Special Adviser, Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, Common Cause
Michael Copps is special adviser for Common Cause's Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.
From 2001-11, he served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission, where his tenure was marked by a consistent embrace of the public interest. As a strong voice in opposition to consolidation in the media, he dissented in the FCC vote on the Comcast-NBC Universal merger. He has been a consistent proponent of localism in programming and diversity in media ownership. Though retired from the Commission, he has maintained a commitment to an inclusive, informative media landscape. In addition to his work at Common Causes, Mr. Copps sits on the boards of Free Press and Public Knowledge.
Before joining the FCC, Mr. Copps served as assistant secretary of commerce for trade development at the Department of Commerce and chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings from the early 1970s to 1983. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the Economics of the Internet, Hudson Institute
Harold Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow and director of the Center for the Economics of the Internet at Hudson Institute.
Mr. Furchtgott-Roth founded Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises in 2003. He frequently comments on issues related to the communications sector of the economy. From 2001 to 2003, he was a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he published A Tough Act to Follow, chronicling the difficulties implementing the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
From 1997 through 2001, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth served as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. In that capacity, he served on the Joint Board on Universal Service. He is one of the few economists to have served as a federal regulatory commissioner, and the only one to have served on the Federal Communications Commission.
Before his appointment to the FCC, he was chief economist for the House Committee on Commerce and a principal staff member on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Earlier in his career, he was a senior economist with Economists Incorporated and a research analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses.
Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is a member of the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board. He is the coauthor of three books: Cable TV: Regulation or Competition, with R.W. Crandall; Economics of A Disaster: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, with B.M. Owen et al; and International Trade in Computer Software, with S.E. Siwek.
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Growth and Opportunity
William Rinehart is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University.
He specializes in telecommunication, Internet, and data policy, with a focus on emerging technologies and innovation. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Wired, Morning Consult, The Hill, Forbes, Reason, Marginal Revolution, Overlawyered, and on BBC Radio and NPR, just to name a few. Rinehart speaks regularly on topics related to tech policy and has been cited in regulatory orders from the FCC as well as Supreme Court petitions.
Rinehart came to the Center from the American Action Forum, where he served as Director of Technology and Innovation Policy. He was also previously a Research Fellow at TechFreedom and the Director of Operations at the International Center for Law & Economics. Additionally, he worked for the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement as the Research Assistant in Technology and Civic Engagement. Rinehart is currently a Frédéric Bastiat Fellow at the Mercatus Center and previously a Fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry. Additionally, he served on the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Deployment Committee and Consumer Advocacy Committee.
Telecommunications Transactions and the Public Interest
Teleforum