Contact: Regina Davis, rdavis@naruc.org

WASHINGTON (October 26, 2021) — In response to President Biden’s nomination of Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel as the new chair, Gigi Sohn as FCC commissioner and Mozilla Foundation Senior Adviser Alan Davidson as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has provided the following comments.

NARUC and its members have worked with Rosenworcel since she was an advisor for then Commissioner Michael Copps and during her previous service as an FCC commissioner in the Obama Administration, where she served as chair of the Federal State Joint Board on Universal Service. 

Sohn, a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow & Public Advocate, has worked with NARUC on several issues, starting with her service as co-founder and CEO of Public Knowledge in 2001, through her service as counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and her work today on a range of issues that include net neutrality and universal service reform.

Davidson has been a fixture in the telecom space since he started Google’s public policy office in Washington, D.C., in 2007. NARUC and its staff have had the opportunity to work with Davidson since his tenure at the Obama-era Department of Commerce.”

“These are all excellent choices, as each nominee has outstanding credentials to lead the FCC and the NTIA — agencies that represent issues of utmost importance to our members and the nation,” said NARUC President Paul Kjellander of Idaho. “Broadband infrastructure and internet affordability are two of our chief telecom priorities as we continue to look for solutions to close the digital divide.”

“President Biden’s nominations will be instrumental in our continued coordinated efforts with the NTIA and the FCC to address broadband mapping and adoption and to identify the role of public utility commissions in these initiatives,” said South Dakota Public Utilities Commission Chairman Chris Nelson, who chairs the NARUC Task Force on Broadband Expansion.

Along with the Broadband Task Force, NARUC has a Committee on Telecommunications and has adopted various telecommunications resolutions at each of its national meetings of regulators and stakeholders. Broadband policies became a more urgent issue throughout the pandemic and the final selection process for the nominees will be followed closely by the Association and its members.

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About NARUC

NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889 whose members include the governmental agencies that are engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. NARUC's member agencies regulate telecommunications, energy, and water utilities. NARUC represents the interests of state public utility commissions before the three branches of the Federal government.