FCC Commissioner O’Rielly’s Remarks at Spotsylvania Town Hall

There is a special reason why I agreed to appear before you today. Over twenty-two years ago, I started working in Washington (DC) for former Congressman Tom Bliley (R-VA), who at the time represented [Spotsylvania, VA] in Congress. I moved from the Congressman's personal office to his Committee team after one year. And it is there that I started working on communications policy issues on a full time basis and hopefully gained policy expertise that I brought with me to my current role.

We need to remove barriers to [broadband] deployment, including eliminating unnecessary regulations that divert resources away from investment. All too often, the FCC adopts new rules and reporting requirements without considering the costs they impose on providers. Moreover, once rules are adopted, they tend to remain on the books indefinitely -- outliving any value they may have had years ago in a very different regulatory and competitive landscape. So we have work to do on our side to provide greater enticement for broadband providers to take the risk to invest in less populated areas.