Silicon Flatirons, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Public Knowledge today are hosting a forum in Washington titled “An FCC for the Internet Age: Reform and Standard-Setting.” The first panel focuses on the present and future of FCC reform. This entry includes live coverage of the panel.

• Austin Schlick of the FCC said his agency is working toward accessibility, transparency and efficiency but added that sometimes efficiency suffers as the agency focuses on the other two goals.
• Nick Johnson on the progress of FCC reform: “I think they’ve accomplished more in one year than I was able to accomplish in seven years” at the FCC.”
• Mark Cooper on why substantive change will take time at the FCC: “In order to do change, you have to change the rules. And in order to change the rules, you have to have proceedings. … Proceedings take an awful long time.”
• Cooper said ex parte communications at the agency need to be controlled. “Ex parte communications are an affront to democracy. … It will be tough [to stop them]. An addict likes to get his fix.”
• Susan Crawford: Ex parte communications are “such a central part” of the commission’s work that it will be difficult to get rid of them.
• Schlick: The FCC recently incorporated blog posts as filings to welcome more people into the process.
• Cooper: “It’s hard for me to accept the proposition that a two-hour long dinner with the chairman is equal to a blog post.”
• Schlick: “At the moment I think we have more of a rules problem. … We don’t have a rule [on ex parte communications] with sufficient clarity to allow enforcement.”
• Crawford: “The revolving door seems like something that should be fixed.” People who work for the FCC shouldn’t be allowed to go to work for the industries the agency oversees. She said as a former Obama administration official, she wouldn’t take money in such “unseemly” circumstance.
• Cooper suggested a one-term limit for FCC members and no face-to-face contact between former FCC employees and the agency.
• Johnson: Discussing issues and private and then voting in public runs counter to the spirit of the Sunshine Act.
• Cooper’s sunshine advice to the FCC: “When you issue a report, make the data available to the public at the same time.”
• Mary Beth Richards of the FCC dodged a question about why ex parte communications aren’t posted to YouTube. Crawford said she can’t see the distinction between having a full description of a meeting and streaming it. Eventually it “just gets boring,” she said.