Remarks of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin at the Rainbow Push Coalition 's
11th Annual Wall Street Project Economic Summit
(As Prepared for Delivery)

January 7, 2008

I want to begin by thanking Reverend Jackson for inviting me to be here today and for hosting the FCC’s media ownership hearing held at Rainbow Push headquarters in Chicago.

Technology today touches almost every aspect of our lives. We are dependent upon it for our news, our information and our entertainment. It’s an exciting time in the media and telecommunications industries—but it is also a challenging one. The Commission has taken a number of steps to improve the communications landscape for all Americans, including minorities.

A particular point of focus has been promoting the availability and adoption of broadband internet access. We have made significant progress on this point. The Commission has acted to remove regulatory barriers to broadband deployment, and the result has been a significant increase in the number of Americans subscribing to broadband at the same time that the price for broadband services has declined. This success has been confirmed by studies by the independent Pew Internet and American Life Project.

LLFCC's regularly updated chart on the presidential candidates and their positions on FCC related issues is firming up. Some candidates, such as Kucinich, Clinton, Obama, and McCain, have a lot to say about these matters. It's harder to track the ex-governors (Huckabee, Romney) stands on various questions, such as net neutrality and media ownership. We'll add more data before the big state primaries in late January and early February.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Kucinich for President campaign late today filed an emergency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission claiming that the ABC television network “is violating its obligation to operate in the public interest” by excluding Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich from tomorrow night’s scheduled debate in Manchester, NH.

Further, the complaint charges, the televised event “is not a true presidential primary debate without including all credible candidates, but instead is effectively an endorsement of the candidates selected by ABC.” The filing also notes that ABC “is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Walt Disney, Co., whose executives have contributed heavily to other Democratic presidential primary candidates, including Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, and Governor Bill Richardson.”

And, the filing points out, Kucinich “is the only Democratic presidential candidate who has qualified for Federal matching funds who is being excluded by ABC.”

“Although ABC would prefer to only report on easily described and well-known candidates, the proper enforcement of the Federal Communications Act ensures America’s voters that they will have the ability to vote for candidates with varied and new ideas and policies,” says the complaint. “ABC should not be the first primary.”

Background:

“This country needs a national goal for broadband technology, for the spread of broadband technology. We ought to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have got plenty of choices when it comes to purchasing the broadband carrier. See, the more choices there are, the more the price will go down. And the more the price goes down, the more users there will be. And the more users there will be, the more likely it is America will stay on the competitive edge of world trade.” — President George W. Bush, March 26, 2004[1]

“I think we've met the goal.” — Acting NTIA Administrator Meredith Baker, November 2007[2]

On the eve of a missed national broadband goal, today the Benton Foundation releases Universal Affordable Broadband for All Americans, a report and roadmap for making broadband access as universal as telephones are today. The report calls for an aggressive new approach, a national broadband strategy, and efforts to modernize federal universal telephone service policies to help meet the challenges of connecting all Americans to broadband.

It’s now becoming universally clear that President Bush has yet to achieve his 2004 campaign promise for universal, affordable high-speed Internet connections by the year 2007. Nonetheless, as 2007 comes to a close, acting National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) head Meredith Baker has indicated the White House will soon release a report claiming broadband deployment is on track thanks to Bush administration policies.

On December 21, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives released a draft bill, the long-awaited "Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act." This proposal is a dramatic and comprehensive step forward for consumers with disabilities. It proposes to amend the Communications Act – the main statute that impacts the telephone and viddeo programming industries – to add new consumer protections that willl ensure people with disabilities do not get left out or left behind as telephones and television programming increasingly rely on digital and Internet Protocol (IP) technologies. The fast-growing disability coalition, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) hails this recently issued draft legislative measure, saying it will allow greater numbers of people with disabilities, such as persons who are deaf or people who are blind, to become independent and productive members of society, as well as to enjoy all the new electronic gadgets and devices that everyone else takes for granted.

To see the draft bill (PDF) please go to http://markey.house.gov/docs/telecomm/draft_of_telecom_legislation.pdf
To see a summary of the bill (Word) please go to http://markey.house.gov/docs/telecomm/summary_of_telecom_legislation.doc

Or go to http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3236&Itemid=46 and CLICK on the documents.