GOP Platform Seeks to Reform, Modernize Telecom Policy for 21st Century

The inclusion of such detailed positions on a broad array of telecom policies marks a shift from the party’s 2008 platform, which made scant mention of technology. The 2012 platform did not include policy statements on cellphone tracking, digital privacy or online sales taxes. This time around, the GOP platform’s provisions on communications issues are important and are likely to play a big role in policy development if GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is elected, Republican sources said.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., played a big role in the communications parts of the platform, as did Gov. Bob McDonnell, of Virginia, chairman of the platform committee, Republican sources said Wednesday. The platform was the result of months of work and numerous policy papers, sources said.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell told us the platform language is significant. “This may be the most detailed Internet and communications policy platform plank ever to be produced by the Republican Party,” McDowell said. “While historically platform planks don’t always get looked at after the convention, I think this case is different and the tech policy portions of the GOP platform appear to be compatible with Congress’s thinking on many issues. It is likely a clear preview of what a Romney administration would do on the communications policy front."

The GOP’s shift on telecom policy is important because “political research shows that presidents and legislators in fact try to enact a large majority of the platform planks,” said political analyst Larry Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia. “Not every one, of course, but a large majority.” He said platforms generally motivate the party base: “Most of the activists are motivated by ideology. That alone is important.”

"To go from nowhere, which is where we were at in the 2008 platform, this is some serious thinking,” said Seton Motley, president of Less Government, in an interview from Tampa. “It’s serious. It’s all-encompassing. ... We need to undo all the illegal stuff the Obama administration has done.”

The GOP platform accused President Barack Obama of employing a “Luddite approach to technological progress” that regulated the telecom sector based “on precedents from the nineteenth century.” In contrast, Republicans said they plan to remove regulatory barriers that “protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new and disruptive technologies such as mobile delivery of voice video [sic] data.” A White House spokesman said the administration had no comment.

"The current administration has been frozen in the past,” the platform said. “It has conducted no auction of spectrum, has offered no incentives for investment, and, through the FCC’s net neutrality rule, is trying to micromanage telecom as if it were a railroad network. It inherited from the previous Republican administration 95 percent coverage of the nation with broadband. It will leave office with no progress toward the goal of universal coverage -- after spending $7.2 billion more.”

Republicans said they aim to encourage public-private partnerships to provide “predictable support for connecting rural areas so that every American can fully participate in the global economy.” In addition the platform called for an inventory of federal agency spectrum to “determine the surplus that could be auctioned for the taxpayers’ benefit.” CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said in an email statement the group was “fully supportive” of the call for federal spectrum to be reallocated for commercial use. National Telecommunications Cooperative Association Vice President-Government Affairs Tom Wacker thanked Republican leaders for supporting the public-private partnerships that “provide a positive return to American citizens and are critical to the deployment of broadband-capable networks in hard-to-serve rural areas,” in a separate email.

The GOP platform urged general modernization and reform for the FCC’s oversight and regulation of the telecom industry: “Today’s technology and telecommunications industries are overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, established in 1934 and given the jurisdiction over telecommunications formerly assigned to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had been created in 1887 to regulate the railroads. This is not a good fit. Indeed, the development of telecommunications advances so rapidly that even the Telecom Act of 1996 is woefully out of date. An industry that invested $66 billion in 2011 alone needs, and deserves, a more modern relationship with the federal government for the benefit of consumers here and worldwide.” CEA said it supports efforts to modernize the regulatory framework in order to “recognize the shift from the rotary phone to the smart phone and beyond,” in an email statement.

"The platform specifics regarding communications policy lend credence to the notion the platform ought to be taken seriously,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. “What I find interesting too is the way in which the platform so directly asserts that the 1996 Telecom Act is woefully out of date. ... On the other hand, I'm not sure what to make of the references to public-private partnerships and regulatory partnerships."

The Republican platform “echoes” Michigan Republican House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton’s positions on net neutrality, spectrum, and the Act, said Richard Bennett, senior research fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “We can expect that a President Romney would appoint an FCC chairman who is in line with them,” Bennett said. “The Internet freedom agenda is also quite serious, and one of many points of agreement between the two parties."

The one area where Republicans seemed to agree with Democrats was on the need to preserve Internet freedom and the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. Recent ITU proposals for international regulatory control over the open and free Internet would have “disastrous consequences” for the U.S. and the world, the GOP platform said. As a result Republicans will resist “any effort to shift control away from the successful multi-stakeholder approach of Internet governance and toward governance by international or other intergovernmental organizations,” it said. Before the August recess the House unanimously approved H.Con. Res. 127 (http://xrl.us/bni6f8), a bipartisan resolution to clarify Congress’s support for a multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance leading up to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) (CD Aug 3 p16).

Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. WCIT delegation, told us in a phone interview “there’s pretty good alignment [between parties and] broad agreement about what’s going to drive future success” for the Internet. “Having this alignment allows other nations ... to realize that the U.S. stands strong together.” The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said it was encouraged by the party’s emphasis on a multi-stakeholder model of the Internet. It “appears to be one of the few positions shared by people across the entire U.S. political continuum,” said Brad White, ICANN director-global media affairs. “Most people, regardless of where they stand politically, understand that the multi-stakeholder model has worked well for the Internet.” TechAmerica said it was pleased to see both parties prioritizing the issue: “Top-down regulation of the Internet, especially from the ITU, is unwarranted and will likely lead to far less innovation and job creation,” said Chris Wilson, the group’s vice president and counsel for communications privacy and Internet policy. Free Press Action Fund Director Matt Wood commended both parties for prioritizing Internet freedom in their platforms, but said he disagreed with the GOP’s position on net neutrality. “We believe that openness is essential, and Net Neutrality is what’s made the Internet the engine for economic growth and freedom of expression that it is today,” Wood said. “The FCC certainly does have a role in preserving that openness and improving access to communications -- whether that’s in protecting Americans’ freedom of choice online, or in making smart spectrum choices that promote real innovation and competition."

Republicans lambasted the administration’s cybersecurity policies and said the White House has “failed to curb malicious actions by our adversaries.” “The current administration’s laws and policies undermine what should be a collaborative relationship and put both the government and private entities at a severe disadvantage in proactively identifying potential cyberthreats,” the platform said. “The costly and heavy-handed regulatory approach by the current administration will increase the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy and harm innovation in cybersecurity.” In contrast, a Republican administration would seek to work together with the private sector to address cyberthreats, help the free flow of information between network managers, and encourage innovation and investment in cybersecurity, the platform said. “We believe that companies should be free from legal and regulatory barriers that prevent or deter them from voluntarily sharing cyberthreat information with their government partners,” it said.

Congressional Republicans have fiercely resisted the administration’s call for baseline cybersecurity standards for operators of critical infrastructure and are united in their approach to secure the nation’s cybernetworks through increased information sharing. Before the August recess Senate Republicans sank the Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) because they said it would give the government too much control over private sector networks, and House Republican members passed four cybersecurity bills this spring aimed at increasing the sharing of cyberthreat information. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who authored S-3414, did not comment on the GOP platform but his spokeswoman noted that two Romney advisers, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former CIA Director Michael Hayden, support Lieberman’s approach to cybersecurity.

Republicans specifically chided China for failing to enforce international standards for the protection of intellectual property and copyrights. The platform said a new Republican administration would offer a “firm response” and do more to “deter, defeat and respond” to other criminal networks who seek to steal U.S. intellectual property. MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd said in an email statement he wholeheartedly agreed with the party’s stance against IP theft and said America must “protect the free flow of information on the Internet while also protecting American innovators.” “It is imperative to our national economy and our national identity that we protect an Internet that works for everyone.”

The platform also lays out Republican opposition to efforts to reinstate some of the campaign finance restrictions that the Supreme Court has done away with in recent years. That’s not a surprise, given the party’s stance against the DISCLOSE Act in both the House and Senate, a bill that has “no chance” in the current Congress, a broadcast attorney said. It also reiterates the party’s opposition to the Fairness Doctrine, an abandoned policy that the FCC formally deleted from its books last year (CD Aug 23/11 p1).