Policy decisions. They are instead relying on noneconomic evidence, popular whims and fancies of the day to reach decisions that have tremendous economic import. Peter has it always been that way . Dr. Singer it has not always been that way. That is what the paper is about. Try to set up and low of influence over time. We have been in periods like this before. It is not the only time that economic decisions have been relegated well below the eighth floor. But, we have not seen anything in recent history quite like this as we have seen under the wheeler fcc. Peter you write decisions are often made under the tom Wheeler Administration that are devoid of Economic Analysis. How did we get that . Dr. Singer we posit that we think the fcc has largely lost its way in light of the authority or lack thereof that congress has given it. The telecommunications act, the last time it was revised was done in a day before the internet was on anybodys mind. The top of anyones mind. Theres not a lot of guidance in the area of internet policymaking. And jerry faulhaber and i posited what the fcc needed to do in an effort to substitute for clear guidance was to throw itself into the populist winds and allow that to guide it instead. Peter you write in your paper that when Economic Analysis is missing, special interest in the sea groups are in power. Dr. Singer and that is true. Very disconcerting to this economist is in the open Internet Order of 2015. The fcc credited economics of public advocacy groups, purporting to show that telcos increase their investment in the late 1990s because of classification that is common carrier. Had that been subjected to serious Economic Analysis, economists would say do you have a test group or control group to see if it makes any sense . We do. Cable groups were not subject to common carrier regulation in the late 1990s. What we see is the capital accumulation was faster than that of the telcos. There was a mistaken causal inference made by the fcc. And we think it would not have happened if economists had a greater voice in the decisionmaking process. Peter lets bring lydia beyoud of bloomberg bna. Lydia thank you. Another one of the things you have written is the fcc should be required to perform a cost analysis benefit before the engage in any major decisionmaking. Why is it necessary and how is it different for what the fcc does now . Dr. Singer lets talk about what the fcc does now. When the fcc issued the open order, they issued a twopage letter to congress that disavowed any responsibility correctly for having to perform costbenefit analysis. I want to point out i have the luxury of participating in lots of economic debates, the epa, Consumer Financial protection administration, department of labor. What i am impressed by is the degree of rigor and thoroughness and economic decisionmaking. I commend people to go look. There are literally appendices where economists are estimated economic models to come as best as they can to a true measure of the benefits of a proposed rule. Nothing like that goes on in the fcc the question that jerry and i put, why should the fcc be objected to a less rigorous standard when in fact they are overseeing an industry that is arguably more important to the economy than these other agencies . Lydia so, the Trump Transition Team has tapped three economists who are affiliated with the American Enterprise institute which is a conservative freemarket think tank in d. C. Given what you know of their writings and interest in what , direction do you think they might take the fcc in the time of transition . Dr. Singer i have looked at the comments, i am very familiar with jeff isaac in particular. It is pretty clear to me that they think about this in the way most traditional economists are. Mark and jeff are probably a little more conservative than i am. But we all share the same common understanding that we have to measure the benefits, we have to measure the cost and there is an important additional element that many noneconomists do not pick up is that even if you have come up with an intervention that generates net benefit, there is an obligation to look for other interventions that would generate even greater net benefits. I am confident that those two and roslyn will try to impose a certain degree of discipline on the fcc that has been absent. Lydia can you further define what you mean when you say intervention . Dr. Singer intervention would be a regulatory proposal that would intervene or prevent Market Forces from acting as they normally would. Mark jamieson is fond of saying he does not what interventions or protection until, number one a market failure is demonstrated, the market is doing something bad for consumers. Number two that the proponents of an intervention can come up with an idea that would generate benefits for consumers that exceed the cost of imposing such a regulation. Peter hal singer, recently there was the Comcast Universal merger and right now, theyre looking at an at t Time Warner Cable merger. How would an intervention or Economic Analysis affect those . Dr. Singer the intervention that i would advocate there is some sort of casebycase adjudication of complaints that would be brought by rival distributors seeking access to newly acquired time warner content. Similar protections were in imposed in the comcast nbc order. I do not think anybody is really advocating, even proponents to the merger no intervention. , we can certainly debate as to whether the merged entity, at t time warner, would have incentives to foreclose rival distributors from newly acquired content. I am speaking about hbo and cnn. What i expect is the conversation will quickly turn to, how do we remedy, how do we protect against the source of abuses . The template that has been laid out by the protections of doj and the fcc jointly implemented in the comcast merger. Peter Net Neutrality has been developed under the tom Wheeler Administration. How has that been devoid of Economic Analysis or part of Economic Analysis . Dr. Singer in the 2010 open Internet Order under chairman jankowski, the decision was made to not impose a strict ban on pay priority and instead pay priority was subject to ex post or casebycase review. And the rationale and the correct rationale is that certain arrangements of a paid prioritization could be done for procompetitive reasons and others for anticompetitive reasons. For economists when there is that kind of ambiguity it is , best to embrace casebycase rather than blanket protections. Thats the economic way of thinking. And by the way in the 2010 order, in contrast to 2015, there were tons of citations explaining the ambiguous effects of a ban on things like consumer welfare and investment. That economics got flushed away in 2015. Instead what tom wheeler did was embraced this populist wind and that led him to a decision of an outright ban on paid priority. You would be hardpressed to find an economist who would support banning conduct that could be justified for procompetitive reasons. Importantly economists are not , saying no protections are needed. This is something i want to stress. We do not want to have a false debate about ironclad protections versus no protections. That is not the debate, at least that i want to have. I think the protections that i have in mind would permit independent content providers to bring a complaint to the fcc and have their complaint adjudicated by someone, perhaps an Administrative Law judge to bring them the kind of relief they seek. That is not the same as no protections at all. Lydia you have written about the harm to competition of the regulatory pendulum, this swinging backandforth of different policies as we transition from one administration to another. In what direction do you expect that pendulum to swing in the Trump Administration . Do you see spaces, the fcc or in other agencies where you could halt the pendulum . Dr. Singer what i am worried about and i spoke in a recent article is that the pendulum swung to one extreme under tom wheeler, and that was to give his constituency maximum benefits and to inflict maximum pain on his opponents and what i am worried about based on the writings of jeff and mark is the pendulum might swing back in the opposite direction and that is no protections. They have written that many of the duties that are now within the fcc ought to be passed to a federal trade commission. While that may please some on the right, i am worried it will will not get any buy in from those on the left or even those in the center of the debate as i would like to see myself. The concern is if the isps are watching these two parties go after each other and with the pendulum swinging back and forth from common carrierbased to interventions under democratic control and no protections under republican control, my concern is that they will pull back from the space and look elsewhere. They will look elsewhere for their investments, content, for example. I want to bring this debate to a close and find a place of Common Ground for those on the right and left, protections for content providers that would allow the isps to have faith the issue is settled and they will beach read a fairly going forward. Peter to follow up, the subtitle of your report is an agency in search of a mission. Is the fcc still relevant today . Dr. Singer i think they are very much relevant. I think this space we talk about, communication space is the future. When we talk about investments in infrastructure and what is going to lead the economy going forward, i think it is communications and broadband. And there will be fights that will play out. There are natural adversaries, large content providers. And the isps. It seems to me that the fcc is a Perfect Place to reconcile these differences of opinion and to bring peace in the broadband ecosystem. Lydia to go back to that and your previous point, there is also some debate that the Trump Administration may want to restructure the fcc itself, not Just Authority and what it undertakes to even at the bureau level of what the bureau is responsible for. As an economist, what kind of changes do you think should take place and how might they impact what they regulate . Dr. Singer if i had a chance to restructure the fcc and ive written a book with bob on this, called the need for speed, sorry for the quick plug, the way i see it is not so much in terms of departments and bureaus and stuff like that, but what should the agency be doing and how should it be structured . To make something concrete, we will start with a zero rating debate and the concept is that Wireless Internet Service provider might give preferential treatment to certain content, in particular not decide not to treat that content or count that data associated with the content against the wireless providers data cap. What troubled me as i saw tom wheeler weighing in on what he thought was innovative. I was thinking, if i could get him to read my book, we want the fcc to be doing is to depoliticize these decisions. Get the commissioners out of particular disputes between parties. And creating a forum in which content providers, independent or independent distributors, can bring complaints and have them adjudicated by some specialist. I think Administrative Law judge is the right specialist. This is how the fcc has been adjudicating disputes in the traditional cable tv space for years. I think successfully. There is no reason that that template couldnt be used to adjudicate disputes among parties in the internet space. Lydia what do you think the Economic Impact of that would be on these companies . Dr. Singer if there were real rules that were protected and can bring speedy relief to independent content providers and independent distributors, i think that the isps would be incentivized to behave nicely. And i think this is something that we will watch it play out. I would commend people to look and see how it is played out in the video space. The thing we want to do is create incentives for both edge providers, content providers and the isps to invest and have confidence. Confidence that their Business Plan is going to make sense and will have a fair go of it. Peter hal singer, in your paper, you spent quite a bit of time looking at wireless, the development of Wireless Technology and Economic Analysis. Why did that work in your view . Dr. Singer jerry and i are of the view the reason why it worked is the fcc consciously made the decision to take a handsoff approach to wireless. Peter back in the 1970s . Dr. Singer there was a push for wireless to be treated, even more recently than that to be treated as common carriers. The fcc rejected that correctly. We think it was the lighthanded approach that created the incentives for isps, wireless isps, carriers to invest is invest and innovate. Now, we have very competitive markets in wireless. The type of market we wish we had in line and that wireless is almost the template is the Gold Standard that we like to hold out for competition should look like. Peter should there be a common regulation across all of these different Communication Industries . Dr. Singer i think there should be a common regulation. I do not think it makes a sense for the government to favor one type of platform over the other. I know this was a big issue in the Net Neutrality debate. But, yes common is good. Peter who is your coauthor . Dr. Singer jerry faulhaber of the curious absence of Economic Analysis. Peter who is he . Dr. Singer a professor at the Wharton School of business at the university of pennsylvania. Peter was previously with the fcc . Dr. Singer he was previously a chief economist at the fcc. Lydia can you give us more detail on what you think that that even Playing Field looks like, for you as an economist, what would it be . Dr. Singer the even Playing Field, what i want to see is a venue in which complaining content providers, lets start with those. We have another set of actors that potentially are at a disadvantage and that would be independent distributors. Lets start with content providers. Want i want to see a platform or venue in which they can come to the fcc and say we are not being treated right. Currently, there really are no protections. I think it is kind of open. It is in the air. I think we could look to the kind of protections we have for independent Cable Networks as a template for how that should go. With respect to online distributors, i think the same platform could be used. And finally, we talk a lot about discrimination by vertically integrated isps and threatening innovation in the content space. Theres another discrimination by search engines, as well. And to me, it is not clear why the fcc should only be concerned about discrimination by vertically integrated isps. I think that certain large search engines, who go unnamed, can do just as much damage to innovation in the content space area as we are looking for compromises as to how the fcc should be structured, what kind of discrimination should they be on the lookout for i will raise , the issue is a possible area for fcc intervention. Lydia you are saying that google should be regulated by the fcc . Dr. Singer when Congress Starts thinking about what a future fcc would look like and were thinking about discrimination, vertically integrated platforms, the conversation should not be limited to isps. I think the threat that google poses to innovation is just as significant as what comcast or verizon. Peter hal singer, to overuse a phrase that has been overused, go where the puck is going not where it has been. Has the fcc been guilty of looking backwards when it comes to regulation and monitoring the industry . Dr. Singer i do think they are a bit guilty of looking backwards. Yes, common carriage is a concept from the 1930s and was designed in a different era, an era of monopolies. And the great irony of it is common carriage was designed as a nondiscrimination protection, right . But of course title ii and the , way it has been used to justify the various, what we call zero price rules really has nothing to do with nondiscrimination. Nondiscrimination would mean if i were to offer you a certain paid priority arrangement, i would have to stand ready to offer it to all similarly situated commerce. That concept is antithesis to what tom wheeler and strong Net Neutrality advocates are thinking. They do not want prices and they are antiprices and that is what Net Neutrality has become. And so, they looked backward to common carriage but if you dig deep into what common carriage was about, it has nothing to do with the sort of zero press regulations that they pass. Peter emerging technologies, are they safe from fcc regulation at this point . Dr. Singer emerging as technologies on the internet as opposed to traditional isps . Peter you take it and run with it. Dr. Singer the overthetop the top guys are pretty safe right now. I think of the overthetop providers are in need not so much of regulation instead of protections. The overthetop providers need protections to make sure they have access to content. Content that might be owned by furtively integrated incumbent platform providers. Im all in favor of making the fcc a venue for taking those adjudicating those kind of Program Access disputes. Lydia i think you touched on a lot of points today that go toward the notion we are sort of at an another Inflection Point in the media market and we have got a major 85 billion deal that congress is looking at between at t and time warner. One, it is not clear what role the fcc might play in that merger review. What role do you think the fcc should be prepared to play in shape or not, this new , media landscape we seem to be heading towards . Dr. Singer well i think just to go back to the at t time warner merger, that does present a template, an opportunity to define what the fcc should be doing. I think that it raises the same issues we have been talking about today which is vertical integration, access to rival distribution platforms, carriage by independent content situated to the content owned by the vertically integrated. My only caveat is i would not want to see protections that are associate with a merger that would not apply to other isps. In a perfect world, if it was designed by economists, all of the vertically integrated isps would be subject to the same standards. We would not use a merger as an opportunity to make standards for one provider more rigorous. Lydia you mentioned earlier that you think the fcc should take a step back from politics, but do you think its possible that this agency or any agency really can be fully independent of what is taking place politically . Dr. Singer i think there are ways that you can immunize the technocrats of the fcc from political forces. I think the answer is, yes. I think, if for example, you , were to accept a remedy that jerry and i propose in the paper which is an obligation to engage in costbenefit analysis. At that point, you really do immunize the technocrats from the calls or the letters to do things that do not make economic sense. I think right now, they are largely operating in a vacuum and they are free from having to abide by the same standards that are imposed on other agencies that are arguably doing less important things than the fcc. Peter you have three recommendations for congress. Congress should clarify its first, intent in the 1996 telecom act. What was it . Dr. Singer the intent is just a preamble which basically suggests there ought to be a deregulatory handsoff effort , when it comes to the internet. I think the fcc needs more guidance than that. I think in particular what i , could live with is congress authority in ahe way it was contemplated the , light touch way it was contemplated in the 2010 order. You remember that the 2010 order was a political compromise. The problem was the authority was lacking given the particulars of how the rules were set up. I think that had the fcc been granted the authority to do what it wanted in the 2010 order, we would be done with the Net Neutrality debate and we would move forward. It is the lack of specificity, the lack of authority that i think is causing the problem. Peter the fcc is a creature of congress, isnt it . Dr. Singer it is but it needs guidance. Let me give an example. The Congress Gave the fcc guidance in the cable act, of it is in the business now of adjudicating discrimination complaints by independent Cable Networks. It did not have the guidance before. It was a compromise that congress thought out. It was vertical integration going on in the cable industry. The question is, should we ban it, should we stop it or permit it and give the fcc the authority to police discriminatory conduct . Congress instructed the fcc to do the latter. The notion that the fcc is going to find what it needs to do on its own, i think is fanciful. Congress has a role and it should spell out clearly the authority and limitations of the fcc in the internet space. Peter do see the Upcoming Congress to be a little more activist . Dr. Singer well, i think they were ready and we are speaking of republicans, they were ready to deal when they were in a position of weakness. The question is, whether those offers they put on the table to give the fcc authority to regulate Internet Service providers remain on the table . Or, if instead, they will retract those offers . I hope it is the former. Peter one more question. Lydia well, the question is theres certainly a lot a focus on the possibility of Net Neutrality legislation in congress. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn said it will be a top priority for them. But also the Trump Administration is talking about immigration reform, rolling back the Affordable Care act, there are a lot of key policy issues for the next administration that seem to take a lot of the air out of the room. How likely do think congress can actually get some of the neutrality regulated legislation through . Dr. Singer i am fairly confident. I think that now is the time to do it. It is the tendency when you are in power to inflict maximum pain on your enemies. But i think if people can step back and realize they are not always going to be in power and sometimes the other party will be in power, it might make sense to find a compromise and bring this to an end and move on. Peter hal singer and lydia beyoud, thank you for being on the communicators. Dr. Singer thank you for having me. Cspan where history unfold daily. In 19 79, cspan was created as a Public Service by americans America Television companies and brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Some of the programs this Holiday Weekend on cspan. 8 00 p. M. , a nasa briefing on the discovery of seven earth like planets orbiting a star. We are using the Hubble Telescope to determine if they have hydrogenhelium dominated atmospheres. Announcer a discussion on genetically modified foods host of hosted in los angeles. Those of us who do this, we sing all plants or gmos because theres nothing you buy in any Grocery Stores whether organic or conventional that has not been genetically modified. Announcer on easter sunday, the white house easter in role. And then the African AmericanHistory Museum in washington. I knew that the nation was thirsting for this museum, but i have to confess, i didnt know that the reaction would be this positive and this strong. At 1 30 5 p. M. , a panel of federal judges discussing the history of the bill of rights. What the bill of rights is part of the whole constitution, it is hugely important, designation of fences, division of power. Followed by a conversation of the smithsonian institutions david thornton, the library of congress carla, and others. We have 2 million books and 154 million other things. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern, president ial historian green medford and Richard Norton smith p. Scuss president ial leadershi it is interesting that the greatest american president , a ram lincoln, is bracketed by arguably the least successful american president stronge this Holiday Weekend president s. This Holiday Weekend on the stanford this week and on American History tv on cspan3, tonight on lectures in on the worstturer act of terrorism in San Francisco history. What happens next at 2 00 p. M. , the local press convened pathetic results of the explosion and the results. America, onel the firing lines with the germans. Camera, the guys just got hit. Sunday ethics of blood p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, we visit the portrait gallery of the second bank of the United States in philadelphia. Inside what we have is a fine arts exhibit where we include portraits to tell the story of 18thit was like to live in century america, the world that those people knew, and the world that the revolution built. Then a 8 00 on the presidency, historians discuss the relationship between outs hamilton and george washington. Washington is a horse whisperer. He himself is a person of volcanic temperament, but he learns early on to control himself. He learned selfmastery, and he is a horse whisperer who ms a very high strung, very skittish, very fast alexander hamilton. Hamilton, when washington is not around, gets himself into a lot of control. For our complete American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Org. Reporters Bob Schieffer and cecilia vega discussed wha