Communications in technology will now come to order and the chair recogs ins herself for five minutes for an Opening Statement and i do want to welcome each and everyone of you obviously a hearing of interest as we have a full room in front of us. And it is our first hearing in 2017 with a fully formed federal Communications Commission as often seems to be the case, the senate takes their dear ever loving time to get things done but im pleased to see that the commission is back up to speed and ill tell you i am pleased that we have five members of this commission and they have different points of view to bring to the discussion on all things telecomrelated and i think thats healthy for the telecommunications and technology industry. And were here today to conduct oversight of the agency which is this subcommittees primary role. It is very important that we fulfill these obligations. Because we have given the fcc a Critical Mission and task to fulfill. From the commissionss Disaster Response efforts to supporting rural broad band to its efforts to streamline and modernize the regulatory environment, impacting some of the greatest recreators and innovators. Youre all doing important work and we appreciate what you do. One of the many jobs is to regulate broadcaster whose accept and fulfill unique Public Interest obligation due to their use of valuable public spectrum. While we were in the final stages of planning for the routine oversight hearing, some of my colleagues ask the committee hold an entire hearing about comments by the president on twitter regarding certain broadcasters work. So i fully expect them to question the trump tweets and chairman pie since we have a very full slate of issues, my hope is you will address that concern so that we can focus on the work and responsibilities of the commission. The commission has conducted entirely appropriate oversight of broadcast licenses. Theres unlike some in our chamber who have urged the fcc to adopt a new fairness doctrine, mandating they provide equal time to the opposition if they allow anyone to express any type of political opinion on air. The outrage over the president s twitter music stands in sharp contrast to the silence as twitter cuts off the voices of conservatives, Sexual Assault victims and potentially anyone who posts something they just dont like for whatever reason. All this on a platform so powerful and far reaching that you could argue that it is the modern day public square. And some on twitter have even called to suspend the president s acount and after my recent experience i will say wouldnt put it past some people. The latest twitter scandal is an attempt to distract from the commission and the American People from the fccs real work which is delivering on a mission to unleash American Innovation. So no matter what questions are said, i hope were going to stick to keeping our eye on the ball and making certain that we address things like media ownership rules, the Lifeline Program, the imperatives of expanding rural broad band and a free and open internet. That is something we want to see done by the end of this year and at this time i yield one min that to vice chairman of this subcommittee, mr. Lance. Welcome to chairman pie and the now full compliment of commissioners. What a good looking group. Thank you for appearing before us today. Since our last oversight hearing in july, theyve continued important work such as Disaster Relief and recovery. Fraud prevention and closing the Digital Divide. Moving forward in the process to roll back the misguided title to reclassification of isps from the Previous Administration. Here we have recently taken a bipartisan step forward in reauthorizing the fcc for the First Time Since 1990. I applaud the chairman and Ranking Member for their leadership in this oversight tool. I also thanking oreilly for joining me for a 5 g industry round table. I commend his leadership on infrastructure policies that will be importedant in winning our effort in the race to 5 g. I look forward to your testimony. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Doyle, youre recing nuzed for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair and for all the witnesses appearing before us today. Let me say i really enjoy our time here together as im sure all of you do and i would encourage the chairman to continue to hold these get togethers far more often. Welcome back. Your work on the homework gap has been missed. Commissioner carr, congratulations on your commission. I hope you remember that the guiding principal of the fcc is to act in the publics interest. Its a standard i will hold you to as well. Chairman pi, many people around the countrynercluding myself and many of colleagues are deeply alarmed by your response to President Trumps threats against the media and specifically his tweet threatening nbc. In 2013 you wrote in the wall street journal that the government has no place in pressuring media to covering certain stories. You took six days to respond to the president s tweet and when you did, you did not directly directed the president s threat at all or the chilling effects on the media. While they can dispute the verasty of any story, even ones demonstraebl true, they cannot attack the free institutions that enable our democracy. As senator flake said yesterday it is time for our complicity and acceptation to end. The commissions agenda under your leadership has already had a profoundly negative effect on our country. From increasing costs on Small Businesses, driving up the cost to family members in prison and claiming that wireless broad band is competitive, even when people in Rural America know it is not. It seems at every fork in the road, you have choseen the path that leads to higher consumer cost, fewer choices and less innovation. And if it sounds as if the worst is yet to come, news reports suggest that you will unveil plans tomorrow to vastly alter the media landscape in this country, clearing the way for more media consolidation, including the sinclair tribune merger. Yesterday they eliminated the main studio rule that had insured for 77 years that local news was gathered and reported locally. What good would a studio and reporters in new york have done for broadcast stations in houston or florida after the hurricanes . What good is local news if it isnt local . Other news reports suggest you will announce an order to repeal the fccs open Internet Order around thanksgiving. Madam chairman, i sincerely hope if this is true, we have a chance to talk to the commission in advance of a vote on that order. The idea that such a significant order would be voted on without oversight is ung kaungsinable and would be a dereliction of todays duties. If the chairman is intent to act, i believe his actions should be done under the scrutiny of congress and in the light of the public and im going to yield the remaining part of my time to ms. Eshu. I thank the gentleman for yielding his remaining time to me. I want to associate myself with our Ranking Members comments, particularly to what the president said that was a direct assault on the First Amendment and with all due respect to you, mr. Chairman, your delayed and rather temped response to that. I want to place verbally in the record the First Amendment of the constitution of our country. It was written without objection. Thank you, december 15th, 1791. It is as new and important today as the day that it was adopted. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. They were very clear. They were very clear. Or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. I hope you will choose to enlarge on the Public Statement that you put out and with that, i will yield back the balance of my time. Gentle lady yields back to ranking good member. And i yield back. At this time i recognize the chairman of the full energy and commerce committee, mr. Walden, who has been in the chair all day long with the hearing down stairs. Gentlemans recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair and welcome commissioner carr, welcome aboard and welcome back commissioner rosen. And we look forward to continuing our work with you and the other members. Chairm pi, thank you for being here and for your leadership. I couldnt agree more that this commission has very important work to do. United states has weathered a large share of natural disasters this year including wild fires that have devastated nearly hundreds of thousands of acres in my home state and we know the tragedies all across the west from these fires. They have shown the important of maintaining the most Reliable Communications systems possible. And we know the work going back to 2012. We need 250 make sure that works as planned. I look forward to hearing about the federal relief efforts underway as well as those impacted by hurricanes harvey and maria. Although some of the effected areas are already back up to speed which is great thanks to a lot of hard work. We face a lot of challenges elsewhere inplases like puerto rico and the Virgin Islands as well as others on the mainland. We appreciate the commissions efforts to provide much needed assistance in these situations. We also appreciate the commissions work in a bipartisan briefing we requested. And chairman pis team did at the end of this month. We find ourselves waiting on a number of key items to emerge from the commission. In no way does this committee expect the oversight to delay the commissions important work. Rather hearings like this are vital to exposing commissionsers and Committee Members alike to different perspectives. Yielding better understanding and decision making. But we expect the commissions work to go on as it did under the preechbious administration. Having just finished a markup on an fcc reauthorization bill for. I want to thank both side of the aisle as we work towards full Committee Markup soon. Last month we held a hearing on the challenges and opportunities presented by the repacking process that the commission has embarked upon. I commend the commissions continuing efforts to work with every broadcaster to insure their needs are being met as this transition evolves in a timely manner. Your input will continue to be importabout as we look at options to solve the remaining issues. Some of my colleagues may wish to use this opportunity as a forum to rehash opportunity for dumping cutting edge broad band Internet Service into the stale bucket which is title two. My position hasnt changed on that and i dont sense others have. This commission should not be dissuaded by the partisan maneuver which disregarded reams of legislative history to achieve the results demanded by then president barack obama. Its up to the commission to set the regulatory conditions and i hope to see a new bar set before the end of the year. Ultimately congress is where to solve the debate. I think you hear a little bit of that passion here on both sides. Although my staff continues to engage in the various effected parties and discussions towards that ends. My colleagues have unfortunately seemed largely uninterested. Door remains open. Were willing and able to codify protections and establish a federal framework in statute for providing certainty to all. I dont think we need title 2 to do that. We have the same end goal. Preserving the internet as a free, open, dynamic environment to unleash innovation and drive our economy while doing everything we can to extend its benefits to every american. We should be able to Work Together and clear that issue off our plates. Were glad to see you fully constituted and confirmed. We have a lot of issues to hear from you on. Anyone seeking a remainder of the chairmans time . He yields back. Thank you for holding this hearing today and i appreciate youre maintaining oversight of the fcc. Know some people prefer you wouldnt. The fcc is on a path to take up a number of controversial issues in the next few months. Its curious this is schedule for today, just one day before chairman piis expected to make public at least one proposal that enriches a Single Company above others and that would clear out any last obstacles to sinclairs purchase of the company. This would be the single largest owner of broadcast station and they would be buying the second large largest. Hes claimed repeatedly that its simply coincidence that his actions are all to benefit sinclair. If thats true, why cant we see the latest proposal before the commission with came before us and now hes refused repeatedly to respond about allegations about his relationship with sinclair and this kind of evasiveness does not help put anyones concerns to rest. This is another example of how the fcc values Large Companies over small ones and always puts companies before consumers. Chairman pis commitment to eviserate Net Neutrality protections by the end 06 this year. It protects consumers, Small Businesses and free speech. And i hope the fcc is spending the time reviewing the millions of comments that have been filed including from the democratic members of this committee and i hope the fcc considers the thousand of consumer complaints that have been made public. These demonstrate that consumer problems with broad band providers is much farlthder reaching than the prow posed rule making lets on. Together they have the potential to drastically remake how they communicate. They must find a way to insulate itself from the political pressures from the president. Chairman pi refuses to put any distance between himself and President Trump whether its Net Neutrality, sen claire or protecting a free press and that does not inspire confidence. Ive said many times and i think ive told some of the Commission Members that i remember earlier this year when sean spicer at a press conference said the president would have the fcc repeal Net Neutrality. It seems everything is whatever the president wants and theres no independence at all on Net Neutrality or the other issues. And the fcc has a long tradition of bipartisanship but unfortunately thats simply not the case today. Hard working American Consumers and future congress is sure to take a dim view at the fcc and its time to restore that bispart zn pesition. I thank you for being here today and id like to yield a minute each to mcneerny and matsumy. I noticed a troubling trend in the recent actions. The very missions is in the Public Interest. In fact Public Interest appear over 100 times in the communications act. But by taking steps to limit access to information and content, the commission has gone against what i think publics interes interest. Its further evidence by the steps the commission is taken to undercut locallism from reinstating the uhf discount to eliminate the main studio rule. These and other actions signaling favorable treatment for sinclair and then the chairmans initial silence on the president s threat to revoke broadcast licenses on the base of view points, followed by the chairman reluct ntdly making a statement. One that was late and insufficient. Im disappointed in these actions and the effect they will have on the information americans across the country have access to. Thank you very much. Thank you for yielding. In order to expand broad band across this country, its important we free up spectrum. Additional spectrum is necessary to expand wireless coverage across Rural America and build capacity across all of america. And spectrum frequencies will allow new and Innovative Technologies to grow. This means everything from safety communications, telehealth services, the internet of things and connected devices. All of this rely on spectrum invisible infrastructure. Access would depend on the fcc allowing additional low, mid and broad band spectrum to be delivered. That is why congressman guthrie and i introduced the spectrum deposits act yesterday. Without this fix, future actions will be put off indefinitely. I look forward to enact this into law. And i see no other members requesting time. So this concludes our Opening Statements. I would like to remind members that persunt to the committee rules, all members Opening Statements will be made apart of the record. We want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to be here today and for preparing for the hearing submitting your testimony, we do appreciate this. Todays witnesses will have the opportunity to give Opening Statements, followed by the questions that are going to come from our members. Our Witness Panel for todays hearing, the honorable brendan carr, commissioner cliburn, commissioner oreilly, commissioner rosen. We appreciate that you all here for this and is the tradition of this subcommittee we will go in the order of seniority. So chairman pi, you will be firsted followed by commissioner cliburn and mr. Oreilly, carr and rosenworsel. Chairman pi, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for holding this hearing today. I appreciate the opportunity to update you on the fccs work to advance the Public Interest. That work has been substantia