Complete Story
04/03/2017
Trump’s Tech Agenda Is Winning
Major pieces of President Donald Trump's deregulation agenda have been held up, but for technology and communications policy, his approach is making big inroads.
The president is expected to soon sign a bill that would block Internet privacy protections after Congress approved the change this week. And the Federal Communications Commission under Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, has moved to rapidly to undo rules and decisions that major telecommunications carriers oppose.
The rapid upheaval may be due to Pai's long familiarity with the agency, where he has been a commissioner for five years, as well as the strong backing by the industry's biggest players. Some of Trump's other policy efforts, such as repealing and replacing Obamacare, don't have comparable support from powerful lobbying groups. And many of his other agency and cabinet appointees have considerably less experience in their jobs.
"Ajit Pai could very well have been the FCC Chairman under President Kasich or Jeb Bush," says Kevin Werbach, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a former FCC staffer in the 1990s. "His agenda is the well-established Republican Congressional agenda."
