Former Reps. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Ed Towns, D-N.Y., will...
Former Reps. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Ed Towns, D-N.Y., will co-chair the New Telecommunications and Internet Policy Taskforce, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) Wednesday. Stearns and Towns both were on the House Commerce Committee and its Communications…
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Subcommittee; Towns didn’t run for re-election in 2012 and Stearns lost his primary. The task force will design and advocate for telecom and Internet policy reform, MMTC said. Comprehensive telecom policy reform is “overdue,” Stearns said in a statement. “Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, technology has evolved rapidly and has converged. On the one hand, technology has been beneficial while our archaic telecom laws are further dividing the nation and preventing a substantial number of Americans from fully participating … in the communications industry.” Congress should be more proactive in updating its telecom laws and infrastructure, Towns said in a statement. “Our taskforce will work … for much-needed communications infrastructure to better serve our citizens when disaster strikes, eliminate the digital divide in communities of color, and eliminate the barriers to entry facing small businesses in the rapidly increasing and lucrative field of telecommunications,” he said. The task force planned its first meeting Wednesday evening as part of an MMTC telecom policy summit in Washington, D.C.