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FCC: PROCESS AND TRANSPARENCY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 17, 2015 

Serial No. 114–21 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DeSAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Staff Director 

RACHEL WEAVER, Deputy Staff Director 

TRISTAN LEAVITT, Counsel 

CORDELL HULL, Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 17, 2015 ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. Thomas Wheeler, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

APPENDIX 

Wheeler-FCC Response to Questions for the Record ............................................ 58 

2015–02–04 WSJ - How White House Thwarted FCC Chief on Net Neutrality 71 

2015–02–23 Daily Caller Obama’s Move to Regulate Internet by Picket ........... 79 

2015–03–16 Orgs to JEC EEC - Net Neutrality ................................................... 82 

2015–03–17 Orgs to FCC - Net Neutrality ............................................................ 84 

2015–03–02 The Process of Governance by Sallet FCC ....................................... 87 


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FCC: PROCESS AND TRANSPARENCY 

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jason Chaffetz 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Jordan, Walberg, 

Amash, DesJarlais, Farenthold, Massie, Meadows, DeSantis, Buck, 

Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, Carter, Grothman, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Connolly, Kelly, Lawrence, Lieu, Watson 

Coleman, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, Welch, and Lujan Grisham. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

We are here today to examine the FCC’s rulemaking process and 

the agency’s commitment to transparency. Three weeks ago, the 

FCC approved new rules that will dramatically increase the regulation of the Internet. The problem is Americans only got a chance 

to read them last week. 

Last month, Chairman Wheeler told Members of Congress that 

releasing the preliminary discussion draft ran contrary to ‘‘decades 

of precedent’’ at the Commission. In reality, the current process for 

making changes to Internet rules is far less transparent than what 

occurred with the equally controversial media ownership rule 

changes in 2007. 

In 2007, then-Senator Obama’s ‘‘strongly requested’’ the FCC 

‘‘put out any changes that they intend to vote on in a new notice 

of proposed rulemaking.’’ Senator Obama believed to do otherwise 

would be ‘‘irresponsible.’’ Then-Chairman Kevin Martin responded 

to these concerns by releasing the draft text of the rule changes 

and inviting a 4-week public comment period. 

In making the text public, Chairman Martin explained, ‘‘Because 

of the intensely controversial nature of the . . . proceeding and my 

desire for an open and transparent process, I want to ensure that 

Members of Congress and the public had the opportunity to review 

my proposal prior to any Commission action.’’ That didn’t happen 

in this case so to suggest that there is no precedent for this, that 

is just not true. 

Chairman Martin went even further and, in December 2007, testified before Congress, more than once, about the rule changes. And 

yet we invited Commissioner Wheeler to come before us and he reVerDate Sep 11 2014 10:01 Oct 06, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\94929.TXT APRIL

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fused. Didn’t have any problem meeting at the White House, but 

did have a problem coming before Congress. 

In today’s case, Chairman Wheeler did quite the opposite and 

failed to provide this type of transparency. Chairman Wheeler did 

not make the rule public, did not invite public comment, and declined to appear before this committee. We find that wholly unacceptable. 

Further, it appears the FCC has been concealing certain communications from the public without legal basis. 

I want to put up a slide. We will refer to this later. But there 

are several reactions to requests that were made for Freedom of Information Act experiences. 

Do we have that slide? I guess not. I am going to keep going. 

Organizations that hold our Government accountable depend on 

the FOIA process to gain insight into agency decisionmaking. The 

FCC’s track record in responding to FOIA requests is weak, at best. 

At the outset, the FCC denies more than 40 percent of all FOIA 

requests. The documents FCC does produce contain a number of 

redactions, including some that black out entire pages of text. 

This committee has received 1,600 pages of unredacted email 

traffic previously provided in a highly redacted form through FOIA 

requests to various organizations, including vice.com. Today we will 

compare these communications to understand what legal justification Mr. Wheeler’s agency used to prevent this information from 

becoming public. In addition, we will examine the series of events 

resulting in the highly controversial vote to use Title II to regulate 

the Internet like a public utility. 

In May 2014, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

concerning Internet regulation that indicated broadband and mobile services would remain classified under Title I. Public Statements made by Chairman Wheeler and communications received 

by this committee demonstrate that this was the chairman’s intent 

during this time period. 

In October 2014, and after the FCC’s public comment period 

ended, media reports indicate that Chairman Wheeler intended to 

finalize a hybrid approach that continued to classify broadband and 

mobile Internet services under Title I. Just days later, President 

Obama appeared in a YouTube video calling for a radically different proposal: full Title II reclassification, similar to a utility or 

telephone company. Emails provided to the committee by the FCC 

suggest that this came as a major surprise to the FCC staff, including Mr. Wheeler. 

On January 7th, Chairman Wheeler announced the FCC would 

radically alter course and reclassify broadband and mobile services 

under Title II. I am sure much will be made about the 4 million 

comments that were made, but they were not made in the context 

of fully changing this to Title II. The FCC adopted the rule change 

on February 26th in a three to two vote. 

The lack of transparency surrounding the open Internet rulemaking process leaves us with a lot of questions. This is a fact-finding hearing. This committee remains committed to ensuring full 

transparency across Government, and I look forward to hearing 

more from Chairman Wheeler today. 


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With that, I will now recognize the ranking member from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

We are here today to discuss net neutrality, the rule that was 

adopted last month by the FCC. 

There are strong opinions on all sides of this issue. No doubt 

about it. On the one hand, Internet service providers, including 

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner, oppose the rule and 

lobbied against it. They argued that additional regulation would increase fees, reduce investment, slow network upgrades, and reduce 

competition and innovation. 

On the other hand, supporters of this new rule contend that ISPs 

should not be allowed to discriminate based on content. They believe ISPs should be required to act like phone companies, controlling the pipes that make up the Internet, but not what flows 

through them. Consumers, social media entities and companies like 

Facebook, Netflix, and Google favor open Internet policy because 

they do not want to be charged higher prices to provide their services. 

The question before the committee is not which policy we may 

prefer, but whether the process used by the FCC to adopt the rule 

was appropriate. Republicans who oppose the new rule allege that 

President Obama exerted undue influence on the process. But we 

have seen no evidence to support this allegation. 

Instead, the evidence before the committee indicates that the 

process was thorough, followed the appropriate guidelines, and 

benefited from a record number of public comments. 

I welcome Chairman Wheeler here today to discuss the process 

used by the FCC, and I would like to make several points for the 

record. First, the FCC received more comments on this rule than 

any other rule in its history. That is indeed very significant. As I 

understand it, the FCC received about 4 million comments. This 

grassroots movement was highlighted when John Oliver, a popular 

late night talk show host, encouraged his viewers to go on the FCC 

website to comment on the proposed rule. The number of comments 

was also extremely high because the FCC established a 60-day 

comment period twice, twice as long as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. 

In addition, the President has a right to express his position on 

proposed rules, and he did so forcefully in this case. In November 

he made remarks in support of an open Internet rule, arguing that 

it is ‘‘essential to the American economy.’’ He said the FCC ‘‘should 

create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring 

that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able 

to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online.’’ 

When he gave this speech, the President also ensured that his 

office submitted the appropriate ex parte filing. He did this 

through the National Telecommunications and Information Agency, 

which is tasked with providing the FCC with information about the 

Administration’s position on policy matters. 

Presidents routinely make their positions known to independent 

agencies regarding pending rules. Presidents Reagan, George H.W. 

Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush all expressed opinions on FCC 

regulations during their presidencies. In fact, for this neutrality 


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rule there were more than 750 ex parte filings from individuals, 

public interest groups, lobbyists, corporations, and elected officials, 

all of whom had an opportunity to make their views known. 

Finally, if the committee is going to examine the actions of 

Chairman Wheeler and his communications with supporters of the 

rule, then we must also examine the actions of Republican Commissioners Pai, O’Reilly, and others who oppose the rule. Multiple 

press accounts indicate that they have been working closely with 

Republicans on and off, on and off Capitol Hill to affect the FCC’s 

work, and we should review their actions with the same level of 

scrutiny. 

Chairman Wheeler, I want to thank you again for appearing before our committee today, and I look forward to your testimony. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will hold the record open for five legislative days for any member who would like to submit a written Statement. 

We will now recognize our witness, the Honorable Thomas 

Wheeler, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. 

We welcome you here today and glad that you could join us. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before 

they testify, so if you will please rise and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witness responds in the affirmative.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We appreciate it. 

In order to allow time for discussion, we normally ask for your 

testimony to be limited to 5 minutes, but we are very forgiving on 

this. We would appreciate your verbal comments. Your entire written Statement will be made part of the record. 

Mr. WHEELER

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE THOMAS WHEELER, 

CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, ranking 

member, members of the committee. I will take that hint, as well 

as your forgiveness, and try to skip through some early paragraphs 

here. 

I am proud of the process that the Commission ran to develop 

the Open Internet Order. It was one of the most open and most 

transparent in Commission history, and the public’s participation 

was unprecedented. 

Last April I circulated a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

that included a set of open Internet protections and also asked 

questions about the best way to achieve an open Internet. The 

Open Internet NPRM adopted in May proposed a solution based on 

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It also specifically asked extensive questions as to whether Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 would be a better solution. 

A quick point on our procedures. While, historically, some 

NPRMs just ask questions, during my chairmanship, I have made 

it a policy to present draft NPRMs to my colleague that contain 

specific proposals as a means to flag key concepts for commenters’ 


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attention. I believe this is an important part of an open and transparent rulemaking process. But let’s be clear. The proposal is tentative, not a final conclusion, and the purpose of the comment period is to full test that concept. In this instance, as in others, it 

worked in the desired way to focus the debate. 

The process of the Open Internet rulemaking was one of the most 

open and expansive processes the FCC has ever run. We heard 

from startups; we heard from ISP; we heard from a series of public 

roundtables; as Mr. Cummings mentioned, we heard from 750 different ex partes; we heard from over 140 Members of Congress; we 

heard from the Administration both in the form of President 

Obama’s very public Statement on November the 10th and in the 

form of the MTIA’s formal submission. 

But here I would like to be really clear. There were no secret instructions from the White House. I did not, as CEO of an independent agency, feel obligated to follow the President’s recommendations. But I did feel obligated to treat it with the respect 

that it deserves, just as I have treated with similar respect the 

input, both pro and con, from 140 Senators and Representatives. 

And most significantly, as has been pointed out, we heard from 4 

million Americans. 

We listened and learned throughout this entire process, and we 

made our decision based on a tremendous public record. 

My initial proposal was to reinState the 2010 rules. The tentative conclusion put forth in the NPRM suggested that the FCC 

could assure Internet openness by applying a ‘‘commercial reasonableness’’ test under Section 706 to determine appropriate behavior 

of ISPs. As the process continued, I listened to countless consumers, innovators, and investors around the Country. 

I also reviewed the submissions in the record and became concerned that the relatively untested ‘‘commercially reasonable’’ 

standard might be subsequently interpreted to mean that what 

was reasonable for ISP’s commercial arrangements, not what was 

reasonable for consumers. That, of course, would be the wrong conclusion, and it was an outcome that was unacceptable. 

So that is why, over the summer, I began exploring how to utilize 

Title II and its well-established ‘‘just and reasonable’’ standard. As 

previously indicated, this was an approach on which we had sought 

comment in the NPRM and about which I had specifically spoken, 

saying that all approaches, including Title II, were ‘‘very much on 

the table’’ for consideration. 

You have asked whether there were secret instructions from the 

White House. Again, I repeat the answer is no. 

Now, the question becomes whether the President’s announcement on November 10th had an impact on the Open Internet debate, including at the FCC. Of course it did. 

The push for Title II had been hard and continuous from Democratic Members of Congress. The President’s weighing in to support 

their position gave the whole Title II issue new prominence. Of 

course, we had been working on approaches to Title II, including 

a combined Title II/Section 706 solution, for some time. The President’s focus on Title II put wind in the sails of everyone looking 

for strong open Internet protection. It also encouraged those who 


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had been opposing any Government involvement to, for the first 

time, support legislation with bright line rules. 

And as I considered Title II, it became apparent that, rather 

than being a monolith, it was a very fluid concept. The record contained multiple approaches to the use of Title II. One of those was 

the Title II/Section 706 ‘‘hybrid’’ approach that bifurcated, some 

would say artificially, Internet service. Another, the approach we 

ultimately chose, used Title II and Section 706, but without bifurcation. And still another, the one the President supported, was only 

Title II without Section 706. All of these were on the table prior 

to the President’s Statement. 

But let me be specific. We were exploring the viability of a bifurcated approach. I was also considering using Title II in a manner 

patterned after its application in the wireless voice industry, and 

I had, from the outset, indicated a straight Title II was being considered. 

A key consideration throughout this deliberation was the potential impact of any regulation on the capital formation necessary for 

the construction of broadband infrastructure. An interesting result 

of the President’s Statement was the absence of a reaction from the 

capital markets. When you talk about the impact of the President’s 

Statement, this was an important data point, resulting, I believe, 

from the President’s position against rate regulation. It was, of 

course, the same goal that I had been looking to achieve from the 

outset. 

As we moved to a conclusion, I was reminded how it was not necessary to invoke all 48 sections of Title II. In this regard, I had 

been considering the substantial success of the wireless voice industry after it was deemed a Title II carrier pursuant to Section 

332 of the Communications Act. In applying Title II, but limiting 

its applicable provisions, the Congress and the Commission in that 

Act enabled a wireless voice business with hundreds of billions of 

dollars of investment and a record of innovation that makes it the 

best in the world. This is the model for the ultimate recommendation that I put forward to my colleagues. 

There were other industry data points that informed my thinking 

and the Commission’s analysis. One was the recognition of interconnection as an important issue, a topic not addressed by the 

President. Another was my letter to Verizon Wireless about its announcement to limit ‘‘unlimited’’ data customers if the subscriber 

went over a certain amount of data, a policy it ultimately reversed. 

Of particular note was the active bidding, and ultimately overwhelming success, of the AWS–3 spectrum auction at the end of 

2014 and the beginning of 2015, which showed that investment in 

networks, even in the face of the potential classification of mobile 

Internet access under Title II, continued to flourish. Other industry 

data points included the work of Wall Street analysts and the 

Statements of the ISPs themselves. Sprint, T-Mobile, Frontier, and 

hundreds of small rural carriers said that they would continue to 

invest under this Title II framework that we were developing. 

Ultimately, the collective findings of the public record influenced 

the evolution of my thinking and the final conclusion that modern, 

light-touch Title II reclassification, accompanied by Section 706, 

provides the strongest foundation for Open Internet rules. Using 


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this authority, we adopted strong and balanced protections that assure the rights of Internet users to go where they want, when they 

want, protect the open Internet as a level playing field for 

innovators and entrepreneurs, and preserve the economic incentives for ISPs to invest in fast and competitive broadband networks. 

I stand ready to answer your questions. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Wheeler follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I will recognize myself for 5 

minutes. 

Chairman, did you or the FCC ever provide the White House the 

proposed rule prior to the final vote? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The comment period was open May 15th. 

How many times did you meet either at the White House or did 

the White House officials come meet with you during that time? 

Mr. WHEELER. In total? I mean, about any issue? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that we have shown you my calendar that 

has something like 10. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. June 11th with Jason Furman, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. You have the list, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. June 18th with Jeffrey Zients; Caroline Atkinson, July 17th; September 11th, Jeffrey Zients; September 30th, 

Megan Smith; October 15th, Jason Furman; October 28th, Jeffrey 

Zients; and then Mr. Zients visiting with you on November 9th at 

the FCC. Does that sound accurate? 

Mr. WHEELER. If that is the list that we provided, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And yet you only provided an ex parte for 

one of those meetings. Why is that? 

Mr. WHEELER. First of all, the rules are quite clear on what constitutes an ex parte, and that is an attempt to file specifically in 

a specific docket and to influence the outcome of that docket. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you discuss this matter during those 

meetings? 

Mr. WHEELER. And there are provisions long established, going 

back to, I think, the Bush Administration Office of Legislative 

Council. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sir, I have 5 minutes. I need to ask very 

specific questions. 

Mr. WHEELER. But I need to answer your question. There is no 

requirement. You are asking about ex partes, and there is no requirement that there be an ex parte filed. There was no need for 

an ex parte to be filed, either. I just wanted to make sure that we 

have both explained. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I don’t understand that. You met with 

them. Are you telling me that this proposed rule did not come up 

in any of those meetings but one? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t know the details of those meetings. I can’t 

recall the details of those meetings. I can assure you that there 

were no, nothing that would trigger an ex parte. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you were meeting with the White House 

multiple times during the open comment period, after the comment 

period closes, and we are supposed to believe that one of the most 

important things the FCC has ever done, that this didn’t come up 

and you didn’t have any discussions, that they didn’t comment back 

to you about what you were doing? Is that what we are supposed 

to believe? 

Mr. WHEELER. The Administration was very scrupulous in making it clear that I was an independent agency. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I guess the point is, chairman, you met 

with them multiple times. They came to visit you, you went to visit 


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them. But we invite you to come and you refuse. We ask you to 

send us some documents. You didn’t send us a single one. And that 

double standard is very troubling for us. 

I need to move on. 

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Chairman, one thing here. I did agree to 

come. I am here. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, but before the rule. You met with the 

White House before the rule but you didn’t meet here. 

Mr. WHEELER. You gave me a week’s notice. You asked for the 

production of documents. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is usually what we give people. 

Mr. WHEELER. There were other committees that I am also trying to respond to. I said in the response I would look forward to 

coming to you and I look forward to being here today. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And I didn’t believe you then and I don’t 

believe you now. You said that you would not come to visit with 

us. You didn’t send us a single document that we asked for before 

that rule. That is just not right. 

Mr. WHEELER. I think we sent you 1,800 documents. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. After the rule. My complaint is that beforehand you didn’t. And you met with multiple times with the White 

House. I am moving on. Hold on. 

Mr. WHEELER. OK. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Our time is short. This is the way it works. 

On September 23d, multiple people met at the White House. I 

am going to enter into the record, ask unanimous consent this 

Daily Callar article of February 23d, 2015, White House log showing that a number of people met at the White House that are activists on this topic. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I want to play a video clip. This is 6:55 in 

the morning of the day that the President is going to issue his 

Statement. This is you, right, at your home? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And you woke up that morning to protesters out in front of your house; they laid down or sat down in 

front of your car, wouldn’t let you get out of your driveway. They 

were there trying to make quite a Statement. And there is a long 

5-minute video of this. 

At 7:35 that morning you sent out an email to your fellow commissioners calling it an interesting development, and then later 

that afternoon—I want to put up a slide. 

[Slide.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now, when this was provided to vice.com, 

you redacted this. This was all redacted. Hard to see up on the 

screen, but we don’t understand why this was redacted. This is 

what you wrote. In fact, if you want to read it, go ahead. 

This is the same day; 6:55 in the morning, protesters show up; 

7:35 you are sending out a concern. Then, all of a sudden, the 

President’s Statement comes out in a very coordinated fashion. He 

has the right to weigh in on this, that is fine. 

But later that afternoon you send out this email, it says, FYI 

isn’t it interesting? The day of the demonstration just happens to 

be the day folks take action at my house. The video POTUS just 

happens to end up the same message as the message for POTUS. 


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The White House sends an email to the supporters list asking 

‘‘Please pass this on to anyone who cares about saving the Internet.’’ And then you write, hmm. Why did you write that? 

Mr. WHEELER. Does this suggest a secret plan, secret set of instructions? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am asking you why. You wrote it. It is 

your language. 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that this clearly is showing that there was 

no kind of coordination. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. There was no coordination? The protesters 

show up, just happen to show up the morning before the announcement comes? Nobody knows that the President is going to make 

this announcement except the protesters, who show up at your 

home, and you are saying that, you are the one that wrote that you 

thought, hmm, isn’t it interesting. 

Mr. WHEELER. Excuse me, I wasn’t speaking clearly, clearly. No, 

I am talking about coordination with us at the Commission. I don’t 

know who else they were coordinating with, and this suggests that 

maybe they were coordinating with others. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you had multiple meetings with the 

White House, they came to visit you, and we are supposed to believe that there was only one discussion about this? Is that still 

your testimony? 

Mr. WHEELER. Let me be really clear. They came once to meet 

with me and filed an ex parte—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes, that is true. 

Mr. WHEELER [continuing]. At which time I was told, as the ex 

parte says, the President is going to make an announcement a couple days later, and he is going to endorse Title II. That is all I 

knew. The other meetings at the White House, I was there on 

trade, I was there on national security issues, I was there on Spectrum, I was there on auctions, I was there on E-Rate. 

There were numerous issues. Caroline Atkinson was one of the 

names that you named when you were going through the list. I can 

assure you I didn’t talk to her about Open Internet because she 

knows nothing about Open Internet. That entire conversation, and 

several that I have had with her, have been about trade issues and 

the process for reviewing agreements that relate to national security items. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you only spoke one time with Jeffrey 

Zients about this, one time? 

Mr. WHEELER. The only time that Jeffrey Zients said to me this 

is what the President’s position is was when he came and filed an 

ex parte saying that. I have been repeatedly saying I know the 

President has a strong position in favor of it the open Internet, as 

do I, and keeping them informed that I was fighting for a strong 

open Internet position. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you informed them and you are telling 

me they had no reaction, no comments? 

Mr. WHEELER. I informed them that I had a strong position in 

favor of. As a matter of fact, I believe you have emails that show 

that I have emails with them saying, hey, these press reports that 

I am watering this down aren’t true. 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. I have lots more questions, but my time is 

far exceeded. 

We will now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for 

5 minutes. 

Oh, sorry, Mr. Welch. Mr. Welch of Vermont, you are recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much. 

Let’s get right to this. Mr. Wheeler, this was probably one of the 

most contentious questions, public policy questions that we have 

faced in the time I have served in Congress, 4 million comments. 

All of us, as Members of Congress, received comments. The two 

things that I understood were of concern to you and your fellow 

commissioners, Republican and Democrat, were how would whatever decision you made affect innovation and capital formation, the 

build-out, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. That was the balance, sir. 

Mr. WELCH. And was that something that, over time, you all debated to try to figure out what would be the impact of whatever 

direction you took? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. The whole rulemaking process is an evolutionary process, and, as I said in my Statement, the whole concept of what Title II is is a fluid and evolutionary process. 

Mr. WELCH. All right. And the premise of this hearing seems to 

be almost like a Watergate type of deal, what did you know and 

when did you know it. But in public policy, when you are trying 

to figure out what you can know and get to a good public policy 

decision, it is a back and forth discussion; it is listening to the 4 

million comments, it is listening to Members of Congress, oh, and, 

incidentally, the President of the United States, elected by everybody is a relevant commentator, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I can tell you I was constantly learning through 

this process. 

Mr. WELCH. All right. Now, there was, in The New York Times, 

a report about a previous matter at the FCC where President 

Reagan had the commissioner in for 45 minutes. Did President 

Obama ever summon you to the White House for the purpose of a 

45 minute discussion about the way it is going to be with this order 

that you were considering? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. President Obama has never summoned 

me to the White House to discuss anything the FCC is doing. 

Mr. WELCH. All right. And you indicated on this capital formation issue, after the President, who, by the way, was obviously 

aware of the enormous grassroots concern about the outcome, that 

when he made his comment, you observed what was the impact on 

the markets, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WELCH. And what was that impact? 

Mr. WHEELER. There was zero impact on the market. And one of 

the concerns that all of the ISP’s had been making is understand 

what the consequences of an action in Title II may be on the markets and, lo and behold, there wasn’t. 

Mr. WELCH. In fact, in the case of another country that has done 

this, Denmark, I believe, have they continued to have open access 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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and capital formation with respect to the build-out of their Internet? 

Mr. WHEELER. You are better informed than I am, sir, on Denmark. 

Mr. WELCH. OK. Now, just on this capital formation issue, you 

mentioned the Spectrum auction. Did that exceed what was expected to be revenues from that auction? 

Mr. WHEELER. Significantly. We raised about $41 billion, which 

was triple what some of the estimates were. 

Mr. WELCH. And with respect to the market since then, has there 

been any major disruption that can be attributed to the decision 

that you made? 

Mr. WHEELER. The market has continued to advance northward 

on the valuations of these stocks. 

Mr. WELCH. All right. And my understanding, as well, is one of 

your enormous concerns when you initially proposed possibly using 

Section 706 was the wariness about having too heavy-handed a 

regulatory regime. And you have some history in the industry. 

Were there factors that you took into consideration in the decision 

on Title II about what type of regulatory framework that would be 

applicable? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. The model that was built for the wireless 

industry, which the wireless industry sought, by the way, was to 

use Title II and to have them declared a common carrier, but then 

to forebear, to not enforce those parts of Title II that are no longer 

relevant. 

Mr. WELCH. And is it your intention to work with your fellow 

commissioners, both Republican and Democrat, in order to achieve 

that light touch approach? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir, and I believe this rule has. As a matter 

of fact, there are 48 sections to Title II, and we have forborne from 

27 of those, and that just compares with the 19 that were forborne 

from in the wireless environment. 

Mr. WELCH. OK. I want to go back basically to the money question here, the suggestion that somehow, some way, President 

Obama, who has a right to express an opinion, muscled you and 

the Commission into doing something that you did not want to do, 

and as suggestions that that was the case, the Chairman has indicated a number of meetings you had with folks from the White 

House. I just want to give you an opportunity to say whether the 

President gave you directions, explicit or implicit, as to how you 

should do your job or left it to you to exercise your judgment and 

your persuasive ability with your fellow commissioners. 

Mr. WHEELER. No, the President did not. And I interpreted what 

the President’s Statement was was that he was joining with the 64 

Democratic Members of Congress and the millions of people, and 

that he was identifying with them. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wheeler, in your testimony you said that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted in May proposed a solution based on 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. In fact, that seems to 

be your position throughout most of 2014, a 706-based approach. In 

fact, you testified on May 20th of last year, in front of Energy and 

Commerce Committee, that Section 706 approach is sufficient to 

give the FCC what it needs for an open Internet. And as late as 

October 30th of last year, The Wall Street Journal wrote, ‘‘Chairman Wheeler will move forward with a 706-based approach.’’ 

Now, back to where the chairman was. All that seems to change 

on November 10th, where you State publicly that now Title II is 

definitely in the mix, and that is ultimately the direction that the 

Commission took. So my question is real simple: What changed between October 30th and November 10th? 

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Jordan, I think that is an incorrect assumption. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am using your Statements, Mr. Wheeler. I am 

using what The Wall Street Journal, did they get it right or were 

they wrong? 

Mr. WHEELER. So on February 19th I said that we keep Title II 

authority on the table. The Commission has authority to keep Title 

II if warranted. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am not disputing that. 

Mr. WHEELER. There is a laundry list, sir, where I said that. 

Mr. JORDAN. Hang on. Hang on. But your testimony, I am 

quoting from today’s testimony you just read. The proposed rule 

was a 706-based approach, and The Wall Street Journal, as late as 

October 30th, said a 706 approach was what Chairman Wheeler 

was going to move forward with. It changes on the 10th. What happened between the 30th and the 10th seems to me two events: one, 

the President made his YouTube video and commented and moved 

toward a Title II approach and he issued a Statement, and, two, 

you had an important meeting with Mr. Zients on November 6th. 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that is an incorrect assumption, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am going by the time line, the stuff you provided. 

Mr. WHEELER. Let me quote from The New York Times the day 

after The Wall Street Journal, saying there are four options on the 

table. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, no, no. You can respond when I ask you a question. That is how it works. 

Mr. WHEELER. OK. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. So now let me just go through where the 

chairman was earlier, your interactions with the White House. 

March 6th, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler meets with Jeff Zients. 

Now, here is where you can answer something. Who is Jeff Zients, 

by the way? 

Mr. WHEELER. He is the head of the National Economic Council. 

Mr. JORDAN. OK, at the White House, right? And assistant to the 

President for economic policies, got this long title, right? 

Mr. WHEELER. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. OK. So you met with him on March 6th. March 7th, 

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler meets with the White House economic advisor, Jeff Zients; May 7th, meeting with Jeff Zients at the 

White House; May 21st, Tom Wheeler meets with Jeff Zients at the 

White House; June 11th, Tom Wheeler meets with the Economic 

Council advisors at the White House; June 18th, Wheeler meets 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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with Jeff Zients at the White House; September 11th, Tom Wheeler 

meets with Jeff Zients at the White House; October 15th, Tom 

Wheeler meets again with White House economic advisors; and October 28th, Tom Wheeler meets with Jeff Zients at the White 

House. 

So, again, leading up to October 30th, you met with the White 

House nine different times, all at the White House with Mr. Zients, 

who is the assistant to the President for economic policy. And up 

through October the position of the Commission, according to The 

Wall Street Journal and according to your testimony in front of 

Congress is a 706-based approach. That changes just a few days 

later. And I would argue it changes on November 6th, when again 

you met with Mr. Zients. 

But the one difference here, Mr. Wheeler, the one difference here 

is nine times you went to the White House; on November 6th Jeff 

Zients comes to you. As I look at the record, this is the only time 

he came to you, and my contention is, and I think where the chairman is and, frankly, where a lot of Americans would be as they 

look at this record is Jeff Zients came to you and said, hey, things 

have changed; we want the Title II approach to this rule. 

Now, am I wrong? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes. First of all, there may have been nine meetings, but I tell you, I listed them a moment ago and I won’t go 

through them again. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, there were nine meetings at the White House 

where you went to the White House. There is one meeting when 

Jeff Zients comes to you. And the meeting when he comes to you 

is right before everything changes. 

Mr. WHEELER. The long list dealing with trade, dealing with 

cyber, dealing with auctions, and as I said in my testimony, before 

there was any input there were multiple issues on the table, including a Title II and 706 approach and a hybrid—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I have 29 seconds. Hang on 1 second, Mr. Wheeler. 

Mr. WHEELER. But it is a mistake to say that the only thing that 

was on the table was Section 706. 

Mr. JORDAN. I didn’t say that. 

Mr. WHEELER. I thought you had. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, I said nine times you met with him and you testified in front of Congress 706 and The Wall Street Journal report 

that is what you were going to do, and then it changes a couple 

days later. I have 11 seconds. 

Mr. WHEELER. And The Wall Street Journal report was wrong. 

Mr. JORDAN. I have 11 seconds. In your testimony you say, I 

want to be clear, there were no instructions from the White House. 

I did not, as CEO of an independent agency, feel obligated to follow 

the President’s recommendations. 

One last question, if I could, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wheeler, who is Philip Verveer? 

Mr. WHEELER. He is a special counsel in my office, senior counsel 

in my office. 

Mr. JORDAN. Your top lawyer. Your top advisor. Senior counsel. 

Mr. WHEELER. He is an advisor, yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Well, this is an email our staff got with Mr. 

Verveer and a lobbyist from AT&T on the 10th, the day this all 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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changes, 4 days after Mr. Zients came to you. After you went nine 

times to the White House in the course of a year, Mr. Zients comes 

to you, everything changes, and this is what the AT&T representative said to your senior counselor: This is awful and bad for any 

semblance of agency independence. Too many people saw Zients 

going in to meet with Tom last week. 

So I am not the only one who thinks everything changed on November 6th. This individual talked to your senior counselor and 

said things changed on November 6th when, again, the White 

House came to you and said, Mr. Wheeler, new sheriff in town, 

things are different, it is Title II from this point forward. And that 

is ultimately what you all adopted. Even though you had a 706 

plan all this time, you ultimately adopted a Title II approach. 

Mr. WHEELER. We did not adopt a Title II approach. We adopted 

a Title II and Section 706, which I believe, I can’t read it all, but 

I think it is referenced in the first line of that email. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, the gentleman just went over a minute and a half. At least I would ask 

that he be allowed to answer that question. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sure. Go ahead. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you. There were, and as I was pointing 

out, The New York Times actually wrote the day after this Wall 

Street Journal article, that hybrid ‘‘is one of the four possibilities 

the FCC is considering as it seeks to draw up a net neutrality 

framework that unlike the last two attempts will hold up in court.’’ 

The Title II and 706 usage, as I said in my testimony, was on the 

table along with a Title II and 706 non-hybrid, along with 706, 

along with Title II by itself. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentlewoman from New 

York, Mrs. Maloney, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

Chairman Wheeler, it has been reported that the proposed open 

net neutrality rule received 4 million comments, and I am curious, 

compared to other rules before the FCC, did any other rule get anywhere near this number of comments? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, ma’am, and it broke our IT system. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I heard that. Do you have a sense of what percentage of the comments were in favor of net neutrality? I know 

that thousands of comments came in to my office, and all of them 

were in favor of an open Internet and net neutrality. What about 

your comments? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think they ran about three to one in favor. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Three to one in favor. There were also several 

online petitions. I know of one, Free Press, but there were several 

others. Are you aware of these online petitions? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I also know that there were demonstrations, 

even in your house, and open meetings and forums and all kinds 

of comment periods that you participated in. And I assume you are 

familiar with the popular late night host, John Oliver. He had a 

piece about net neutrality this summer that went viral, and he was 

highly critical of you and your time as a lobbyist. Are you aware 

of his program? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. I had new research that had to do 

with what a dingo was. 

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. Well, he encouraged his viewers in this program to go to the FCC site and to register their position, and I understand that after his piece aired that you had to extend the comment period, that it even broke down there were so many comments coming in in favor of net neutrality and an open Internet. 

Is that true? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So do you have any idea how many comments 

were submitted after John Oliver’s show? Did you break that 

down? How many came in? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t know that off the top of my head; I can 

get that for you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Would you get that for the committee? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And all that attention on you and the efforts of 

the individuals that commented, the grassroots organizations, and 

the John Oliver piece, is it fair to say that they had some impact 

on your decisionmaking process, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, they all went in to the record, No. 1, and 

the decision was made on the record, and obviously there was a 

high level of concern. I also met around the Country. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I know, you went all around the Country holding 

public forums and listening to comments. 

Mr. WHEELER. And those had great impact. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So I would like to ask you, I am very curious. 

In your opinion, who had the greater impact on the FCC’s rule, 

President Obama’s comment or John Oliver’s show? 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, you know, I tend to view that what was 

going on was the President was signing on to the 64 Members of 

Congress and the millions of people who had told they want Title 

II. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I sincerely want to thank you, Chairman Wheeler. It appears that the voices of the American people were listened 

to and that you made the proper choice. I commend you for keeping 

an open mind during this process and for doing what is right for 

the American people and, I believe, the economy. 

So I would just say, with all due respect, I believe that my Republican colleagues are looking at this issue in the wrong way. 

They should be thanking President Obama for coming out strongly 

in favor of an open Internet rule, clearly where the American public is and clearly where the economists are, and they shouldn’t be 

criticizing him. 

What I am hearing here today is similar to the hearings we have 

had on the auto industry, where the restructuring that President 

Obama did, with the support of Congress, to the auto industry, it 

was highly critical, they were very critical of it. But now it is reported it saved 500 jobs; we are now exporting autos; we had the 

biggest sales of American autos in the history of our Country. It 

was the right decision and I believe this is the right decision for 

the American people, and I want to thank you. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, ma’am. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentlelady yield? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mrs. MALONEY. I most certainly will. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Chairman Wheeler, much has been made about 

these emails between some of the FCC staff on November 10th, 

2014, the day of the President’s announcement. Up until the President’s announcement, were a majority of the public comments in 

favor of an open net policy? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. In light of all of these public comments, was 

Title II being explored by your staff? 

Mr. WHEELER. We were deep into Title II and a Title II 706 combination. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Ranking Member, may I reclaim my time? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of course. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I just want to end by saying that President 

Obama saved the auto industry. He saved the auto industry and 

he saved the Internet, and I believe very strongly that Republicans 

are on the wrong side of this issue for the economy and for the 

American people. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome. I think this boils down to people are trying to figure 

out why you were against the President’s policy on net neutrality 

before you became for the President’s policy and in a very abrupt 

turn, and some of it evolves around circumstances. The Zients 

meeting with you appears to be very influential. It appears, too, 

from some of the communications I have seen, May 15th, is that 

when you were releasing the NPRM? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. I have a copy of an email from Senate Chief of Staff, 

this is Mr. Reid’s chief of staff at the time, David Krone. Do you 

know him? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. It appears like there was enlistment to try to keep 

your previous position intact. He said, good luck today. Not sure 

how things have landed, but trust to make it work. Please shout 

out if you need anything. Spoke again last night with the White 

House and told them to back off Title II. Went through, once again, 

the problems it creates for us. 

Do you remember this email? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Well, it appears that, in defense of your trying to 

come up with a certain position, that people were trying to back 

you. It looks like Senator Reid was backing you at that time, right? 

Or at least this is the indication we have. And he was trying to get 

the White House to back off pressuring you. Is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. So I am really grateful for this question, Mr. 

Mica, because there is, I think, a couple of things that are important to respond to. One is that the President was clear he was for 

a strong open Internet during the campaign—— 

Mr. MICA. But before his position, you were against his position, 

and you had allies that were trying to help you. I mean, Reid was 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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a big cheese at that time, and this was his chief of staff. I was a 

chief of staff on the Senate; I know the power that they wield. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. And what I was saying is the against it 

before you were for it, the answer in that is no. 

Mr. MICA. Well, no. I mean, everything we have, every public 

document, and some of it has been cited here, you were taking a 

different course. You took a different course, too, in even rolling 

this out. You offered a proposal, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have testified, sir, that this is an evolutionary 

process. 

Mr. MICA. The proposal was very scant on mention of Title II. 

Mr. WHEELER. No, it was very rich in the mentioning of Title II 

and specifically said is it better. 

Mr. MICA. OK. 

Mr. WHEELER. But be that as it may, as I said, this was a evolutionary process, and the job of a regulator is to put forth a proposal 

to see what it attracts in terms of concerns, and to learn from that 

experience and to evolve; and that is what I did through this entire 

process. 

Mr. MICA. But, see, everything we have indicates that you were 

headed in a different direction. You were trying to stem the tide 

of the White House. I mean, you were in an awkward position. And 

even Commissioner Pai, is it, he said in his dissenting Statement, 

President Obama’s endorsement of Title II forced a change in the 

FCC’s approach. So maybe everyone else who has been observing 

this process, your comments up to date, and even one of the commissioners is in conflict with what you believe. 

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Mica, before the President made his comment, we were working on a Title II and 706 solution. After he 

made his comment, he delivered a Title II and Section 706. 

Mr. MICA. And I think Mr. Zients, on November 6th, strongarmed you. I mean, it is pretty evident and everyone saw it. 

Mr. Chairman, let me yield to you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Could we put up the slide, please? 

[Slide.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I want to know why you felt compelled to 

communicate with the White House about what The New York 

Times was writing. This was back in April. You started with this: 

The New York Times is moving a story that the FCC is gutting the 

open Internet rule. It is flat out wrong. Unfortunately, it has been 

picked up by various outlets. You go through and explain it. Then 

you send that to Jeffrey Zients. Then you also send one to John Podesta, sorry, I should have had you on the first email. Podesta 

writes back to you, brutal story. Is somebody going to go on the 

record to push back? You write back to him, Yes. I did with a 

Statement similar to what I emailed you. 

You are supposed to be an independent agency, and you are 

interacting regularly with the White House on how to communicate 

on the PR of a New York Times story? 

Mr. WHEELER. So, Mr. Chairman, I had said that we were going 

to reinState the 2010 rules, which the President had endorsed. The 

report in The New York Times was saying he is not doing that. I 

was, therefore, responding and saying you should know that that 

report is not true. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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At the same point in time I have furnished you also emails to 

Members of Congress, Democratic Members of Congress, saying the 

same point, and that was what this was. This was, look, the 2010 

rules I stand behind and I am not out in a campaign to gut them, 

which is what was being reported in the press. And one of the subsequent emails I sent, as you will recall, was an article that said, 

oh, wait a minute, this was mischaracterized; and that is what that 

exchange was about. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Then why are you redacting all of this in 

a FOIA request? How does that meet the standard of FOIA? Why 

is this redacted? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have to tell you the FOIA, how we respond to 

FOIA is done by career staff, not in my supervision, based on longstanding procedures. I can’t answer why certain things are blacked 

out. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. This Administration might want to take 

some lessons about FOIA and how to respond to it, because I am 

tired of having the heads of the agencies saying, oh, I don’t know 

anything about it. This is the public’s right to know. This is how 

the public understands what is happening and not happening, and 

your organization is redacting this information, and it is wrong. I 

need a further explanation. When can you give us a further explanation as to why these types of material is redacted? What is a reasonable time to respond? 

Mr. WHEELER. I would be happy to have the staffs work and provide that to you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. By when? 

Mr. WHEELER. With expedition. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you give me a date? By the end of the 

month, is that fine? 

Mr. WHEELER. Sure. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Wheeler, you know, it is very hard to make a case 

against net neutrality, and these members don’t want to go home 

and make that case, so they are trying to make a case, for example, 

against hearing the opinion of the President of the United States 

on neutrality. This is a very important policy issue. It is inconceivable in our Republic that the President would be silenced on it. 

I ran an independent agency. I looked to see what the rules were 

in this case. The fact of an administration weighing in on such a 

notion is not new, is it? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. In fact, I was able to discover that Presidents 

Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush have all weighed in 

specifically on FCC policies in the past, is that not correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. I can understand that in such a case where there 

might be some appearance, after all, you are an independent agency and you must abide by that independence, that you would go to 

your office of legal counsel. And as it turns out, there is an office 

of legal counsel’s opinion advising the then-President George H.W. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Bush on whether it was indeed permissible for that president to 

contact the FCC to advocate for a specific position on rulemaking. 

Is that not correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, because this is the President of the United 

States, and not one of our constituents, it is interesting to note that 

there are rules about how this should be done. That needs to be 

laid out here, since the President is being criticized, you are being 

criticized, the Commission is being criticized; and that has to do 

with disclosure. The legal opinion Stated whether or not these matters must be disclosed in rulemaking on the record if they are of 

substantial significance, is that not the case? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. The opinion also addressed whether it is permissible for the FCC to solicit the views of White House officials, solicit the views of White House officials, and whether these would 

be subject to public disclosure. Is that not correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. So here we have rules saying, yes, Mr. President, 

we are not going to silence you on important issue, but we are 

going to make clear that your views are absolutely transparent. So 

there is no law prohibiting the FCC from soliciting the opinion of 

the White House, there are no rules, and it is in the discretion of 

whether the FCC would have to disclose that communication, is 

that not correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. The White House would be required to submit an 

ex parte filing only if its response was of substantial significance 

and clearly intended to affect the ultimate decision, is that not the 

case? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Did not the White House submit an ex parte filing 

on November the 10th, 2014? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I submit that the rules have been 

followed to the letter. This has been an openly transparent matter. 

The President was not and should not have been silenced. If there 

were more Americans wanting to submit their opinions, you could 

imagine that those Americans would also want to know where the 

President of the United States stood on this matter. 

I thank you very much and yield back my time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentlelady yield, please? 

Ms. NORTON. I would be glad to yield. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wheeler, when you come into office, you are sworn in, is that 

right? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you have an oath that you have to adhere 

to, is that right? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And during this process, this entire process, just 

tell us whether you believe that you have upheld your oath. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Every syllable? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. NORTON. Could I enter into the record the opinions of some 

who have submitted them, civil rights and other organizations of 

various kinds, to the record, Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We will now recognize the gentleman from 

Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you from Mr. Chairman. 

Coming from the auto capital of the world, let me, for the record, 

also make a Statement that I will back up the reason why I did. 

The President was involved, but it was not the President that 

saved the auto industry; it was the American auto worker that 

saved the auto industry, and is doing that to this day. 

And I think it is also with the Internet. The President has his 

right to make Statements. Many people have a right to make 

Statements. Congress has a right to make Statements. The question is whose Internet is it. I contend it is the American people’s. 

It is wide open, it is broad, and it has worked pretty well. This is 

not opening up, in my opinion, the Internet; it is closing it down. 

Mr. Wheeler, on November 7th, going back to some earlier questions, the day after Zients visited you, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FCC was likely to delay net neutrality rules until 

the next year. Was there ever a point in time when the open Internet issue was intended to be on the agenda for December 11th public meeting of the Commission? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. I was trying to push for that, but it was 

not possible. 

Mr. WALBERG. What happened to push it off the agenda? 

Mr. WHEELER. It was just a bridge too far. 

Mr. WALBERG. Bridge too far? In whose mind? 

Mr. WHEELER. You can whip the horse, but you can’t make it go 

faster sometimes. 

Mr. WALBERG. But in whose mind was it a bridge too far? 

Mr. WHEELER. The staff, those of us who were trying to put it 

together. We just couldn’t get the work done. 

Mr. WALBERG. In your Statement announcing the new rules, you 

called the new rules historic and also ‘‘a shining example of American democracy at work.’’ If that is so, why did you not let Americans see the rule before voting on it? 

Mr. WHEELER. Oh, golly, sir, we followed the process that has 

been in place at the Commission for both Republican and Democratic chairmen for recent memory. 

Mr. WALBERG. But the people never saw the rule. 

Mr. WHEELER. We were very specific in putting out a fact sheet 

and saying this is what we are looking at. Then we went into an 

editing process, which is not unlike a judicial kind of situation back 

and forth. 

Mr. WALBERG. But you went through that. You went through 

that in your opening Statement, all of the process, giving them 

drafts, and that is great, a little idea of where you are going; and 

that developed over time. But ultimately the language of the rule 

was not submitted to the American eyesight to view and ultimately 

comment on it, and why was that? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. That is the typical process at the agency, as it has 

been forever, is that a draft rule is put out by the chairman’s office 

and then the commissioners go into editorial negotiation, if you 

will. 

Mr. WALBERG. Sure. 

Mr. WHEELER. Over what the final rule would say, and that is 

normally a 3-week process. That does not involve putting out the 

rule. 

Mr. WALBERG. But in light of the monumental process this was, 

this is the most monumental change to the rules of the Internet in 

the history of the Internet, wouldn’t you say? 

Mr. WHEELER. It is a letting down, setting down. 

Mr. WALBERG. It is huge. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes. 

Mr. WALBERG. It is huge. And in light of that, and the emotion 

that I feel back in my district, and I am sure everyone on this dais 

feels it in their district, people commented on it; you had 140 Members of Congress, you had over 4 million comments from people and 

entities concerned with this issue. I just don’t understand why, at 

the very last, when you are going to have the rule as written, that 

it wasn’t released to the public for comment. If you did it over 

again, would you have done it differently and let them see it? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. Why not? 

Mr. WHEELER. First of all, it wasn’t a final rule; there were 

changes that were being made in the process. Second of all, it is 

against the Commission’s procedures to do that, and always has 

been. 

Mr. WALBERG. I don’t know that to be true. In fact, I would regard that as not true. With Commissioner Pai, he called, ‘‘a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet.’’ In light 

of this monumental shift, what harm would come from letting the 

American public see the text of the draft rule before the FCC—— 

Mr. WHEELER. We didn’t hide the pea, sir. We put out specifics; 

this is what it does. We then engaged, as we always do, in private, 

in camera, editorial negotiations amongst the commissioners. We 

never put out a draft before those edits. 

Mr. WALBERG. That is not true. 

Mr. WHEELER. I am sorry? 

Mr. WALBERG. And the American public deserved the opportunity 

at this level, at this time period, to have comments and opportunity 

to push back. This was a shift, a monumental shift that should 

have had that oversight. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If the gentleman would yield. 

Mr. WALBERG. I yield. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have the discretion to make it public, 

and you chose not to, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have the discretion. It is not the practice of the 

Commission to do that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have the discretion to make it public, 

correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. The answer is yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. OK. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. Can I refine my answer? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, you can’t. Hold on 1 second. Chairman 

Martin, at the request of Members of Congress, including Senator 

Obama, who insisted on the openness when he was the Senator, 

and they did it. They came and testified to Congress, they made 

the rule open and they went through a second comment period; and 

you chose not to. 

Mr. WHEELER. I am glad you raise that, sir, because I think that 

that is more urban legend than fact. My understanding of the 

Chairman Martin situation is as follows: one, that he wrote an oped in The New York Times in which he released two paragraphs 

of an order. He followed that with a press release in which he released one and a half pages of a 41-page section of 124-page item. 

That is a difference between releasing an entire item. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. He made himself available to Congress; 

they went through a second. And what is startling to me and what 

is telling to me is that Senator Obama’s position on this is totally 

different than President Obama’s position on this. 

Time has expired. We are now going to recognize the gentleman 

from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for a very generous 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Wheeler, is it unusual for an independent agency such 

as yours to communicate with the executive branch? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Is it routine? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Does it compromise independence, as you understand the word? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The Chairman began his questioning by reading 

off a list of meetings that apparently we are supposed to see as sinister, you or your colleagues meeting with various White House officials. Would that be unique to your tenure as chairman? Previous 

chairmen never did that, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I haven’t seen the logs, but I believe that every 

chairman has these kinds of meetings. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Is there something sinister, though, in the timing 

of these meetings? Because I think the insinuation from my friends 

on the other side is meant to suggest that there is something really 

deliberately sinister here; you are meeting with them either to tailor the rule or to get your instructions or to have some kind of 

quiet subversive conversation that obviously the public isn’t aware 

of. Is that what occurred? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Did the White House ever direct you in the wording, framing, or content of the rule? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Ever? 

Mr. WHEELER. Even when they filed, it was not a direction; it 

was a here is our opinion, which, as I say, is the same opinion as 

64 Members of Congress had been writing me to express and millions of Americans had been writing to express. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. And as we just saw with a letter to the 

ayatollah in Iran, one doesn’t always want to put too much creVerDate Sep 11 2014 10:01 Oct 06, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\94929.TXT APRIL

AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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dence in letters from Members of Congress; it has to be put on into 

context. 

Mr. WHEELER. Can I pass on that one, sir? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, I know. I thought I would just sneak that 

in in my 5 minutes. 

OK, the chairman was just suggesting in his overtime that you 

could have waived the rule and, by extension, should have waived 

the rule to bring the public in at an earlier date in the draft or the 

drafting of the rule. Your answer to that was a little bit derivical: 

yes, I had that power, but it is not our practice. Going beyond that, 

though, following up on the chairman’s question, why, in looking at 

that ability to waive, did you not avail yourself of it? 

Mr. WHEELER. There are many reasons why negotiations 

amongst commissioners ought to be in camera. So, for instance, you 

put out the draft. What do you do, then, 2 days later when paragraph 345 gets changed? Do you put it out again and say, oh, hey, 

look at this? How do you deal with the back and forth between various offices? How do you deal with ongoing research? 

Is it right to have this kind of an activity that can be very much 

affecting of capital markets out there, people misinterpreting what 

this is or that, markets crashing or inflating, whatever the case 

may be? And it is for that reason, those kinds of reasons that 

FOIA, in specific, says these kinds of editorial negotiations are specifically not FOIA-able, because they are works in progress. And 

that was why I made that decision, sir, and that is why that precedent exists, I believe. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And do you regret that decision? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. From your point of view, by making that decision, you protected the integrity of the process and the content of 

the rule? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. Did you feel, when President Obama issued 

his Statement with respect to net neutrality—there were press reports at the time that you and your colleagues were surprised or 

taken a little bit off-guard. You may want to comment on that, but 

did you view his issuance of such a Statement as undue interference in your process, which was still underway? 

Mr. WHEELER. No. As we have discussed, all presidents have had 

input to the process, in multiple administrations and multiple proceedings; it is not undue at all. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Not any different than Congress weighing in 

with letters or resolutions or hearings such as this? 

Mr. WHEELER. Correct, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. I have no further questions. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If the gentleman would yield, I would like 

to actually—I don’t know if we can put up this slide. I am going 

to need a copy of that back. 

But your communications person, in November, a couple days 

afterwards, in response to your question about were they surprised, 

did it have an impact, Sharon Gilson. Who is Sharon Gilson? 

Mr. WHEELER. She runs our media operation. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
30 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. She wrote, ‘‘This question rankles me. Do 

you take this as twisting the knife? I don’t want to overreact, but 

I am ready to log a call.’’ So to suggest that there was no rankling 

internally there at the FCC I think would, certainly they are 

emailing back and forth. And, again, this gets redacted. I don’t see 

this as part of the public process here that warrants any sort of redaction, but just thought I would bring that up. 

I appreciate the gentleman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Since it is my time, I just want to remind the 

chairman that is an interesting point, but we had a virtually identical situation with J. Russell George, where his media person 

issued a Statement contradicting his sworn testimony, and he disavowed her Statement saying she was misinformed. So if you are 

going to cite a media person as corroborating your point, I am 

happy to do so. 

Now I yield to my friend, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Wheeler, do you have a comment with regard to what the chairman just said? 

Mr. WHEELER. Actually, this is the first I have seen this. This 

QA rankles me, I am not even sure what it is referencing. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And who is the person writing that and what 

level are they on? 

Mr. WHEELER. Shannon Gilson, and she is the head of the media 

office. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Farenthold, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I tell you, I am sitting here shaking my head at how some of this 

stuff has happened. I remember back in the 1980’s and 1990’s the 

Internet grassroots, Internet activists were fighting to keep Internet service, remaining classified as an information service and not 

as a telecommunication service, and the marketing job to completely flip that is just staggering to me. 

But I also want to address something my friend from across the 

aisle just brought up, and that is—wait, I completely lost my train 

of thought. I will get back to it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I think you were agreeing that I had a brilliant 

point that needed to be reinforced because it is St. Patrick’s Day. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. On the public comment section, I remember 

where I was going now, what happens is we are seeking public 

comments on things that we don’t know what we are seeking comments on. Open government is about the people knowing the 

thought process that goes into creating rules and regulations. It is 

why we have C-SPAN, it is why anybody can turn on and see the 

debates going on in Congress and reach out to his or her Congressman or woman and give comment. 

I am really troubled by—and I think this isn’t just the FCC; this 

is the executive branch agencies creating laws by regulation behind 

closed doors. You are defending doing it behind closed doors and 

not letting the public, and I just have to say I personally have a 

problem with that. The more light of day we have on that, the better off we are. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
31 

Let me go back to my public comments question in particular. I 

have a hierarchy kind of comments that come into my office. You 

know, something that is originally written by a constituent, 

thoughtful piece is the most important, then something from a nonconstituent, then a form letter, and then one of these things that 

you clip. So is there a breakdown you would be willing to share 

with us of the public comments, how they fall within some sort of 

similar hierarchy? You are nodding your head like you all think the 

same way. 

Mr. WHEELER. I know exactly what you mean, Congressman, and 

I get all kinds of notes that range from—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I am running out of time. Can you provide—— 

Mr. WHEELER [continuing]. To the handwritten. I will try. I don’t 

know if we can break out 4 million comments that way, but I will 

try. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I mean, if it is done, it is done. Whatever information you could get on me. 

All right, so you have moved and what you all have done, and 

I think we will cover more of this in a Judiciary Committee hearing, but I have two questions that are really kind of burning on me. 

One is, as you move Internet service from an information service 

to a telecommunications service under Title II, are we opening the 

door to applying universal service fund taxes to Internet services, 

to your broadband service? Does this open the door to that? 

Mr. WHEELER. We specifically said that we would not do that in 

this proceeding. As you know, there is an ongoing joint FederalState board addressing that question. Even if it were to happen, in 

a hypothetical, that doesn’t mean that the total number gets 

changed. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And do you feel like these regulations of subjecting the retail Internet service providers to more government 

regulation is going to encourage or discourage more competition in 

the field? 

Mr. WHEELER. One of the reasons why we were really focused on 

making sure that there was no impact on investment capital is because we want to incentivize investment. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. It seems like you are having to go through a 

tangle of government regulations and be a heavily regulated industry, as opposed to just hanging out your shingle and stringing some 

wires or putting up a radio transmitter to do fixed broadband. 

Mr. WHEELER. So there are four regulatory issues in this rule: 

no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization, and that you must 

be transparent with consumers. Those four seem to be pretty well 

adopted; they are in the Republican bill that has been proposed. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I guess my issue is my mom, before she passed 

away, only used Internet, but I was her tech support, so I wanted 

her to have an always on broadband connection, so any time her 

modem didn’t connect, I didn’t get a phone call. But it seems like 

under this scenario there would be no ability to buy just like an 

email only type broadband service. 

Mr. WHEELER. That is absolutely incorrect. There is nothing that 

we do with retail rate regulation or the way in which—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But her service provider, I couldn’t go out and 

buy something so I get my email always on and fast, but I am 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
32 

never going to stream a Netflix video. Why shouldn’t I have that 

alternative to buy that? 

Mr. WHEELER. There is nothing that prohibits a service provider 

from having that option. You can have email only; you can say I 

want 5 megabits, I want 10 megabits, I want 25 megabits, and you 

can charge all at different prices. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But it is speed only. 

Mr. WHEELER. There is nothing in this order that regulates consumer rates, and that was by design. To go to your core question 

of investment, consumer revenues, the day after this order goes 

into effect, should be exactly the same as consumer revenues the 

day before because we do nothing to regulate consumer revenues. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I disagree that you are going to see limited in 

product offering. I don’t like the fact that AT&T throttled my unlimited access after X number of gigabytes. I could buy more 

gigabytes for more money and do that, so I want that choice. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Chairman Wheeler, I want to thank you for your testimony. You, 

over the years, have earned a reputation for high integrity and excellence, and when I asked you a little earlier about having taken 

an oath and whether you believe you adhered to that oath, your answer was yes, and I am just here to tell you I believe you. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to ask you about the actions of the Republican Commission members. We have heard outrage about the 

President this morning. Let’s go to Commissioner O’Reilly, Mike 

O’Reilly. He is a former Republican Senate staffer who has been an 

active opponent of the Open Internet rule. Is that a fair Statement? 

Do you know that to be the case? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. Chairman Wheeler, when the committee requested documents from you, we also requested documents from 

the other commissioners, including Commissioner O’Reilly, and we 

received them. For example, we have now obtained an email exchange between Republican Commissioner Mr. O’Reilly and three 

individuals outside the FCC. They are Robert McDowell, a partner 

in the communications practice of a large lobbying firm that represents a variety of telecommunications clients; Harold FurchtgottRoth, an economic consultant in the communications sector; and 

Baron Soca, the President of Tech Freedom, a libertarian think 

tank focused on tech policy issues. 

In this exchange, Commissioner O’Reilly sought edits, sought 

edits on a draft op-ed he was working on opposing the Open Internet rule. 

Chairman Wheeler, were you aware, at the time, that Commissioner O’Reilly was having these private communications with 

these individuals? Were you aware of that? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All three of these individuals have professional 

interests that could be affected by the passage of this rule, is that 

right? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
33 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. In response to Commissioner O’Reilly’s request, 

several of the individuals provided substantive edits. In fact, one 

response had so many edits that he apologized, writing, ‘‘I know it 

looks like a lot of red ink, but I really just tried to finesse, clarify, 

etc.’’ 

According to this email chain, Commissioner O’Reilly then forwarded these edits onto his staff, writing, this is what he sent his 

staff: ‘‘OK, took a bunch and left out some stuff.’’ 

Chairman Wheeler, Commissioner O’Reilly’s op-ed was published 

in The Hill on May 5th, 2014. That was just 10 days before the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published, isn’t that right? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So these edits provided by outside parties seem 

clearly designed to affect the ultimately decision of the FCC. Are 

you aware of any ex parte filing regarding this email exchange or 

these communications? 

Mr. WHEELER. Golly, Congressman, no. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Are you aware? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir, I am not aware. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would it be normal for you to be aware? 

Mr. WHEELER. No. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, my staff went through all the ex parte filings regarding this rule, all 750 of them, and they could not find 

one, not one filed by any of these three individuals for these communications. Do you know why that might be? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you just sat here and testified about how 

you need to go by the rules and you need to file the ex parte under 

certain circumstances. Would you tell us how you feel about that, 

what you just learned, assuming it to be accurate, what I just told 

you? Is that consistent with the way it is supposed to be, the way 

you are supposed to operate? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that it is fair to say, Congressman, that 

there is often a free and fluid back and forth between practitioners 

in the bar and members of the Commission. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But do you think an ex parte should have been 

filed? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t know in this specific one. I don’t want to 

sit here and hip-shoot on that; I would leave that to the ex parte 

experts. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand. Well, let me be clear. I am not suggesting that anyone engaged in inappropriate activity here, but if 

the Republicans want to accuse the President of undue influence in 

this process, even when he submitted, he did it the right way, an 

ex parte filing, they can’t just conveniently ignore similar actions 

on the Republican side. There is something wrong with that picture: fairness, balance; and I am concerned about that. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. DeSantis, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Wheeler, I want to go back to this Wall Street Journal 

report, October 30th, 2014, which reported that you and the ComVerDate Sep 11 2014 10:01 Oct 06, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\94929.TXT APRIL

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mission were prepared to move forward on a hybrid 706 type approach; and I think that was consistent with a lot of the public reporting at the time. So is it your testimony that that was not in 

fact the case, that you were not at that time leaning toward a 706 

hybrid type approach? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, we had gone through an evolutionary process, 

and at that point in time we were focusing on a hybrid approach. 

That is a correct Statement. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. Very good. So obviously something changed 

between October 30th and when you eventually submitted this 

rule. I think it has been pointed out how the President was very 

forceful in making his ideas known. Did you know that when the 

Commission adopted the rule, 400 pages, February 26th, 2015, the 

Democratic National Committee tweeted, congratulations for adopting President Obama’s plan? 

Mr. WHEELER. I found it out afterwards. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. So you know this is being reported as something that is actually the President’s plan, adopted by the Commission, and it is less that this is something that the Commission 

came up with on its own. 

Now, you had talked about the release of the report. The report 

could have been released in early February. The vote happened 

several weeks after that. Why not just release the proposed rule to 

the public, given that this is something that, one, has a lot of interest, but, two, all the comment, all the period and input was done 

really before you had the movement to a Title II framework? So 

why not just let the people see it? 

Mr. WHEELER. So I think there are a couple of things here. First 

of all, let me be clear that your comment about a hybrid being on 

the table is correct, as were the other approaches that, as I said 

to Mr. Jordan, the day following that Journal article, The New 

York Times reported that there were four on the table. 

Mr. DESANTIS. No, I understand that, but just with the transparency, can you address the transparency? 

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Connolly and I engaged in this. I did not release the draft order because it was the draft, underlined, order. 

I did take pains to have fact sheets and other outreach so the people understood what was in it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you are saying—— 

Mr. WHEELER. But the exact words—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Let me clarify this, though. You are saying it is 

a draft order until the Commission approved it, and that is why 

you didn’t release it? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir, that is the way things work, yes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, actually, you could have released it, and 

that has been made clear; and I think that, particularly in this 

town, this idea that we are just passing things to find out what is 

in things, without the public having access to that, I don’t think 

that that works. 

Let me ask you this. Can you guarantee to the American taxpayer, people who use broadband service, that if this goes into effect, that they will not see taxes show up as contributions to the 

Universal Service Fund? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. We have carefully drafted this with two specific 

things in mind. 

Mr. DESANTIS. You can explain, but can you guarantee them 

they will not pay more? 

Mr. WHEELER. We have said that this does not trigger universal 

service, as I said to a previous question. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But that has been disputed. I know that one of 

your members dissented and said that he believes Title II imposes 

a statutory obligation—— 

Mr. WHEELER. We are talking past each other. Let me just be 

clear, because this is a specific point, that the provision we have 

forborne from the provision that would authorize us today, in this 

rulemaking, to do that, to have universal service. There is a joint 

Federal-State board addressing that very question today. How they 

resolve things in the future, I do not know, but this rulemaking 

was very clear to say that we do not trigger that which you are 

concerned. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But it does not foreclose it, and the fact that we 

are in Title II framework, that opens the door for this to happen, 

depending on what was decided with that commission. 

Look, I want open, robust Internet. When I see 400 pages of red 

tape, this, to me, does not seem what openness is going to be. And 

the experience when the government gets involved in these things, 

the 400 pages, it is never going to be less than 400; it is going to 

be more. It is going to metastasize and government is going to be 

able to get involved in other aspects of this. I wish the public would 

have had more input. I know that this is going to be contested, obviously, in the courts and here in the Congress. 

I am out of time and I yield back. 

Mr. WHEELER. Can I clarify one thing, sir? There is actually 

eight pages of rules in there. The rest is establishing the predicates 

and the background for, for instance, the court challenge. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman from Florida. 

We now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Lieu, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for your public service. I know you will 

be testifying in many committees on Capitol Hill. I have heard a 

lot of back and forth today, and I just want to get on the record 

the answer to the following question, which is essentially was the 

process followed by FCC in this case essentially the same process 

that the FCC has followed in other prior rulemakings? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. In fact, in this case there was a lot of public comment, 

and there is nothing wrong with a commissioner being influenced 

by public comment, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Absolutely. 

Mr. LIEU. There is nothing wrong with a commissioner, if a 

Member of Congress wrote a particularly compelling letter, to be 

influenced by such a letter, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I hope that we learn from the whole process, from 

the record being built. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. LIEU. And there is nothing wrong with any commissioner 

being influenced by a president of the United States, provided that 

that contact is reported in an ex parte filing, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. We should make our decision independently on 

the record that has been established by those who have commented. 

Mr. LIEU. And in this case the Administration did file an ex 

parte record. 

Mr. WHEELER. Correct. 

Mr. LIEU. And members of the public can go on your website and 

look at everyone who has filed ex parte, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes. 

Mr. LIEU. And the President of the United States cannot fire you 

as a commissioner, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Correct. 

Mr. LIEU. Wouldn’t we want different folks to weigh in on issues 

of this magnitude, including not just the President, but Members 

of Congress and public? Wouldn’t we want everybody to be able to 

weigh in and you all make your decision? Isn’t that the way democracy works? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think it is the way democracy works and it is 

the way the Administrative Procedure Act was structured, to make 

sure that there was an open opportunity for notice and comment, 

and then make a decision based on what that record was. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman 

would yield for a second. 

Similar to what you are saying, I do think there is room for everybody to weigh in, whether it be the President, a Member of Congress. But it is about openness and transparency; it is about filing 

those things, and I think that is what the gentleman is saying. I 

would hope that we could find other people on both sides of the 

aisle. 

I really do believe, certainly at the FCC and other agencies, that 

maybe we should require by law that there be a 30-day notice. 

Take the final rule, give it the light of day and let it be out there 

for 30 days. What harm would there be in doing that? 

And I would appreciate if the gentleman would consider that. He 

is a very thoughtful member and I appreciate the time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield further? 

You have heard all of this, Mr. Chairman, and I am just curious. 

When you hear the complaints back and forth, and here you are 

sitting here, what I consider to be a hot seat, are there things that 

you would like to see us do either as the Congress to bring more 

clarity or do you feel like the process is fine just the way it is? I 

mean, because we want to be effective and efficient. We can’t just 

keep going on these merry-go-rounds over and over again. There 

will be controversial decisions in the future. 

And going to Mr. Lieu’s comments, if there is guidance that we 

can provide that will get rid of any kind of ambiguity with regard 

to people wondering whether folks have crossed this line or that 

line, I mean, I am sure you have thought about this a lot, and I 

know you want to act in the best interest of the United States and 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
37 

our citizens and certainly your agency. Is there anything that you 

can think of? 

Mr. WHEELER. I appreciate that question, Mr. Cummings. My 

goal has been to make sure that I follow the rules. I don’t make 

the rules or the regulations that interpret the statute; I try to follow them. You know, the Administrative Conference of the United 

States is kind of the expert agency when it comes to processes, and 

they and you, I think, have a significant challenge in that the rules 

have to apply across all agencies, not just the FCC, so far be it 

from me to get specific and say you ought to change Section 

2(b)(iii). But I see my job as trying to adhere to the statute and 

the rules that have been put in place to deliver on those concepts. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. And as I recognize 

Mr. Walker here, I want to respond to what you just said and highlight, again, under the rules you did have the discretion to make 

it public, and you elected not to. I think what Congress should consider is compelling you to make that open and transparent, rather 

than just simply making it discretionary. 

Now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walker, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Being a relatively new member in Congress, I am learning things 

every day. In fact, I had already known that Al Gore had invented 

the Internet, but today I found out, according to Mrs. Maloney, 

that the President has saved the Internet. 

Just curious. Do you think is a Statement that is fair? Do you 

think his involvement has saved the Internet for the future? 

Mr. WHEELER. Oh, I think that this is a much bigger issue, Congressman. I think that the Internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform that has ever existed in the history of the planet, 

and that it has an impact on every aspect of our economy and 

every aspect of how we act as individuals; and for that to exist 

without rules and without a referee is unthinkable. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, let me get back to what you said earlier. You 

testified, in fact, today that you did not feel obligated to follow the 

President’s suggest. So my question is what exactly was the President’s suggestion. 

Mr. WHEELER. The President filed an ex parte saying that we 

should have Title II, and we did not follow that suggestion; we did 

Title II plus 706. He did not say that we should do interconnection; 

we did interconnection. He did not suggest that we should have the 

scope of forbearance that we had. 

Mr. WALKER. Sure. I am actually getting to the place as far as 

your action with him, when you say he suggested. There were, 

what, 9 or 10 trips to the White House? Do you remember which 

time it was suggested as far as where there was disagreement, 

where there was agreement? 

Mr. WHEELER. I am sorry, sir. My comment about suggestion was 

specifically referencing the ex parte that he filed. 

Mr. WALKER. OK. So you are saying there was no one-on-one 

suggestion with you and the President whatsoever when it came to 

net neutrality discussion? 

Mr. WHEELER. That is correct. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
38 

Mr. WALKER. OK. Let’s go back to the pictures, obviously, of the 

protesters that were there that morning. Did you have any word 

or any idea that those protesters would be showing up that morning, or were you as surprised as the look that you had on your 

face? 

Mr. WHEELER. I was surprised. And if I had spent less time 

brushing my teeth, they would have missed me, because they just 

barely caught me. 

Mr. WALKER. So you had no idea that those guys, you weren’t 

tipped off they were showing up that morning? 

Mr. WHEELER. No. 

Mr. WALKER. OK. Your posture has been called, by some of the 

outlets, apologetic since this decision was made. Why do you think 

that assumption is being made? 

Mr. WHEELER. Apologetic? 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. Since the decision has been made, there have 

been some outlets that have said maybe not backing up on the decision, but it seems like it was not as firm as it was when the decision was made. Why do you think that would be characterized like 

that? 

Mr. WHEELER. Oh, my goodness, Congressman. I hope that this 

is not apologetic. I said, in the press conference after this, this was 

my proudest day being involved in public policy for the last 40 

years as I have. There is no way that I am apologetic. I am fiercely 

proud of this decision and believe that it is the right decision and 

believe that it is an important decision not only for today, but for 

tomorrow. 

Mr. WALKER. You talked about, a little earlier, and I think Congressman DeSantis mentioned this a little bit earlier, you talked 

about The Wall Street article was wrong. You may have addressed 

this just a minute ago. Can you tell me specifically, I believe that 

what was your comment, that The Wall Street Journal had it 

wrong? Specifically, what did they have wrong? 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, what I was referencing was The New York 

Times article the following day where, as I understood in The Wall 

Street Journal article, and I obviously don’t have it, but as has 

been represented here that it said there was one solution on the 

table; and The New York Times the following day said there were 

four solutions on the table. 

Mr. WALKER. So which one is accurate? 

Mr. WHEELER. The Times is correct. 

Mr. WALKER. The Times is correct. 

Mr. WHEELER. Let me be really specific. And I have constantly 

said throughout this entire process that Title II has always been 

on the table. And I said in my testimony that we were looking at 

706, Title II and 706 in a hybrid, Title II and 706 in not a hybrid, 

and Title II by itself. 

Mr. WALKER. The appearance of being an independent agency, 

which you have claimed probably 12 to 15 times today, can you understand why people would have some questions when there are 

meeting after meeting with the White House? Is there anything 

that the American people or Congress can see there is a balance, 

where there is also input from the other side, as opposed to just 

one particular partisan perspective? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
39 

Mr. WHEELER. So you know, Congressman, during that period, I 

believe that I met more than three times as often with Members 

of Congress. You know, my job is to take input. My job is to provide 

expertise on issues that are being considered. And that kind of an 

ongoing relationship with all aspects of government is an important 

role, I believe. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. My time has expired. 

I will yield back to the Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize Mrs. Watson Coleman from New Jersey. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wheeler, thank you very much for your testimony. Thank 

you for your forbearance and thank you for the fact that it seems 

that you responded to the enormous interest and concern with net 

neutrality. I am a newbie also, but I became aware of net neutrality on social media. So thank you so much for that. 

I wanted to just clarify a couple things. First of all, with respect 

to the comment about perhaps we ought to have a 60-day comment 

period after the final rule, that would then make that final rule 

possibly not a final rule, and I don’t know how we would then determine it to ever became a final rule. 

It has been Stated that you have met with the White House on 

several occasions during what is supposedly a controversial period 

of time. Was the issue of net neutrality the only thing you were 

doing during the period of time when you were considering net 

neutrality? Were there a variety of other issues you may have been 

meeting with members of the White House or at the White House? 

And, if so, just for the record, might you just want to share some 

of those? 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, Congresswoman. Yes. So I met on national security issues; we met on trade related issues; cybersecurity; the E-Rate, what was happening there; spectrum policy. The 

White House was obviously very, very much involved in implementing the instructions of the Congress to re-purpose spectrum, 

and we had to work very closely with all the agencies and the 

White House on that. And the spectrum auctions, obviously, as 

well. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. That gives us 

an illustration of the variety of issues that you had been addressing. We would love to have the opportunity to work on one thing 

at a time. We know you don’t, we know the President doesn’t, and 

you know we can’t. 

So, I mean, to suggest that that is the only thing that you were 

doing is certainly misleading and is, I believe, a 

mischaracterization of your continued Statements that you were 

not meeting on these issues, and I have no reason not to believe 

you. And given that this is such a huge issue, that everyone wants 

access and net neutrality, it just seems to me that you were quite 

willing to listen to more than 4 million people, what they had to 

say, to all of the motions that were filed for consideration, including the President of the United States. I listen to him; I think he 

is really quite brilliant and has great ideas for this Country. 

So I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to hear your 

testimony and to be able to give you an opportunity to answer 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
40 

questions as to the kinds of things that are on your plate that you 

might have been discussing with the White House. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for being here with us. It has been 

pretty well established that there were not, and with many excuses, but the FCC did not report various meetings with the White 

House and White House officials, even though you did report to 

various lobbyists and activists and companies and so forth. That is 

well established here today, but this does not seem at all as though 

transparency has taken place. When there is a specific area that 

is deliberately not reported, the appearance is that it is secretive, 

that there is something to hide. And you are denying that today, 

is that true? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir, there was no secret. I am not sure I understood. Reporting to lobbyists? I am not sure what—— 

Mr. HICE. The ex parte type thing. I mean, we have 755 entries. 

Mr. WHEELER. Oh, when they would file. 

Mr. HICE. Yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. I am sorry. 

Mr. HICE. And there is no filing with the White House except 

one. So, I mean, it gives every appearance of secrecy rather than 

transparency. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. WHEELER. And I think that it has to do with the fact that 

the language of ex parte is when it is intended to affect a decision 

and to provide information of substantial significance. 

Mr. HICE. And you don’t believe this is substantial significance? 

Mr. WHEELER. There was when Jeff Zients came to see me and 

said this is what the President is going to do. That was substantial 

significance. 

Mr. HICE. As a general rule, if someone is offering you an opinion, you would not object to an opinion being offered to you, I am 

assuming. Just a general rule. We all respect the First Amendment. If someone has an opinion, you would feel free to let them 

have an opinion. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HICE. On the other hand, if someone or some group, whatever, was trying to give directives to you or the FCC or whatever, 

you would probably be outspoken against that action. I mean, if 

someone is giving an opinion, that is no problem; but if someone 

wants to be intrusive and give orders, that may be a different scenario and you would be outspoken toward it. 

Mr. WHEELER. And I think, boy, did we get opinions on this. 

Mr. HICE. OK. You mentioned a while ago that the White House 

offered their opinion on this whole thing, and I would like to put 

up a slide that we had a little bit earlier, emails from the chief of 

staff to the Senate majority leader to you. The top line up there 

that is in red, the comment is: spoke again last night with the 

White House and told them to back off Title II. That sounds like 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
41 

a whole lot more than an opinion. Typically, you would not tell 

someone who is offering an opinion to back off. Would you agree 

with that? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t understand the parsing of the words, sir. 

Mr. HICE. All right. You said you don’t have any problem, there 

is no problem, typically, with someone just giving an opinion. But 

this is more than an opinion because the comment here is tell the 

White House to back off. So there is more than just an opinion 

coming from the White House, it would appear. 

Mr. WHEELER. You know, the other part about that is that I had, 

at the same point in time, 90 letters from Republican Members of 

Congress saying that I should not do Title II. 

Mr. HICE. I am not talking about Members of Congress. This 

Statement right here is the White House. 

Mr. WHEELER. But the point is that suggested Title II is very 

much in the mix. This, if I can read right, is—— 

Mr. HICE. It says, spoke again last night with the White House 

and told them to back off Title II. Went through once again the 

problems it creates with us. This is more than an opinion. 

Mr. WHEELER. This is May, and as I indicated, in May I was proposing that Section 706 was the solution, and I learned through the 

process of this, long before the White House ever had their filing, 

that Section 706 was not the answer. 

Mr. HICE. But the White House was not providing an opinion, 

they were putting some sort of directive to do something; otherwise, there wouldn’t have been comments to tell the White House 

to back off. It was more than an opinion coming from the White 

House. 

Mr. WHEELER. You know, I think that you are reading into this. 

Mr. HICE. Why else would the comment be to back off if it is just 

an opinion? If the White House was offering an opinion, no one 

would be saying back off. There was more than an opinion that was 

being presented. 

Mr. WHEELER. With all due respect, that is your opinion. 

Mr. HICE. Well, it is your email. It is your email, and the words 

back off are pretty strong. 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t think that it is conclusive that there is 

more than clearly just what is Stated there. 

Mr. HICE. It says back off because this is creating problems for 

us. That is more than just my opinion; it is an email. 

Mr. WHEELER. That is his opinion. 

Mr. HICE. I yield my time. 

Mr. WHEELER. That is his opinion. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, 

Ms. Plaskett, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for being here this morning. I think 

that it is so important to understand the significant attention that 

this Open Internet order has generated, and that that interest is 

primarily in the process as opposed to the content of what the 

Open Internet is. 

And having these hearings regarding this process and whether or 

not you have used discretionary, your discretionary ability, as opVerDate Sep 11 2014 10:01 Oct 06, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\94929.TXT APRIL

AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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posed to a rule, is something that I think is also very interesting. 

And I thought it would be important for us to understand the steps 

the FCC takes in that rulemaking process. 

Now, the official FCC blog contains a post from the general counsel, John Solet, entitled The Process of Governance: The FCC and 

the Open Internet Order. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter that post into 

this hearing record at this time. 

Mr. HICE [presiding]. Without objection. Thank you. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you. 

Ms. PLASKETT. The general counsel begins by explaining that the 

FCC seeks to ‘‘create an enforceable rule that reflects public input, 

permits internal deliberation, and is built to withstand judicial review.’’ 

Chairman Wheeler, is it an accurate Statement that that is the 

objectives in the FCC and its rulemaking? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And after the public comment period, the FCC 

staff reviewed proposals in light of that public record, so we know 

the public comment period was actually even longer than normally 

is done; 60 days as opposed to the 30 days that you were required, 

because of the volume and the interest of this. When was that 

done, the review beginning in light of the public record? 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, the traditional way that we do it is that the 

comment period closes and you have an opportunity to review those 

comments, and then you have a period where you can comment on 

the comments, and then you review those. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. And do you remember at what time that that 

was closed to begin the review process? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t know those exact dates, ma’am; I can get 

them for you. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. And then the proposed order is distributed 

to the other FCC commissioners for internal review and deliberation again, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And what is that timeframe, do you recall how 

long? 

Mr. WHEELER. It is 3 weeks before the vote. 

Ms. PLASKETT. All right. 

Mr. WHEELER. That is by our own internal record. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that is a critical portion of it, right, the commissioners’ internal deliberations? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And then before the vote to adopt the Open Internet order on February 6th, there were calls to disclose that order, 

right? 

Mr. WHEELER. That is correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And is it a general FCC policy to publicly release 

an order before the Commission votes on it? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And what could possibly be that, the issue of 

undue influence after that deliberation? What would be the reasoning behind that, the rationale? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
43 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, the rationale is that, first of all, there has 

been this extended period of comment and public debate, and then 

you get to a point in time when the rubber meets the road and you 

are drafting, and you are going back and forth and editing a document that changes frequently as a result; and that is something 

that is dynamic and not public. One reason, you want to make sure 

you have the full participation of all of the commissioners; second, 

as I mentioned before, the opportunity to cause mischief in financial markets by misinterpretations of changing glad to happy is an 

issue. So these have always been in camera kinds of editorial activities. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So then even after the vote, there are then additional steps that are taken before the order is final and ready for 

release, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And you followed those. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that includes commissioners’ individual 

Statements with their opinions, further discussion and clarification 

of any significant arguments made from the dissenting Statements, 

and then the final cleanup edits, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. And when those final cleanup edits 

were made by the dissenters, that was about midday, and on the 

following morning, at 9:30, we released the item. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that final order was released on March 12th, 

correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So it appears to be that you did not depart in any 

way from your rulemaking process in this respect, in regard to the 

open Internet. It really has been a question to many people’s mind, 

and our good chairman and other individuals, whether you used 

your discretionary outside of what is the general rulemaking, right? 

Mr. WHEELER. That is correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And if you had used your discretion, then we 

would be in a hearing about something else as to whether that discretion was appropriate or not appropriate based on the President 

weighing in on something that had huge importance to the people 

of the United States. 

Mr. WHEELER. I can’t comment on that hypothetical, but the 

point of the matter is that we followed precedents and procedures 

that has been followed for years and years by both Republican and 

Democratic Commissions. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you very much. 

I yield the balance of my time and thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Chairman Wheeler, for your long and dedicated public service to our Country. I know it is often thankless. And while 

opinions may differ, your dedication to it is appreciated. 

Mr. WHEELER. Sir, I recognize your badge. Thank you for your 

service. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, thank you, sir. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
44 

You had Stated in earlier testimony today that you came to an 

evolutionary decision because you determined it was reasonable for 

ISPs, but not reasonable for consumers with this ruling. Is it not 

true that with this ruling that Federal taxes could now be applied 

to consumers, where they were once prohibited? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that that is in the hands of Congress. You 

all will get to decide that. Right now the Internet Tax Freedom Act 

specifically prohibits that, and whether that is changed is outside 

of my jurisdiction. 

Mr. RUSSELL. But from an informational service to a communications service, by moving it to Title II, does it not lay the foundation 

for consumers being taxed? 

Mr. WHEELER. Again, that is going to end up being your decision, 

not mine. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Was it possible when it was just an information 

service outside of Title II? 

Mr. WHEELER. Information services, some are taxed at State levels, I believe. Some could be taxed at State levels. I want to make 

sure it is could because we have the Internet Tax Freedom Act sitting on top of everything. So it cuts both ways, I guess. 

Mr. RUSSELL. OK, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution States 

that it is Congress that has the power to regulate commerce. Do 

you believe this? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Do you believe that the public would have been 

better served by giving Congress a chance to review the rules prior 

to their release, especially in light of your testimony today where 

you said that rules have to apply across all agencies and be considered? 

Mr. WHEELER. This has been, as you know, Congressman, a 10- 

year process where there has been multiple input by multiple congresses along the way. There is legislation now, which is entirely 

appropriate. I think what our job is is to take the instructions of 

Congress as stipulated in statute and interpret them in terms of 

the realities of the day, and that is what we did. 

Mr. RUSSELL. The quote that I would like to read to you by a 

senior vice president of a communications company says, ‘‘The FCC 

today chose to change the way commercial Internet has operated 

since its creation. Changing a platform that has been so successful 

should be done, if at all, only after careful policy analysis, full 

transparency, and the Congress, which is constitutionally charged 

with determining policy.’’ 

Now, you and your agency have established a clear belief that 

adopting these Title II rules would create problems, as we have 

seen in some of the email traffic that we have reviewed today. You 

also have Stated in other emails produced to the committee that 

you did not intend to be a wallflower in your tenure at the Commission. But given the coordinated efforts in the pressure of the 

White House, the coincidentally timed protest, and other White 

House Statements, would it be unreasonable, then, for Americans 

to somehow feel betrayed that this decision was a cave against 

your earlier judgment and damaged the reputation of the FCC as 

an independent agency? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
45 

Mr. WHEELER. No. And I also think that it is important to go to 

your key assumption there, quoting this senior vice president. The 

interesting thing in all of this is that there are four bright line 

rules. There are only four lines in this order: no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization, and transparency; and all of the ISPs 

have been saying publicly, buying newspaper ads, running TV commercials, you have been subject to it, saying, oh, we would never 

think of not doing that. 

So when this person says it is going to change the basic operation of the Internet, there is some kind of a discord there, some 

kind of a disconnect, because they are saying, oh, we are not going 

to do that, and then they say, oh, but when they require that we 

don’t do that, that is changing the operation of the Internet; and 

I think that is kind of an underlying tension that has been going 

through this whole thing. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, I would hope, as we move forward in the future, there is clearly going to be lawsuits in this process; there is 

going to be continued discussion about it; that we would make sure 

that Congress regulates commerce. I personally believe that what 

we will see follow will be a taxation of consumers. I think had they 

known that, they wouldn’t have been so quick to click the Internet 

like to get these 4 million comments. And I think we have set back 

free information and access to all Americans. Thank you. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. 

Lawrence, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member. 

Welcome, Chairman Wheeler. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. I appreciate you being here today. My friend, 

my colleague Stated that there was a Statement that you did not 

intend to be a wallflower. I find that refreshing. Those who take 

an oath to serve the people and to be part of our regulatory process 

should not be a wallflower; they should be actively engaged. And 

I appreciate the passion you have distributed today. 

I want you to know when I came to Congress I too had heard 

a lot about this net neutrality. I have done my homework and I 

came to Congress with an open mind and willingness to see both 

sides of this issue. I also am aware that over 4 million people filed 

public comments with the FCC. Four million. Most of them average 

people voting yes. And I also saw the President’s comments on this 

issue. 

So one of the things I want to ask of you today, Mr. Wheeler, is 

to really solidify you in this position. Chairman Wheeler, you were 

supported by telecom companies when President Obama selected 

you to this position, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I believe so, yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. And you were unanimously, meaning both sides 

of the House, confirmed, by the Senate as well. 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So it was not just one side of the House, of the 

Senate, it was both sides. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. And then from 1976 to 1984, you worked for the 

National Cable Television Association, which is clearly representing these agencies that would be affected, and eventually became the president and CEO, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. And from 1992 to 2004, Chairman Wheeler, you 

served as the president and the CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Clearly, you would not be a wallflower. So you 

know this telecom industry very well, because if there ever was 

such a thing as the Internet or ISP, you would know that, correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have spent my professional life in this space, 

ma’am. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So, knowing this, would you push for regulations that you knowingly were aware that would damage the industry that you represented for so many years? 

Mr. WHEELER. [No audible response.] 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So the decision and the regulation that you advocated for, your position was this wold not damage, but enhance. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, Mrs. Lawrence, that is a really good 

question. I think there are two answers to it. No. 1 is that, yes, I 

was the chief advocate, chief lobbyist for those two industries when 

they were growth industries, not the behemoths that they are now, 

but a different time. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Right. 

Mr. WHEELER. And I hope I was a pretty good advocate. They 

were my client. My client today is the American consumer. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. And that is who I want to make sure that I am 

representing. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. Now, doing that, we do not help the American 

consumer by cutting off the nose of those who provide competitive 

broadband service to spite your face. So what we were doing in this 

was balancing the consumer protection with the investment necessary to provide competitive broadband services. And I went back 

to my roots as the president of CTIA, when the wireless industry 

sent me to Congress and said we need to be regulated as a Title 

II common carrier with forbearance, and Congress agreed with 

that, and that is the rules under which the wireless voice industry 

since then has had $300 billion in investment and become the marvel of the world. 

So the answer is yes on both fronts. You can’t help consumers 

if you are not stimulating broadband growth. But my job today is 

representing American consumers. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. And just for the record, because the questioning 

today is inferring that, would you support regulations, and you eloquently Stated that there is a balancing of this and information 

and your experience bring you to this point, would you support regulations that would hurt ISPs just because the White House 

thought it was a good idea? 


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Mr. WHEELER. Throughout this process I have been trying to be 

very independent and very thoughtful. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. And, last, do you honestly believe that net neutrality will stifle innovation, hurt access, or hinder the growth and 

development of the telecom industry, given your 40 years of experience? 

Mr. WHEELER. No, ma’am. And it is not just my opinion that 

counts, however. But when major Internet service providers like 

Sprint, like T-Mobile, like Frontier Communications, like Google 

Fiber, like hundreds of rural providers say that they too believe 

they will be investing and continuing to growth competitive 

broadband, I believe that is reinforcement of this point. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you for your service, and I yield back my 

time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for testifying. 

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Palmer. 

Mr. PALMER. You claimed in your opening Statement that this 

was the most open and transparent rulemaking in FCC history, is 

that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. You have claimed in your testimony that all of your 

communications with the White House were properly accounted for 

with ex parte filings, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. Would you put up the slide, please? 

While they are working on that slide, I have here a copy of your 

ex parte filing for the President’s Statement on net neutrality. Mr. 

Wheeler, it is two paragraphs long, three sentences total. Are we 

left to believe that the entirety of the White House’s involvement 

in this process can be captured in just three sentences? 

Mr. WHEELER. I am now being passed—this is the letter, November 10, Dear Ms. Dorsch? 

Mr. PALMER. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. WHEELER. I believe that it has, then, a two-page attachment 

with it that gets quite specific and says what bright line rules 

should be and things such as that, that wireless should be covered 

and things like that. 

Mr. PALMER. Do we have that? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They are working on getting it, but I believe the portion that deals with this topic is, as the gentleman 

says, three sentences. 

Mr. PALMER. Three sentences, yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. I disagree, respectfully, sir. They put in here the 

entire Statement of the President in which he was saying this is 

what I think we ought to stand for. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If the gentleman would yield. 

Are you telling us that Jeffrey Zients came over to meet with you 

and just read the President’s Statement? 

I will yield back to Mr. Palmer. 


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Mr. WHEELER. I don’t think that was the question. Maybe I am 

confused here, Mr. Palmer. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, let me be a little more specific. Your calendar 

shows on February 2014 you had two phone calls the same afternoon with a counselor to the President, John Podesta, and with the 

White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, is that correct? 

Mr. WHEELER. If the calendar says that, I don’t recall talking to 

Mr. Podesta, but if the calendar says that. 

Mr. PALMER. You don’t recall talking with Mr. Podesta? Do you 

have any recollection of a phone call with Mr. Podesta on that day? 

Mr. WHEELER. If the calendar says, sir, I will stipulate to it. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you recall talking to the White House Office of 

Science & Technology Policy? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have talked to them, yes, multiple times. 

Mr. PALMER. Can you give us an idea of what was discussed in 

either of those calls? 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t recall the specific—what was the date that 

you were specifying? 

Mr. PALMER. February of last year, 2014. 

Mr. WHEELER. I don’t know what the specifics of that call were, 

I don’t recall it. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you have a recollection of having those calls? 

Mr. WHEELER. If my calendar says, then I must have. I don’t 

have a recollection of it. And the other thing is there is a whole 

bunch of things that are going on that are relevant, but I don’t 

know what we were talking about. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, it shows up on your calendar, and if you are 

having a difficult time remembering the calls and certainly the content of those calls, should either of those calls have been recorded 

as ex parte contacts? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think there are two answers to the question. 

One, I don’t recall the content; second, as we have discussed previously, there are specific guidelines rules as far as what ex parte 

is; and, third, that there is, and has been since the first Bush Administration, a ruling that contacts with the Administration and 

with the Congress are not ex parte. 

Mr. PALMER. Last question here. What other contacts do you recall that you have had with the White House staff prior to the 

April 2014 emails that have been publicly released? 

Mr. WHEELER. You have my calendar and you have my emails. 

Mr. PALMER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. DeSaulnier, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for your service. I am 

tremendously proud of not just your decision, but also your testimony today, and how you have handled yourself, particularly considering, as one of my colleagues pointed out, your background. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. And coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, 

obviously the importance to innovation for us and having many 

constituents and friends who work at companies like Facebook and 

Google and Apple, we want to make sure we get it right; and also 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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having a presence in my district of AT&T and Comcast, I understand the balance you had to go through. 

I also understand the importance of the balance of your independence and expertise of independent commissions and their relationship with the Administration and Congress, and I actually 

think there is obviously a very strong argument to be made that 

someone like yourself and your staff are more appropriately situated to avoid some of the politics and make these decisions. 

Having said that, I was particularly taken by your comments to 

one of the questions about whether you were, by appearance, looking like you were sort of second-guessing your decision and your 

vote, and your response to that, I thought, was very forthright and 

very determined and clear. So that was to the decision. Knowing 

that the process is probably as important and the perspective of the 

process is as important as the actual decisionmaking, how would 

you respond to the question of are you equivocating about your concerns about the questions you are being asked and the process? 

Mr. WHEELER. So I believe that we handled this, Congressman, 

just as any other issue that comes before us, whether it is exciting 

and headline grabbing like this or much more mundane things we 

normally deal with; that we used the established procedures and 

precedents very religiously. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. So would you say that your comments about 

your pride in the actual decisionmaking you feel equally as proud 

as the process? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think the process worked, sir. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. OK. So your comment about the number of the 

input from the public, the 4 million comments, would you ascribe 

a reason for that? I have gotten lots of input, I know we all have, 

from average, everyday citizens. Could you ascribe the motivation? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think that the Internet touches people’s lives 

more than any other network probably in the history of mankind, 

and everybody, believe me, everybody has an opinion about the 

Internet and everybody wants to talk about the Internet. So when 

you begin addressing issues such as will the Internet continue to 

be fair, fast, and open, those are things that it doesn’t take an engineering degree or a computer science degree to be able to understand. Those are things you can understand that affect people individually, and I think that is why we had this kind of response. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I appreciate that. It is interesting sitting in 

this room and seeing behind you a picture of the connection of the 

Transcontinental Railway. When you look from a historical perspective of how the Federal Government has handled what would 

be considered assets of the commonwealth, but also wanted to be 

fair to the people who were investing from the private sector, 

whether it was railroads or television or the media, from your perspective, one of the concerns is who benefits and who does not, and 

usually the poorest Americans have benefited the least, at least in 

the short-term. 

Do you have any comments about this rulemaking and the digital divide? Will it help eliminate that or by not doing this rulemaking and having sort of an opposite rulemaking, how it would 

affect the poorest of Americans? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WHEELER. If you do not have access, free, fair, open access, 

then you, per se, have a divide; and so when we come out and talk 

about how there needs to be, no matter where you are, no matter 

what legal content it is, that there should be open access to it, that 

the predicate to not having a divide. Not to say that there aren’t 

challenges that we will continue to face, but that the baseline is 

there has to be openness. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I thank the gentleman. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Blum, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Chairman Wheeler, for being here today and sharing 

your insights with us. I must admire your green tie. Obviously, I 

did not get the memo. 

Mr. WHEELER. It is that day. 

Mr. BLUM. Yes. 

I have a general question. 

Mr. WHEELER. When you grow up with an Iowa woman who is 

big into Irish, you make sure that you wear a green tie, sir. 

Mr. BLUM. Well said. 

I have a general question for you and then a more specific question. In your opening Statement this morning, you mentioned that 

one of the FCC’s goals, let me make sure I get this correct, is to 

protect the open Internet as a level playing field for innovators and 

entrepreneurs. 

Mr. Wheeler, I am one of those innovators and I am one of those 

entrepreneurs. My concern, as a small businessman, Mr. Wheeler, 

is I have seen firsthand what happens to private and free marketplaces when the heavy hand of the Federal Government gets involved; and typically what happens, we see less innovation, we see 

lower qualities, we see higher prices, higher taxes. An example of 

that recently is the Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to 

help level the playing field for small businesses, and we have seen 

there higher prices, less innovation, higher taxes. 

My question to you, and a question I get asked in Iowa often, Mr. 

Wheeler, is what steps is the FCC going to take to ensure, to ensure that the Internet remains vibrant, innovative, and open, when 

history, once again, has shown us when the heavy hand of the Federal Government gets involved in a free and vibrant market, bad 

things happen? 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, Mr. Blum. First of all, I would like to 

identify with you as one entrepreneur to another. I too have been 

a small businessman; I have started a half a dozen companies. 

Some worked, some didn’t. 

Mr. BLUM. That happens. 

Mr. WHEELER. You understand that experience as well, I am 

sure. 

Mr. BLUM. Yes. 

Mr. WHEELER. And for the decade before I took this job, I was 

a venture capitalist who was investing in early stage Internet protocol-based companies. So I know both personally, from my own entrepreneurial experience, as well as from my investing experience, 

that openness is key. If the companies that I had invested in did 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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not have open access to the distribution network, it would have 

been an entirely different story. 

Mr. BLUM. What will you do to guarantee it? 

Mr. WHEELER. What you can tell your constituents is that it is 

openness that is the core of creativity, because there should be nobody acting as a gateway and saying, hmm, you are only going to 

get on my network if you do it on my terms. And the key, then, 

as we go to the previous discussion that what you want to do is 

make sure you have that gateway not blocking the openness of entrepreneurs and at the same point in time that gateway not being 

retail price regulated so that it can continue to invest. And that is 

the kind of balance that we were trying to do. But I would urge 

you to tell your constituents the opportunity for innovation and the 

opportunity for the scaling that is required of innovation has never 

been greater because the networks are open. 

Mr. BLUM. With all due respect, many people back in Iowa would 

say you are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist today. 

I have a specific question for you. During an interview with the 

Consumer Electronics Show in January, you said that you had an 

aha moment in the summer of that year when you realized the 

Telecommunications Act of 1996 applied Title II classification to 

wireless phone providers, but exempted them from many of its provisions. 

Later in the year, House Communications Subcommittee Chair 

Greg Walden said that he met with you in November 2014 to reiterate congressional Republicans’ concern with Title II regulation of 

the Internet. In that meeting, Chairman Walden said you assured 

him that you were committed to net neutrality without classification of broadband under Title II. Sounds to me like a flip flop. Can 

you explain that difference? 

Mr. WHEELER. I respect Mr. Walden greatly, and I am going to 

be testifying before him on Thursday. I saw that he made that 

Statement. I went back to the contemporaneous notes from that 

meeting and we have a completely different set of recollections and, 

in fact, the notes because my notes say that I said that we would 

use light touch Title II and Section 706. I don’t know what is going 

on; all I am saying is those are what my notes are, sir. 

Mr. BLUM. Thank you. 

I yield my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for being here today. We appreciate it 

very much. In the short 5 minutes that I have, I want to try to get 

a better understanding of two things. First of all, throughout the 

process today and through my reading and through listening, it 

just appears that the whole process, there was more attention paid 

to the White House than there was to Congress, and I just don’t 

understand why that would be the case in an independent body 

like yours. Did you serve on the transition team for the Obama Administration? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CARTER. You did. That is correct. So it is safe to say and true 

to say that you have a very close relationship with the President, 

is that right? 

Mr. WHEELER. I am not sure that I have a close relationship with 

the President. I know the President. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, you served on his transition team. I don’t 

think he would have somebody who wasn’t close to him on his transition team. Agreed? 

Mr. WHEELER. I am not going to make representations for the 

President. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. Fair enough. Fair enough. OK, well, he didn’t 

ask me to be on his transition team. Let’s put it that way, OK? 

Well, the day after the vote for the rule, did it strike you as being 

interesting at all that a fellow commissioner of yours called the 

new rule President Obama’s plan? 

Mr. WHEELER. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. I think 

it is appropriate to State something very clearly in response to 

what you are saying. Since taking this job, I met once with the 

President in the Oval Office; it was the first couple of days on the 

job. It was congratulations, welcome to the job. 

Mr. CARTER. I understand that. 

Mr. WHEELER. In that meeting, in that meeting, sir, he said to 

me you need to understand I will never call you; you are an independent agency. 

Mr. CARTER. Then why do you think a fellow commissioner made 

the comment that this is President Obama’s plan for the Internet? 

Why do you think that someone would make that comment? 

Mr. WHEELER. He has been good to his word, sir, and I have no 

idea why somebody would want to make that kind of comment. 

Mr. CARTER. Why do you think that the Democratic National 

Committee made the Statement that it was President Obama’s 

plan? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have noticed occasionally over time that both 

committees will engage in hyperbole. 

Mr. CARTER. So you just think it is hyperbole? Do you agree with 

the DNC’s Statement? 

Mr. WHEELER. I believe that this is a plan that was put together 

by the FCC. 

Mr. CARTER. So you do not agree with the DNC’s Statement that 

this is President Obama’s plan. 

Mr. WHEELER. Well, let’s get specific. One, he didn’t have Section 

706 in what he sent when he sent something in. Second, he didn’t 

cover interconnection, which we cover. Third, he talked about forbearing from rate regulation, not the 26 other things that we do. 

I think that we produced a plan that is uniquely our plan and is 

a plan that is based on the record that was established before us; 

and that when the President joined the 64 Democratic Members of 

Congress and the millions of people and said he too thought this 

made sense, that he was piling on rather than being definitive. 

Mr. CARTER. All that is fine, but let me ask you through the 

process of this evolution of the plan, did your thought process 

change at all? I mean, initially it appeared that you had in mind 

what was referred to as a hybrid 706 plan. 


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Mr. WHEELER. You actually used the right word there, my evolution on this plan. I started out with pure 706 and then I realized, 

as I said in my testimony, that that wouldn’t work because of the 

commercially reasonable test, and so I started exploring Title II 

kinds of ideas. 

Mr. CARTER. Did anyone lead you in this exploration? 

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir, all kinds of commenters and a lot of work 

that was put into that. 

Mr. CARTER. Do you think any of those commenters were influenced by the White House? 

Mr. WHEELER. I have no idea. 

Mr. CARTER. One final question. Do you feel that you paid as 

close attention to the White House as you paid to Congress? 

Mr. WHEELER. Sir, I believe that I have, frankly, spent more 

time discussing this issue with Members of Congress than with the 

Administration. 

Mr. CARTER. Then ultimately do you feel like you listened to the 

input of Congress more so than the White House? 

Mr. WHEELER. I paid full attention to the record that was established in this proceeding, and it included Members of Congress saying no, don’t do Title II, and it included Members of Congress saying do do Title II. 

Mr. CARTER. Again, do you feel like you paid as close attention 

to Congress as you did to the White House? 

Mr. WHEELER. I think my responsibility is to be responsive to all 

of the people who are involved. 

Mr. CARTER. I can’t tell whether that is a yes or no. 

Mr. WHEELER. I think I was very responsive to Congress. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. 

And I appreciate the gentleman’s commitment to St. Patrick’s 

Day as exemplified by that jacket, but the chair is prepared to rule 

that he has only been outdone by the gentleman from Wisconsin, 

who clearly is wearing his colors today, and will now recognize that 

gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks for hanging around so long. 

Last month The Wall Street Journal, you maybe saw, had an article reporting that the White House had spent months in a secretive effort to change the FCC course. Did this news come as a surprise to you? When you heard about it, what was your reaction? 

Mr. WHEELER. So there is a standard process, I believe, where 

the White House works on developing their position. I was not a 

part of it. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Did it surprise you when you heard about it? 

Mr. WHEELER. It is not a surprise that something like that goes 

on. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Last spring and summer you had various 

meetings with White House officials. Did you become aware at that 

time that the White House was working on an alternative to your 

original proposal? 

Mr. WHEELER. I had heard rumors that the White House was 

looking at this, as I say, like they look at all other issues to develop 

an administration position. 


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Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. The White House, apparently, in formulating this alternative, had dozens of meetings with online activists, startups, traditional telecommunication companies. We believe 

participants were allegedly told not to discuss the process. Were 

you aware of these meetings at the time? 

Mr. WHEELER. I knew that there was a process, this group. I did 

not know who they were meeting with. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. 

I yield the rest of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Wheeler, as we now wind down this hearing, 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for your testimony. 

When decisions are made by various bodies, commissions, quite 

often people are in disagreement with those decisions, and I don’t 

think there is anything wrong with looking behind the curtain to 

try to figure out what the process was, because one of the things 

that we have been pushing very hard on in this committee is the 

whole idea of transparency. So your testimony has been very enlightening. 

I think we need to keep in mind that these decisions are made 

by people who come to government, and they don’t have to do that, 

but they come to government trying to bring their own experiences 

to the table, their concerns, and their hopes of bringing us more 

and more to that perfect union that we talk about. 

So I want to thank you for all that you have done and continue 

to do. And I want to thank the other commissioners and your employees. I think a lot of times in these circumstances we forget that 

there are employees who have worked very hard on these issues 

and trying to do it right, so that is very important. I hope that you 

will take that back to your commissioners and the employees. 

And I am hopeful that we can move forward here. Again, I have 

listened to you very carefully. There was a moment, I mentioned 

to my staff, that kind of touched me a bit, when you were asked 

whether you were backtracking on your decision; and the passion 

that you responded in saying that absolutely not, this is a decision 

that you all made and that you are proud of it, and that is something that is very important to you. You can’t fake that. You can’t 

fake it. And as a trial lawyer, I am used to watching people testify. 

Another thing that you said and you were very clear is that you 

adhered to the rules, and I appreciate that and I believe so. So we 

look forward to continuing to work with you and again I want to 

thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your being 

here today. We were made aware that the inspector general has 

opened an investigation of this process. Are you aware of that investigation? 

Mr. WHEELER. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It is my understanding it is not an audit, 

it is not an inspection, but an actual investigation. Would you be 

willing to cooperate with this investigation? 

Mr. WHEELER. Of course. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. I think one of the key things, and it was 

brought up on both sides, is the process of openness and transparency. My personal opinion, there could have been a lot more 

done to maximize the transparency and the openness. The rules do 

allow you latitude to give it more transparency than you did. I 

think one of the things our body should look at is compelling that 

openness and transparency, rather than making it simply discretionary; and that is something we will have to take back, because 

there are rulings that go one direction or another. Some people are 

happy, some aren’t. 

But the idea that the public could, say, have a 30-day opportunity to see the final rule I think rings true with a lot of people. 

This notion that, right up until the time you voted for it, nobody 

outside of that Commission is allowed to see the final product does 

not lend itself well to maximizing openness and transparency. And 

that is just my comment, it is not a question. But I do think a 30- 

day window would do that. 

I also think that the interactions with those who have an opinion 

is fine, it is a healthy one. But the lack of disclosure about those, 

overly redacting emails does lead one to believe that there was a 

bit more of a secret type of communication going on there, and I 

think you can understand, at least I hope that you can appreciate 

why some people would come to that conclusion, particularly given 

the dramatic change in the policy that you took. 

Nevertheless, I think this was a good and healthy hearing. We 

appreciate your participation. That is what this process is about. 

There are fact-finding things that we engage in and I appreciate 

your participation here today. We do have a number of outstanding 

requests from the FCC that we would appreciate your providing 

that information to this committee. Some take a little bit longer in 

time, some are fairly easy, but we appreciate your staff who have 

to do a lot of this work, and thank them for those efforts. 

This committee now stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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