Rep. Dvorak has a good post on the latest meeting of the Regulatory Flexibility Committee. That immediately drew my interest since I had the opportunity to serve as staff counsel for that august body back in 1998 or so. Back then, and I presume today, it was made up of the members of the House and Senate Commerce Committees.
I’m not sure it was well served by me back then. At the time, the big question on the table was whether and how to “deregulate” the electric industry. (I put the deregulate in “scare quotes” because there were still all kinds of regulations in mind. I thought of it as “reregulation”. The usual alternative was “restructuring”.) I gave myself a crash course in electric industry issues. But, I was 2 years out of law school, and had no experience with regulatory issues generally or electric issues specifically. So, my usefulness was necessarily limited. I tracked down the speakers suggested by the chairman and was able to explain the difference between “transmission” and “distribution” as it pertains to electricity. At the end of the day, the Committee and the legislature generally got the right result on the issue. They left well enough alone. Indiana had comparatively low electric prices. They didn’t do anything experimental and, consequently, we haven’t experienced any California-style electric gougings. And, I do specifically recall Enron’s lobbyist being at the hearings. So don’t think it couldn’t have happened here. With that digression, I feel like Grampa Simpson. (“We wore onions on our belts, which was the style at the time . . .”) Then again, I’m only up right now because my 2.5 month old daughter decided 5 a.m. was a really great time to be *wide* awake. So, I suspect sleep deprivation on my part may play a part in this post.
Anyway, back to Representative Dvorak. He reports that the issue on the table for RegFlex in this interim was to decide “consider recommending proposed legislation concerning telecommunications reform.” No consensus on the issue was reached. He suggests that it might be more helpful for legislators to receive an education on the latest technological breakthroughs — and even education on the basics of some of the more common technology. He endorsed the sentiment
Too often the discussion of telecommunications policy turns on phrases like “overregulation,†and “investment incentives.†These are critical issues, to be sure, but like the term “last mile,†such phrases frame the issues in network-centric terms. As more and more intelligence migrates to the edge of the network, users of the network need to be part of the policy debate. Let’s put the user back into the picture.
That paragraph is a reminder that the frame of the debate often determines the outcome. One of my first exposures to that premise, particularly with respect to telecommunications, was from Indiana University Communications Professor, Harmeet Sawhney, author of (among other things), Information Superhighway: Metaphors as Midwives. I couldn’t find the article online, but in my search stumbled across one of his course descriptions at IU:
In this seminar we will examine the rise of the networked society and the physical infrastructure that undergirds it. We will start by discussing the social, economic, and cultural forces that set into motion the movement towards the networked society. We will then analyze how large-scale networks, the physical infrastructure of a networked society, are conceptualized and created. How metaphors shape our thoughts? How are investment decisions made when there is so much uncertainty about future demand? Why are the hierarchical networks getting transformed into flatter structures? After examining the infrastructure development process, we will discuss the new modes of
social organization made possible by large-scale networks. Why are we seeing the advent of networked organizations and other networked configurations? How are these configurations different from the earlier ones? What is their impact on our everyday lives?
It’s probably too much to ask that all legislators involved in telecommunications policy making take a semester-long course with Professor Sawhney. But I think the state would be well served if they could. But, like I said, sleep deprivation is a factor here.
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