Barack Obama hasn’t even appointed a chief technology officer yet, but thousands of people are using a new Web site to suggest and vote on ideas they think his CTO should work on.
Obama has called for tax and loan incentives to spur construction of broadband networks. He wants to divert some of the $7 billion Universal Service Fund, collected by the U.S. government to subsidize phone service in rural areas, to build high-speed Internet lines that could also carry phone traffic.
But Obama is bound to face resistance from rural phone companies. He is also in for a fight on a proposal to reallocate licensed radio and TV frequencies to create new wireless broadband networks. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission approved the sale of wireless networking devices that will transmit over unused TV frequencies.
Jeffrey Silva of RCR Wireless News reports that Thomas Wheeler, former head of cellular industry association CTIA was named a member of the Obama-Biden transition project’s agency review working group. Wheeler will be responsible for science, technology, space and arts agencies.
The Obama-Biden transition team did not break out precisely which agencies Wheeler will be responsible for, but it appears he could have clout on post-election staffing and policy decisions involving the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the new political regime.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Wheeler raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for the Obama campaign through the bundling of contributions from friends, business associates and others. Wheeler is among those high-tech heavyweights who threw their support behind Obama in the early stages of his presidential run.
Another individual in that category is Reed Hundt, a former Clinton appointee who gained notoriety during the 1990s for overseeing the first spectrum auctions. Hundt will be responsible for international trade and economic agencies for the Obama-Biden transition team.
Hundt, who was a principal in now-defunct Frontline Wireless L.L.C.’s aborted campaign to secure a national public safety-commercial wireless license, collected between $50,000 and $100,000 in bundled contributions for the Obama presidential campaign.
Other telecom policymakers who worked in the Hundt FCC also have prominent roles on the Obama-Biden transition team.
According to RCR News, lobbying restrictions governing the Obama-Biden transition include the following:
- Federal lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.
- Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.
- If someone has lobbied in the past 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.
- If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the administration for 12 months on matters in which they worked.
Two academics — Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach — will lead the Obama FCC transition team with the responsibility of advising the incoming administration on policy, budget and personnel matters, the Obama-Biden office announced today.
