Greg Walden

Make no mistake, threats to the openness and freedom of the Internet are real.

The House has unanimously passed both a resolution and legislation that affirm our policy that the United States should promote a global Internet free from government control.

I cannot overstate the importance of freedom of the Internet from government control, nor can I overstate the threat from foreign governments who seek to control, tax, sensor and otherwise impose their own agendas on the Internet.

It would be foolhardy to limit the incentives from the get-go

Without broadcasters, there is no spectrum to auction

I hope we can work together to develop a truly bipartisan Satellite Reauthorization Bill.

I am, however, very concerned by the FCC's recently announced plans to dump Joint Sales Agreements into their local media ownership calculations.

I have listened to those concerns and propose eliminating the sweeps week prohibition, which keeps cable operators from dropping broadcaster signals during 'sweeps' weeks.

It's important to note that this provision still requires cable companies to support CableCARDs, it just gets an outdated, expensive, energy consuming provision of little or no value off the FCC's books.

Chairman Wheeler is putting the JSA cart before the media ownership horse.

I have listened to those concerns, and propose eliminating sweeps week prohibition.

It has taken an enormous amount of work, but this draft has earned the support of cable, broadcast, and satellite competitors.

We believe in spurring innovation, not holding it back.

The FCC Process Reform Act is bipartisan legislation that passed the House on March 11 of this year and would bring needed reforms to the commission's processes.

We are not going to get out of the holes that we are in unless every citizen in this country has that access.

There has to be room in Government policy for failure.

The principle goal of the Government should be to nurture that innovation.

Investing more than a trillion dollars, as Congressman Eshoo was talking about earlier, since 1996 is stunning.

I believe furthers this argument by upholding the FCC's existing authority to oversee broadband services.

I was pleased to see the court remove the Government from the business of making management judgments.

It's time for our laws to reflect our modern technological landscape--one grounded in the networks and services of our past and driven by our IP and mobile future.

In these tough economic times, we as policymakers should be committed to fostering this critical sector of the economy.

I will call to order the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and thank our witnesses for being here for this first of what will be many hearings as we look to update the Communications Act.

I favored construction from the bottom up, not the top down, with certain minimum interoperability requirements set by the Federal Government.

It has and will continue to help create billions of dollars of economic growth and hundreds of thousands of jobs all across America.