these books less timely and so we can move to some others. Before discussing specific issues, i want to just have you talk about your regulatory philosophy as a backdrop to that and i thought your remarks at the mobile world conference back in february were worthwhile reading for anyone that wants to understand really how you think about regulatory policy, so you said then, quote, in the United States we are in the process of returning to light touch to the light touch approach to regulations that produce tremendous investment and innovation throughout our entire internet ecosystem from the core of our networks to the edge. The theme of our Conference Today is new directions and communication policy, less regulation, more investment and more innovation. So i want you to just explain fairly briefly why in your view its almost always the case that light touch regulation rather than heavier touch of regulation leads to more investment and more innovation as a general proposition . Sure. So i think in this regard, a path is often prologued and i think to chairman that we talked about earlier and when he came on board, Communications Policy was at a cross roads and there was debate on how the highspeed networks should be regulated and we make transition from narrow band to broadband and import heavyhanded economic regulation that is were inspired in decades past or should we think a market based approach and chairmans philosophy which i share, make sure we have highspeed networks all across the country, make sure we have Infrastructure Investment that pours into every corner of the country. We need to make sure that the companies have the incentive and ability to invest and number one they need regulatory certainty and they need to know the rules arent going to shift depending on the year or who had what for breakfast and number two, they also need those regulations to be market based so that instead of very prescriptive, you shall built here, you shall run your business a certain way kind of regulations. Its more light touch and so you let the market develop whorg anically organically and then you can take targeted action against that company or bad act or and that, i think, is generally speaking the philosophy i embrace. Companies that became globally power houses, that started with nothing but an idea. I have to say that the free market approach that he embraced is one that will serve us well in the future, 5g networks, satellites and wireless, isp is doing more Better Things with networks. In that same speech in february at the mobile world conference, you said this, quote meet the press, you said this, can you really standby that. [laughter] well, i mean [laughter] the good part is, you see i read your speeches. [laughter] good one. In return for that all i would ask that you read what i write. [laughter] no, i mean, this was interesting to me. You said, quote, complex rules design today regulate a monopoly will inevitably push the market to a monopoly, to some that might seem like a puzzling conundrum. What did you mean by that . Well, for more detail in what i meant you can go back to the speech of the kingsbury, but this is something often lost on many people because they think the heavier the regulation the better it is for all the competitors, but in reality, heavyhanded economic regulation or complex regulation actually serves to benefit the Larger Companies that work in that space and the reason is that Smaller Companies simply dont have the Compliance Resources to fill out the paperwork, they dont have the capital that they can raise to further build out their networks. Its simply more of a burden on them and so inevitable over time they get squeezed out of the marketplace. And so thats why i think its important to have light touch market base regulation as opposed to review of conduct, if you will, to ensure that the Smaller Companies, we want them to have competitive entry and we want them to gave a foothold in the marketplace and if theres bad action in the marketplace we want to take enforcement against those companies but regulate everything with a very heavy sledge hammer approach is one of the ultimately is not going to benefit consumers and thus get what you got in the 1930s which was a regulated monopoly and thats not something that serves consumers and certainly not during the digital era. My colleague cooper, senior fellow who is sitting right here in the audience, he and i suggested that the commission rely on a rebuttable evidentiary and section 11 periodic regulatory review proceedings, and essentially, these would be rebuttable presumptions so that theyre not outcome determinative and i would have same statutory criteria in place, protecting consumers and competition and so forth, but the notion behind that idea that the marketplace has changed so much generally, but the marketplace has changed so much in the direction of competition that it would be useful for the commission, you know, at least in those two contexts in case your weedwacker is not otherwise working at the time to have in place these, you know, deregulatory presumptions. I really just have one question about that. Thats a really brilliant idea, isnt it . Well, what i will say that if you think of the marketplace on a continuum where one part of it is monopoly and the other side highly competitive marketplace, it seems to me the rate there is, the case to be made as you get closer to competitive marketplace because its great problems of what you might otherwise see amongst firms that are behaving anticompetitively. Okay. So lets return now to the elephant in the room or the big cajouna. [laughter] im going to share a secret with you, this may have been three to four years ago, of course, Net Neutrality was still the topic and maybe there were other things at this conference but i think i wanted to make sure that the chairman at least talked about Net Neutrality some and you know you know our chairman, he sent me an email that said he planned to talk about am radio the next day and that had me worried until he actually showed up that day. [laughter] but we are going talk about Net Neutrality or the open internet proceeding or what restoring internet freedom, you can call it whatever you want to but we will talk about that, but i want to make clear so everyone understands here and i know this to be true as a former commissioner or lawyer that obviously chairman pai hasnt made up his mind about the outcome of the proceeding, couldnt make up your mind until until its time to do that and that you havent foreclosed things, but within that context i think we still talk about it. Actually the first question is pretty simple. May be puzzling to some people. But i think i understand it. Both tom wheeler and yourself both say you are in favor of a quote from a free and open internet. You know, you both proclaim that is the case and i am sure both of you do that in good faith. But nevertheless, you have a think very different views about how to get there or what we might call the right way to get there. So what i want to do, i dont want to take a lot of time reciting what is in the notice of proposed rulemaking of issue because its out there and most people in the room sort of know the principal elements of the notice. I just want to ask you a few questions. Again, ill say i understand that you are not at liberty and that you dont know exactly where youre going to come out. So ill take that as a given. So you have expressed the view entitled to classification and the good conduct rule are very problematic. You said that over and over again. So just to explain to our audience here what you think is the problematic nature of those two elements that are in the notice of proposed rulemaking. Sure, id be happy to. With respect to the title ii classification comment the evidence suggests to me that number one it was unnecessary in 2015. We had a free and open internet for the. Neta absence of title ii. Number two, these are harming investments in infrastructure. Theres been evidence to suggest among the biggest 12 Internet Service providers that its down and many of the canaries in the coal mine so to speak including 19 municipal government owned isps, 22 small cable companies, many of britains same title ii is hung like a black cloud over businesses prevented them from getting financing. To me at least, that is a serious concern for people in rural areas that dont have the kind of Internet Access and a competitive marketplace that they want. With respect to the general kind of standard, the free roving authority for the agency has been somewhat problematic for those who want to provide consumer value. The free Data Investigations in which a wireless company, are looking to differentiate themselves by giving the customers for free. That seems to me the last thing that we want to prohibit or at least put under the microscope. Going forward again the chairman approach a light touch regulation is the right one. He faces similar questions in the late 90s and gave a very impressive speech which said if you want massive investment, you dont want to import more heavyhanded rules you want to take a more calibrated the consumer Infrastructure Investment. We are talking about the Net Neutrality will, it surprised me a little bit in the majority order in the previous iteration that the commission referred to the good conduct rule as a socalled catchall provision. That seemed like a little bit of an admission against interest. In that discussion earlier, chairman pai, there is a bit of an agreement when i tried to probe the bottomline position they did not title ii to remain in place for the good conduct rule. Heres my question and that is teed up in the notice of proposed rulemaking. Some of the reasons that might be problematic in terms of investment are new senior fellow wrote a paper several weeks ago that extensively help that regime is paying for priorities is fairly common in other parts of the marketplace and that there can be investment suppressing effects from prioritization band. And im looking to examine and move forward to proceeding. It is something the fcc will look at. I would encourage anyone whos interested to participate and to submit evidence on that point. The reason we have the notice rulemaking the beginning of the conversation, not the conclusion. We need to learn about the variety of other economic arguments about prioritization about anything having to do with his internet regulations. And we can meet that prioritization for us. The last question and the specific one assist. Heres where you can help me out. Especially you were deputy general counsel prior to your commissioner ship and it decides the commission has had. It was not common carriage. It was Information Service and the commission at a previous stage had determined section 76 was not an affirmative grant of authority. And they asked about those things. Suppose the commission were to reach that those things were true. Could the commission relayed isp practices and title i and asked the same question as. The title i constitute an affirmative grant of Regulatory Authority and here ive might be hearkening back to that comcast case which originally dealt with this issue so one final way of putting this is the commission and was that mean it would be asking from all of our duty to oversee broadband Internet Access services. I hate to dodge, but their two hypotheticals and that question. I cant predict where the agency might go. We didnt do a son issue declaratory ruling saying the law and the facts shall be so clear but wanted to engage the public to discuss what should be the Legal Framework for thinking about these issues. What should the various policy parameters be. We are going to see in this case a legal analysis. You cant say i didnt try. Let me just ask you this, the final thing about Net Neutrality. Obviously, you probably wouldve been just as happy if congress had gone first on this issue, right . Congress is always free to legislate. I know theres great interest in this issue. If they make a decision, well be duty bound to implement it and master what i would do. Let me ask you this because lets assume that congress does get to a point where it wants to establish a policy on Net Neutrality i appreciate that you dont ultimately Tell Congress what to do. But on the other hand you are chairman of the fcc and you have a lot of expertise and they would look to you for some guidance i would hope. So if you were at rising congress concerning new legislation, just tell us what you can about what you would Tell Congress about what this legislation would look like that would finally resolve this issue. I might know a little bit about many things but in this regard, theres so many issues congress has to think about that i couldnt pretend to give them instructions are specific guidance. What i would say is you look i think congress over time since the inception updated the act to provide rules of the road, to provide more certainty to the public about this or that sector. If they see fit to update those rules and give us the rules of the digital road Going Forward so to speak, i think we all love the map. Especially when it comes to the core protections of the open internet that people share some of what you mentioned. Theres actually a lot of agreement once you put aside the rhetoric of the partisan affiliation. People of goodwill can sit down at some point and reach a consensus will serve us all well Going Forward. I want to turn to privacy. There is what we call a brouhaha in washington about privacy after you take some actions to either stay or stop enforcement of privacy ordering of course ultimately Congress Passed a Congressional Review Act resolution that reason that the rule. It has been controversial and remain so. Actually, this morning under session, howard czerwinski, president obamas administrator actually volunteered, you know, that he disagreed with the privacy regulation adopted by the Wheeler Commission and he ultimately thinks that all privacy regulation should reside at the ftc, which is consistent with your position. Here is what i want to ask you. I know that one objection to those rules was the fact that the Internet Service providers were treated in a harsher fashion and over at the ftc. That was a focus over a lot of the concern. Chairwoman black burners introduce piece of legislation to regulate in the privacy area called the browser act. One of the things to redo would be to optin for the collection and use of certain information they release over at the ftc has been considered them to look at at those tradeoffs and included unlike other sensitive Financial Health information, should he said jack to optout rather than optin. What do you think because they think either you or commissioner rolle, i forget exactly who, but in addition to the level Playing Field argument, theres also concerns expressed about the optin requirement and the impact that would have on the business is for the Internet Service providers. You have any thoughts on that . My issue has been pretty simple. Consumers online have a uniform expectation of privacy. It shouldnt matter and does that matter with one company or another. They want that information to be protect good. The lesson i draw from that that the Regulatory Framework should be consistent. And so that is why ive often said whatever the rules are going to be, they have to be part of a level Playing Field so consumers at the end of the day when they go online to know that certain kinds of information will be protected. They have taken an interest as well. Database the core principle is one that everybody embraces and it actually helps us think about policy and a much clearer way. Meet the press because i wouldnt want to keep you much longer. Just a couple more areas i want to ask you about. The one spectrum of policy and promoting deployment, that was of course discussed at the panel this morning. Meredith baker had talked about some of the impediments to deployment later riots. You have proceeding out now to proceedings which are adopted and called infrastructure that during april and infrastructure perceiving and one preceding and i thought that focus together at one meeting and one month is useful in helping to raise the consciousness of the way that these issues that youre going to have to decide really relate to infrastructure. We hear so much about infrastructure these days. You know, i think what you are doing was helping the public understand a lot of what goes on at the fcc properly may be called infrastructure development. So that said, youve got on the one hand local restrictions, these processes, whatever that the localities adopt for reasons that you know, in their view are legitimate, perfectly legitimate they are close to the people so to speak. On the other hand, youve got imperatives for getting these new Innovative Technologies in the market place. You know that you discussed that. Just tell the audience, really that you approach these issues. How do you just think about in your own mind about how youre going to balance, balance the interests of the localities, but the interest of the fcc and the federal government and not having innovation and investment stagnate because it is not an easy question. The bottom line here is where here is virile and to gather that they are increasingly demanding a better, faster mobile conductivity. To me at least, every official at every local government work cooperatively and proactively to make sure we have the Regulatory Framework and incentivize this. The deployment of 5g related spec drums and otherwise lousy mobile services to thrive. At the federal level, consistently talking about the need to expand or streamlined regulatory requirements. For the deployment of tens of thousands of small cells, you shouldnt have to jump through the hoops with Environmental Review for Historic Preservation as he would form a crystal fight power. On the local level as well, we want to make sure that the local municipalities have the ability to review applications of course, but in moratoria that are permanent effectively, that doesnt serve consumers about either. At the end of the day, we are all striving towards the same goal which is a Public Interest will serve the mobile revolution of the future. Former commissioner baker has talked far more eloquently about this than i ever could. This is a cooperative effort Going Forward we will be moving quickly as we can within the constraints of the law and everybody on the same page since we all tend to gain from it. I am going to ask you one more question because one of your staff came over and tapped me on the shoulder. Thisll be the last question and you can answer briefly if youd like. Im going to do what i had asked the audience not to do and ask a twopart question and make it under one question. Here it is. Number one, you have taught about making economics for raising the level of economic inquiry considerations input at the commission to a higher level as something to obviously talk about a lot. A lot of the members of our board of economic referred to in a certain context, i dont want to misquote them, are referred to the consideration of the Net Neutrality or dresden economics free zone. The first question is, tell us what you have done so far in that regard, what other plans you have. And then my second question and final question is just ive always been interested for a long time in the fccs processes over a reform because i think there is duplication with doj wanders off from what ought to be a central focus there. Tell us what you have in mind in that area as well, please. Sure, so with respect to the economics question, i propose in early april to restart the process setting up what is called an office economics of data. For the Legal Function of the fcc we have an office of general counsel. For the more Engineering Technology side of things we have in office of engineering to allergy. But the economic function which is arguably one of the most critical for the agency, we should be putting economist at the frontline or decisionmaking. They are sprinkled throughout the office isnt used in a haphazard way or not at all. Certain beers are very busy, others lower. Quite often economists dont have a seat at the table, so i wanted to change that. What is a datadriven and economics driven agency. They seem to be the creation of this lady was centralized function so you have all of these great data analyst that the commission working in one place. That would enable us to say if you are proposing something on wireless infrastructure, lets bring in oed early to evaluating and let us know this might seem good on paper, but crazy for these three reasons as opposed to escalate on a policy path and reverting something by the way of completely economically infeasible, which is a train wreck of a situation. Secondly, the reason i was excited about it is number one, for instance, it would and one of the things found. And encourage a culture and big picture issues. Enter economics working papers and price cap regulation in the 80s and 90s. Since 2012 i found to my prize zero economic working papers and more of that academic environment some of the most brilliant in the country. Speaking of the serendipitous benefit that will help us attract the agency. We are competing as sec which has a set of economists. From what ive heard anyway, it would make it easy to attract the best and brightest to stay low, the sec takes economics seriously in the proof is essential economics and data where you can work on some of those cutting issues in the industry. I am hopeful Going Forward that would be something that bears fruit. And Economics Working Group talking to people within the agency about the best way to do this. We want to take as much wisdom. That would to her i guess the economists may say so. Moving forward we are very excited about oed. With respect to transactional review, going back to the answer i made in november or d. At the 2011 for the Senate Commerce committee about how we handle transactional review that im covering and i still do each transaction on the merit and you evaluate the facts as best as you can buy what is in the Public Interest and make the appropriate decision as to whether doj, ftc review thats an issue for congress to decide. That is an area considered when i was at doj in the late 90s. We will see if Anything Congress decides to do on that topic. The i want to say that im familiar with that reference to the federalist papers about energy in the executive. More energetic. I want to say again, mr. Chairman, that i appreciate someone that is observed on the fcc over a long period of time the energy that you were bringing to the task. I very much appreciate what you said about the staff, people that work at the fcc. I am not going to use that phrase, make the fcc agreed again. I didnt say that, but i have a lot of confidence that under your leadership, really that the fcc will do a live that they are the American Public. I am sure we might not always agree, but i really have confidence that at the end of the day, whenever that is that the American Public will be well served for what youre trying to do. I thank you for that and i especially thank you for being here with us today. I asked the audience to join me in thanking the chairman. [applause] my pleasure, any time. U. S. Senate voted on combination to be general counsel of the cia. The vote is scheduled guard to 15 00 eastern in and senator marco rubio would make it easier for the department of Veterans Affairs to the higher comment about and suspend employees. The final passage that is scheduled for 6 15 today. Later that week the senate takes up legislation to expand sanctions on iran targeting people of the Ballistic Missiles program. Bring you live coverage from the floor of the u. S. Senate. The chaplain, dr. Barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Eternal god, the fountain of wisdom, you are more majestic than the mountains. Give our lawmakers the reverence for you that will motivate them to do your will. May they labor to enhance your