Communications

Pai spoke at an event hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation, an Irving think tank that advocates less government regulation and public policy driven by the free market. It drew an audience of tech executives, students and even AT&T's chief executive Randall Stephenson. 

The Institute for Policy Innovation, a think tank based in Texas, is bringing the FCC chairman outside the Beltway to Dallas to talk about net neutrality and the commission's current proceeding aimed at overturning the Open Internet Order of 2015.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will deliver remarks on Thursday at an IPI lunch in Irving on “preserving a free, open and innovative Internet.”  This appearance follows the chairman’s trip to Harvey-impacted areas in south Texas, inspecting damage caused by the hurricane and monitoring the progress of communications infrastructure restoration.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is planning to inspect Hurricane Harvey damage in Texas starting on Sept. 5, wrapped into a visit to the state that he already had planned for early September. He also is scheduled to speak on net neutrality at an event on Sept. 7 in Irving, Texas, hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation.

IPI commends Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, for introducing the ECPA Modernization Act of 2017, which fixes a glaring hole in the Fourth Amendment privacy protections Americans should enjoy on their electronic data.

In comments filed today, IPI applauded the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom rulemaking, especially the agency’s reversal on the Wheeler FCC’s “most unfortunate and unnecessary error”-- the 2015 mistake of reclassifying broadband as a Title II common carrier communications service.

Mr. Pai’s approach will ensure America’s digital economy continues to thrive.

It’s going to be very difficult for opponents of reversing Title II to make sound legal arguments against the reset, since they spent years making the case that the FCC had precisely the authority to reclassify broadband as it saw fit.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is undertaking the important work of setting Internet policy back on its well-established framework of light touch federal regulation by overturning the Obama administration’s ill-advised reclassification of broadband under Title II.