Obama to Name Wheeler FCC Chairman
President Barack Obama plans to nominate Tom Wheeler on Wednesday to become chairman of the FCC, a White House official confirmed Tuesday. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will serve as interim chair until Wheeler is confirmed, the official said. Wheeler’s past leadership of CTIA and NCTA have drawn the scrutiny of public interest groups, which wrote Obama in March that Wheeler’s lobbying background could potentially disqualify him as a candidate. But a public-interest official told us Tuesday that Wheeler is unlikely to face much opposition from the Senate. The White House official would not say who will replace outgoing Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell.
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"Tom Wheeler is an experienced leader in the communications technology field who shares the President’s commitment to protecting consumers, promoting innovation, enhancing competition and encouraging investment,” said the White House official. Wheeler is chairman of the FCC Technological Advisory Council and chairman of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. Wheeler was a fundraiser for Obama during both the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, netting nearly $360,000 for the president, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (http://bit.ly/I0lPIM). Wheeler and his wife, Carol Wheeler, worked on Obama’s presidential campaign in Ames, Iowa, during 2008 and he led the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group responsible for the science, technology, space and arts agencies in 2009. Wheeler has been on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board since 2011. Wheeler is a former director at PBS, former chairman of the Foundation for the National Archives and a former trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
CEA President Gary Shapiro said Wheeler has done a “terrific job” as chairman of the Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy, of which Shapiro is also a member. “With this committee, which is composed of all sorts of different industries and companies, [Wheeler] has managed the process very well. We were unanimous, along with the Congress, in attacking the ITU proposal to put country borders around the Internet” at December’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), said Shapiro. Wheeler “was also very good at creating an emergency response after the Haiti [earthquake in 2010] when their infrastructure was down,” Shapiro said. Wheeler also helped to create a mechanism for worldwide emergency responses in the event of future disasters, said Shapiro. “He knows how to make things happen, he has a business background. ... I think he'll do fine.”
If confirmed, Wheeler will likely address FCC issues with the perspective of an historian, ex-FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told us. “He sees this as a pivotal moment in history where broadband has changed the course of human events,” Adelstein said. “He sees this as a moment to maximize its potential for good. That is why he is willing to give up so much to join the fray,” said Adelstein, now PCIA president. “Tom has that passion for understanding our past in order to guide our future. ... I think he can maximize this moment in history for the good of our country.” Wheeler wrote two history-related books: “Take Command: Leadership Lessons of the Civil War,” and “Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War.” He has written a blog on the wireless industry called “Mobile Musings” (http://www.mobilemusings.net).
Wheeler is a partner at Core Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm that manages $350 million and has invested in more than 40 small- to mid-sized technology companies. Wheeler began his advocacy work in Washington for the Grocery Manufacturers of America during the 1960s and 1970s. He was CEO of NCTA from 1979 to 1984 and was president of CTIA from 1992 to 2004. Since the 1980s, Wheeler has been CEO for several technology startups and co-founded SmartBrief, a daily news aggregation service covering telecom and other industries. Wheeler is a member of the boards of directors of EarthLink, Transaction Network Services and other companies. Wheeler was formerly the CEO of the Shiloh Group, NuMedia Corp. and NABU Network. He has also been a special advisor at Two Harbors Investment, and an advisor at Mercator Partners.
Shapiro said Wheeler’s extensive background and expertise in telecom businesses will be an asset to him if confirmed as FCC chairman. “It is very important to have someone at the commission who understands what it is like to be regulated,” said Shapiro. “Tom will make things happen ... but he will be very mindful if his actions have an impact.” Shapiro wrote Obama recently asking him to nominate an FCC chairman with business experience (CD April 26 p10).
Wheeler will next testify before the Senate Commerce Committee, which will subsequently vote on whether to approve his nomination and send it to the Senate floor for a vote. Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller D-W.Va., has repeatedly criticized Wheeler’s former work as a CTIA and NCTA lobbyist (CD April 10 p3).
Wheeler is “the president’s nominee, and it’s a Democratically elected Senate,” said a public-interest official. “Ultimately Senator Rockefeller backs the president and backs the president’s prerogative to appoint heads of agencies. He would have liked to see somebody else, and that is certainly understandable. But the die is now cast, and I don’t see him making trouble.” Rockefeller’s spokesman didn’t comment.
Free Press remained skeptical in a news release Tuesday that Wheeler’s lobbying background could impact his ability to serve consumers, urging Wheeler to “prove his critics wrong.” “We hope that he will embrace the FCC’s mission and fight for policies that foster genuine competition, promote diversity and amplify local voices,” said Free Press President Craig Aaron. “There is a much to be done -- and the honeymoon will be short.”
Wheeler’s blog extols the historic impact that modern communications technologies, some of which are regulated by the FCC, are having on the modern history of man, something he calls history’s “fourth great network-driven transformation.” He discussed how social media, LTE, 1 Gbps broadband and other technologies are having, or will have an impact on, the world in ways similar to the past effects of the printing press, telegraph and railroads. His blog posts offer examples of how social networking, wired and wireless communications helped facilitate the Arab Spring, end congressional consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act and fight Internet governance efforts at the WCIT. Generally he uses these examples to touch upon a recurring theme that new communications technologies can quickly break the structure of social and governmental rules, which in turn creates strife as humans try to either preserve or remake the old structures.