Free State Announces Strong Speaker Slate

The Free State Foundation has lined up an A list of speakers for its Ninth Annual Telecom Policy Conference in Washington March 14.

Government officials confirmed for the event are new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, new acting FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen, new House Communications Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and newly in the majority FCC Commissioners Michael O'Rielly. Also confirmed are David Cohen, senior EVP for Comcast, the company's top policy executive; Robert Quinn, senior EVP for AT&T; and Meredith Attwell Baker, president of CTIA and herself a former FCC commissioner.

Free State is a free market think tank that has long advocated for the "regulatory humility" approach to communications policymaking shared by Pai, Ohlhausen and Blackburn. What is new is the power that philosophy wields in a new Trump Administration pledged to slow-roll new regs and roll back existing ones.

The event will be held at the National Press Club.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.