The day before Halloween was slated for a long-awaited "Technology Policy Smackdown" between the McCain and Obama camps. The event was hosted by the New America Foundation in recognition of the fact that although connectivity and technology are a pervasive part of our economy, these issues had been generally overlooked in the (seemingly endless) 2008 presidential campaign. Like many other Washington policy wonks, I headed over to NAF to see it for myself (and partake of the very tasty "free lunch" provided). Unfortunately, as has been widely noted, Douglas Holz-Eakin, Chief Economic Advisor to the McCain campaign had to cancel at the last minute and the campaign was unable to provide a substitute. An early Halloween trick? The absence of a McCain representative turned the putative debate into a forum for one of Senator Obama's technology policy advisers, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, to present an uninterrupted picture of how technology policy might proceed under an Obama administration. There were many unexpected treats.

On February 15th, PFF will be hosting a congressional seminar on the DTV transition.
For more info and to register, click here.

Yesterday, PFF hosted "Cyber-Safety in a Web 2.0 World: What Parents and Policymakers Need to Know" over at the Cannon House Office Building. The event featured remarks by Representative Melissa Bean (IL-8), sponsor of the SAFER NET Act, and three online child safety book authors.

The rundown just in case you missed it:

Last week, we hosted another successful CEO luncheon featuring Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens. Discussion at the event, now available as a webcast here, managed to cover topics ranging from the COPE bill to customer service. Below is, for me, some of the more memorable moments.

The Aspen Summit kicked off last night with an address by FCC Commissioner Adelstein, who got 3 out of 4 issues right in his quite engaging speech. I say that teasingly, because the Commissioner's speech once again reaffirmed that digital issues do not necessarily break down along neat Democratic/Republican political lines. Commissioner Adelstein addressed four topics, urging less regulation on three. On multicast must-carry, cable a la carte mandates and indecency regulation, the Commissioner urged caution, restraint and reliance on markets rather than regulation. Despite these laudable positions, the Commissioner remains steadfast in his defense of media ownership regulation. Nonetheless, not a bad opening batting average where he and PFF fellows agree on 3 of 4 major FCC issues.

I had the pleasure last evening of speaking at an America's Future Foundation event titled "Should the Government Regulate the Net?" AFF consists of conservatives or libertarians in their 20s and 30s; in just over a year I'll turn 40 and I suppose will join America's Past. But I enjoyed the AFF crowd, which filled to standing-room a banquet room in the Rayburn House Office Building. I particularly enjoyed their probing questions. In my prepared remarks I sought to address some of the hysteria surrounding the net neutrality debate, and in so doing evoked the possibility of a mutant snakehead rising out of the Potomac River, walking down the Mall and devouring the US Capitol. That, I suspect, isn't likely to happen, but neither are the scary stories we often hear, as was made clear by a fellow panelist, Heritage's James Gattuso.

For one reason or another, PFF fellows are taking our message outside of the Washington Beltway during October.

Dan Glickman, President of the MPAA, will be speaking at lunch on Tuesday, June 14, in the Rotunda Room of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW , in Washington.

Following his talk, three leading financial and policy analysts will engage him in a question-and-answer session: Motley Fool's Tom Gardner, Legg Mason's Blair Levin and Precursor's Rudy Baca.

The event will run from noon until 2 pm, and you can register online. Questions should be directed to Brooke Emmerick at 202-289-8928 or bemmerick@pff.org . Members of the media should contact Patrick Ross at 202-289-8928 or pross@pff.org .

This is the latest in The Progress & Freedom Foundation's CEO Luncheon Series. Previous series speakers have included Verizon CEO Ivan Siedenberg, Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron, Qwest CEO Dick Notebaert, Sybase CEO John Chen and EchoStar CEO Charles Ergen.

While D.C. basked in the first convincing evidence that Spring will soon take hold, a group of Congressional staffers crunched through repeated dustings of snow on their way to classes in Aspen, Colorado. The staffers were few in number but decidedly well-placed and bipartisan, representing key committees and offices in both the House and Senate. They had agreed to devote part of their Easter recess to participate in the Federal Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics, hosted at the famed Aspen Institute. The Federal Institute was modeled after a similar program for state regulators that PFF launched successfully last year, in conjunction with our academic partners at the University of Colorado's Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program and George Mason University's Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.

Yesterday Adam Peters and I filed an amicus brief in the DC Circuit arguing that the court should cast a very skepitcal eye on the Department of Transportation's claims that it has authority to regulate computer reservation systems that are not owned by airlines. The brief has a lot to do with the extent to which courts should defer to agencies when they use rulemakings to articulate new, expansionary interpretations of their jurisdiction, especially when another agency already--in this case the FTC--possesses jurisdiction over the same subject matter.

If this type of administrative law and regulatory governance issue makes your mouth water, then you are a good candidate to attend the First Annual Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Institute on April 7-8 here in Washington. The conference topic is Making Agency Law Through Rulemaking, and it has a world-class faculty, including Dick Pierce, author of the widely-acclaimed and leading Administrative Law Treatise, DC Circuit Judge Merrick Garland, FERC Chairman Pat Wood III, former White House Counsel Boyden Gray, former Secretary of Transportation Jim Burnley, and many more notables and rulemaking experts. Dick Wiley is giving the Institute's first Distinguished Lecture, and it is entitled, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' of Rulemakings: Lessons from Government and K Street". See the entire program and sign-up information here.

The Institute is sponsored by the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. I confess by way of a disclaimer that I'm Chair of the Ad Law Section. But this program is so good I am not bashful about promoting it strongly to anyone interested in learning a lot more about how policy is made in Washington.