Gary Shapiro and Senator Roger Wicker Talk Tech
October 3, 2018
- Author: Tiffany Moore Sr. VP, Political and Industry Affairs
September/October 2018
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Tariffs, IoT security and telemedicine were on the agenda as CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro visited Senator Roger Wicker’s office in August. Wicker, a Republican senator from Tupelo, Mississippi since 2007, is a strong advocate for increasing broadband access, improving infrastructure and encouraging 5G technology. He also is focusing on cybersecurity and last December introduced the IOT Consumer TIPS Act. He is passionate about helping small businesses and entrepreneurs create new jobs in Mississippi. In February a group of diverse leaders met at Jackson State University for a roundtable discussion on how to close the skills gap.
Wicker served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 until 2007, when Governor Haley Barbour appointed him to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott. He then won a special election in 2008 and was reelected to a full-term in 2012. He also served in the Mississippi State Senate. An officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1976 to 1980, he later served as a member of the Air Force Reserves from 1980 to 2004. The following is an edited version of Wicker’s discussion with Shapiro for i3.
We heard you have the lengthiest career on Capitol Hill.
In a way. I am the only person in the history of the United States Congress who succeeded the representative that he served with as a page. I served as a page for Jamie Whitten in October of 1967 and I succeeded him in office in January of 1995.
What do you think about CES?
CES is the chance to see cutting edge technology. It is also a chance to see which companies are making the effort and which ones are riding on their laurels. It was an eye opener for me.
You are chairman of the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet. Last December you introduced the Internet of Things Consumer Tips to Improve Personal Security Act. Can you tell us about that?
I was glad to introduce the IOT Consumer TIPS Act with Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH). The FTC needs to develop guidance for consumers on how to be safer and more secure, particularly regarding connected devices and that is what this bipartisan legislation is about. It directs them to provide information to consumers about resources for developing cybersecurity.
How can consumers protect themselves against cybercriminals targeting internet-connected devices?
It is a shared responsibility between the government, companies and consumers. We need consumers to practice good cyber hygiene. This includes updating software, so the latest security protections are installed on the device; and consumers should be wary of downloading suspicious or pirated software. Consumers must be vigilant because security threats are constantly evolving, and cyber criminals are testing out new ways to get at us.
With President Trump’s tariffs, American jobs are being lost in a range of industries from agriculture to technology. Do you see a role for Congress?
Yes – Congress has spoken out in several respects. Of course, Congress has also given the president wide powers to negotiate because you are never going to get a good deal with another country if the people on the other side of the table from our negotiators think it is subject to amendment later. That is why we have the Trade Promotion Authority.
But here is where I come down. We like to manufacture things and sell to the 95 percent of the world’s population that lives outside of the U.S. We like to grow things – particularly the people in Mississippi and across the great heartland. We find that we export twice as much to countries where we have trade agreements, so I have a strong history of supporting free trade agreements. I wasn’t here for NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement]. It was enacted in 1994 when I was a candidate for the House. After I was elected, and before I took office, GATT (The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) was approved in the House of Representatives and I watched that process as a member elect.
I support free trade agreements and I am skeptical of tariffs. I know that the president wants to get to freer trade. There have been some real abuses, particularly by China. We tolerated these for a time when China’s economy was still developing. Now they are the second strongest economy in the world and we are correct to say this ought to be a new day between two economic superpowers and there needs to be a change in our approach. I hope new trade agreements happen more quickly. Maybe we can show the way with Mexico and NAFTA, and then Canada and NAFTA, and go from there to Europe and China.
Over 80 percent of our members plan to hire more technical people in the next five years and we don’t currently have them. How can we ensure highly skilled technical jobs from apprenticeships to Ph.D.s?
I have introduced two bills in this regard for starters. One is the Computer Science Career Education Act which would support grants for career education programs. The other is the Apprenticeship Enhancement Act, which would remove bureaucratic hurdles to create more apprenticeships. I have been trying to push this since around the year 2000 when I was a member of the House of Representatives. If an apprenticeship application is allowed to languish on a bureaucrat’s desk, there ought to be a shot clock. If it is not turned down after a certain amount of time, it should be deemed approved. Let’s get these programs out there and start training our young people. We have so many great opportunities for kids with GEDs or high school diplomas to make excellent money in their late teens and early 20s. I have been helpful to coding academies. We have two in Mississippi, but I am trying to expand these and get companies that need young coders and educational facilities or small towns or communities that want to attract young talent to go in together.
In Northwest Mississippi there is a coding academy in an abandoned downtown building in Water Valley and they get financial assistance from several private partners including C-Spire, FNC/Core Logic, Renasant Bank, and FedEx. After a 10-month course, these kids are making upwards of $50,000. That’s darn good for a high school diploma. The opportunities are out there. I hosted a technology round table recently at Jackson State University along with [Federal Communications Commission (FCC)] Commissioner [Brendan] Carr who was very much taken with what a traditionally African American university can do in this regard.
What is important in the next few years in terms of Congressional action?
We need to make sure that the American heartland that is represented on the Commerce Committee is adequately connected. We need to make sure this $4.53 billion in the Mobility Fund gets where it is supposed to go. While I admire the smarts of the people in the FCC, it does not seem that we are yet there in terms of a map that gets the Mobility Fund money where it ought to go. For example, they came out with a map that basically showed that Mississippi leads the world in connectivity. And so, I used social media to do an informal survey. I got thousands of responses and we got local folks involved too. The map that they have with regard to where we actually have mobility service is very inaccurate so [FCC] Chairman Ajit Pai just announced that we have another 90 days to challenge the process to get a better map. We are trying to get our fair share.
I also introduced the Rural Wireless Access Act that will require the FCC to standardize its data collection process. This bill was signed into law. I support precision agriculture and have introduced the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act which directs the FCC to establish a task force to examine broadband connectivity for our farmers and growers. And Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and I introduced the SPEED Act which stands for Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure Act (2017). It seems we have an acronym for everything now.
What are your thoughts on telemedicine?
Mississippi is a pioneer in telemedicine. We have to be because we are rural. We choose to live in small towns but it’s hard to get to the big city when there is something acute. We have demonstrated that we can go into an area of high diabetes, for example, and give people a tablet and they agree to the protocols, and because of this hospital visits have practically vanished among the people in the trial sample because they can connect with someone at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and can prevent having to go to the hospital. We just broke ground for a facility which will house the BTOP [Broadband Technology Opportunities Program] facility. We are placing a virtual emergency room doctor in every ambulance so if you have a preemie that would have very little chance to survive in a two-hour period getting to Jackson, MI, we can save that baby through telemedicine. We are proving it. We are on the cutting edge of telemedicine in our state.
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