Commission holds one of its December Open meetings, and deals with one of several very important topics. And the issue today is the order to restore the Internet Freedom, which includes a number of important provisions. One is classifying Broadband Access services as an Information Service as it was before. Removing the ambiguous internet conduct standard and the brightline rules, reestablishing the private mobile Service Classification for mobile broadband, and promoting Internet Service provider transparency among other things. The transparency issue is very important to us. It helps to get consumers to make better decisions. But theres a lot of noise out there, confusion, misinformation on what this will mean for consumers, and today we have a panel of experts that will address the issues. But first, id like to introduce a special guest to give remarks, and were so glad you are able to make it, and join us today. The fcc commissioner was unanimously confirmed to the senate and took office. Commissioner brendan carr. Before he became commissioner at the fcc he served as general counsel for the s. E. C. And prior to this he was lead adviser for the wireless, Public Safety and international issues. And before that he worked as an attorney for the fccs service of general counsel. Prior to joining this commission in 2012, commissioner carr was an attorney for wily ryan, dealt with a lot of issues, including telecommunications and Communications Regulatory law. The full bio for all of our speakers today are available on your chairs. So i wont go any further with this. I just, you know, this is a wonderful event. I think theres a lot to be learned on this issue. And let me just say, you know, here to talk about and give remarks on what were you know, what this will mean to the public in general, its my great pleasure to introduce commissioner brendan car. Thanks for that kind introduction. Its great to be with you today. Sort of offer some brief opening remarks before turning it over to the panel. Happy to talk a little bit about the fccs restoring Internet Freedom proceeding. In my view, this is a really great moment for consumers, for innovation, and for freedom. In two days, the fcc is going to vote to reverse an obama era fccs unprecedented decision to apply title 2 regulations to Internet Access services. This twoyear experiment has failed. Weve seen investment in broadband decline. Weve seen isps pull back on deployments. And weve seen Innovative New services kept on the shelf. All of this has harmed consumers. Before the fccs 2015 decision consumers enjoyed a free and open internet. This wasnt because the fcc had title 2 in place. It didnt. It was because the fcc had this longstanding approach. For 20 years, we abided by congress direction a bipartisan decision that the internet should be allowed to flourish free from heavy handed government regulation. This was not a complete laissezfaire environment, this was not noholdsbarred. You think back to 2015, thats the framework were going back to. Consumers were protected. Innovators were allowed to innovate. And we saw the internet in the u. S. Become the greatest Success Story that weve seen. We have 1. 5 trillion in investment, businesses of all sizes from startups to large corporations, launched and succeeded. Im really excited. After this again twoyear detour were going back to that same Regulatory Framework that tried and true approach. Now if you step back and im sure youve seen, ive seen, theres a lot of colorful rhetoric that surrounds the fccs decision. In some extent the fake news stories about what the fcc is doing are trending faster than the real ones. So i want to try to dispel some of that. Obviously the passion thats out there is really understandable. This is the intersection of the government, and the internet. Americans cherish the free and open internet. They cherish their experiences. I think we have to bust some of the myths that are out there. A lot of what im seeing is what i call the great title 2 head fake. Which is attributing to title 2 things that title 2 simply does not do. One of the ones ive seen a lot of and maybe youve seen it as well is this portuguese internet meme, where the cablization of the internet. Its this claim by repealing title 2 isps will be free for the first time to charge you for bundled access to the internet or make you pay for website or packages of websites, similar, the allegations of what goes on in the cable space. This is not true. The fccs title 2 decision specifically determined that isps want to offer bundled or curated internet packages, theyre allowed to do so. So the fccs decision repealing title 2 does not change the law on the legality of those curated services. Another claim you may have seen is that the fccs vote is going to raise rates for consumers. That isps will charge consumers a lot more. Again this isnt true. The 2015 fcc decision, the majority went to great pains to state that their approach was not going to result in rate regulation or government control of the rates that are charged to consumers. So again were not opening the door to isps having different ability to charge consumers than what is currently in place with title 2 in place. Another claim that ive seen is that isps are now going to be free to block websites, or throttle, or create fast lanes and slow lanes on the internet. Again, title 2 is not the thin line between where we are, and that conduct taking place. If you look at the d. C. Circuit decision that reviewed the fccs 2015 decision, it expressly said that isps can block, they can throttle, they can do fast lanes, under title 2, provided that they disclose to consumers that theyre engaging in that conduct. The court said theres no dispute that thats the case. So again, repealing tight tl 2 is not going to change the law. With respect to that sort of conduct. Weve also claimed that the fccs decision is going to be legally unsustainable, or is somehow unlawful. Again, this is not the case. The Supreme Court in 2005, in fact the only time the Supreme Court has spoken to the regulatory classification of the internet, upheld the fccs 2002 decision that found that broadband Internet Access service is a title i Information Service. So again, that claim doesnt withhold scrutiny. I also want to take a second to again emphasize that we arent experimenting with some new or radical approach that is going to give isps free rein to do whatever they want on the internet. The title i framework that we are voting to put back in place includes robust Consumer Protections. One that ill start with is one of the d. C. Circuit found persuasive which is market forces. When the d. C. Circuit observed that isps are free to engage in blocking and throttling under the title ii framework it said theres a reason why isps arent doing it, the d. C. Circuit said its fear of subscriber losses. Market forces. I know theres many people that wont accept market forces, as a solution, either in the broadband market or otherwise, so the fcc in our title i approach were not relying purely on market forces. I want to highlight a couple of Consumer Protections that are staying in place. First, consumers are actually getting back strong Consumer Protection provisions. The federal trade commission is our nations premiere Consumer Protection agency. In 2015, when the fcc voted to move to title ii that decision as a legal matter stripped the ftc of 100 of its authority to protect consumers with respect to isps. That was a loss for consumers that theyre getting back as a result of this decision. Second, the federal trade commission has been the nations premiere privacy enforcement agency. It has brought over 500 enforcement cases, including against isps. Again, when the fcc voted in 2015, it created a doughnut hole where consumers had immediately fewer online protections than they did before that decision. That doughnut hole is where we are today. After the vote on thursday, consumers are going to get back strong, Online Privacy protections that can be enforced by the ftc. Third the federal antitrust law. The sherman act makes clear that an isp enters an agreement, that involves anticompetitively blocking or throttling websites, thats going to be per se unlawful under the sherman act. Section two applies to vertically integrated isps. So its vertically integrated to discriminate against another provider thats unaffiliated in terms of its content, thats subject to being found unlawful under section two of the sherman act. Fourth we have state attorneys general and state Consumer Protection laws that will continue to apply. This is one where theres been some confusion. The fccs order which is public makes clear that state level Net Neutrality laws are preempted, as a matter of law, because they would conflict with the fccs decision in its title i decision. At the same time its clear that general state level Consumer Protection laws, as they would apply to isps, are not preempted. So consumers get to continue to benefit from those protections. And then finally theres a transparency rule. The fcc is adopting a rule that is likely more robust than what you would see purely from an ftc based regime. So consumers have full disclosure about the services theyre getting and if providers dont live up to those disclosures, the ftc is in power to take enforcement action. Again, theres also this claim that somehow the ftcs regime is going to be more difficult to enforce because theres this claim that it doesnt have rules unlike the fccs approach. Again, i think this point misses the mark. At the fcc we have a law which right now are the fccs title ii rules but theyre not selfenforcing. You then take enforce action against that standard. The same is going to be true after our vote, with the ftc. The ftc has legal standards, precedence out there. Ive walked through some of what they are. Again just like the fcc would, the ftc can take enforcement action to ensure that consumers are protected. So again, i think that this is really a great moment for consumers. Were getting back to the same regime that governed for 20 years, a regime that had robust Consumer Protections, a regime that saw online providers, edge providers, launch and thrive, consumers benefit, consumers being protected, so this is not some sort of new experiment with an tiernly radical new free market approach. Theres robust Consumer Protections in place. Im really excited about it. Again, this is a twoyear detour that the fcc was ultimately pushed into as a senate commit founded through political pressure from the white house, who is not a place the Senate Committee found in terms of full title ii that the fcc was going to go based on its own independent judgment. I think its great were getting back to what had been a longstanding bipartisan consensus. With that im happy to take a couple of questions. Putting back my old former general counsel hat on. Ill say that we are in the sunshine period of the fcc which is a period that prohibits lobbying of decision makers, during this period. So, to speak in legalese for a little bit. You cannot make a presentation to me that goes to the merits or outcome of the fccs proceeding. If you have a question that you dont think falls within that feel free to ask it. If you are not certain, probably best not to say anything and then we can transition to the panel. Thanks. Questions . I think that it may think its difficult to ask a question that is completely devoid of presentation, so i think your caution was probably perhaps well taken. Anyone have a question thats not a presentation . I think probably some would be presenters but that wouldnt be appropriate as you know. Right. Thanks very much. So everyone, thank commissioner carr. Thank you commissioner carr. Sounds to some extent we have some regulations that were put in place to fix something that was not a problem, and without any evidence of market failure, to justify a remedy, and all in the name of benefiting consumers, but with that, it seems like theres no surprise that weve seen some declining investment since 2015. So how do we get there . You know, what what are the various aspects of the provisions of the order . What does the fcc need to do . How will we restoring Internet Freedom affect consumers, investors, innovators . Does congress ultimately need to have a role in all of this . So theres a number of issues that like, you know, teed up to be considered, and with that today we have an expert panel to clear up some of these and other important questions on restoring Internet Freedom. Moderating on the panel today is randolph may. Randolph is a founder and president of the free state foundation. Earlier he worked in policy research for a think tank and practiced communications and regulatory law at a major law firms and prior to this he served as assistant general counsel and associate general counsel for the federal communications commission. Again the full bios have been distributed. So randy as always its an honor to have you join us today. Steve, first of all, thanks very much for organizing this program. Obviously couldnt be more timely. And thanks to the American Consumer institute for all of the work that you do. So were going to jump right in, and what im going to do is just introduce the panel, and just by their affiliation, and then im going to ask them to speak initially. No more than five minutes. And less than five minutes will be fine. Maybe even preferred. Because were going to make sure we have time for questions. And unlike with regard to commissioner carr, you can absolutely well i dont want to put it that way. But you dont have to be quite as careful in asking your question to these noted panelists. This meeting is Available Online at cspan. Org just search Net Neutrality. Well take you live now to the fcc meeting room. Those Net Neutrality rules up for consideration today by the five member fcc, federal communications