WASHINGTON D.C. - Always in the news and often under fire, the Federal Communications Commission is due for a substantial overhaul many argue. If that is to happen, what form should a "reinvented" FCC take and what is the best way to accomplish reform? Those questions will be debated when several former top federal officials meet on Capitol Hill October 15 to consider the New Deal-era agency's future.

A Progress & Freedom Foundation Congressional Seminar, "Reinventing the FCC for the Digital Age," will feature James C. Miller III, former head of the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Trade Commission; Darius Gaskins, former chair of the Interstate Commerce Commission and ex-director of the Economics Bureaus of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the FTC; and Susan Ness, former FCC commissioner. The program takes place Friday, October 15 from 12:00 - 2:00 pm, in Longworth House Office Building, Room 1539.

Progress & Freedom Foundation Senior Fellow and Director of Communications Policy Studies Randolph J. May will open the session with a discussion of his suggestions for FCC institutional reform, as set forth in his article published recently by the National Law Journal. Moderating the panel will be Foundation Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research Thomas M. Lenard.

"We have assembled an exceptional panel of former senior agency officials with broad experience at the FCC, FTC, OMB, and also at a couple of once-important agencies that are no longer in existence," said May in announcing the seminar. "They will provide their views on how to achieve meaningful institutional agency reform during a time of extreme change in technology and the marketplace."

The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. It is a 501(c)(3) research & educational organization.