Tuesday, August 19, 2003 10:00 am
Yesterday, at a meeting in Aspen Colorado, FCC Chairman Powell proclaimed, "There is a mood shift in a lot of public policy. I see a rise again of a regulatory ethos." Powell was referring to the mood of the US Congress whose Telecommunications Act of 1996 effectively deregulated the US communications industry.  At the same conference William Daley, president of SBC Communications Inc., told the audience that the pressure to reregulate is also coming from the states, a view also supported by Dennis Strigl, president and chief executive of Verizon Wireless.

The mood shift is not just confined to the telecommunications industry. Last week's power blackout in the northeast is already resulting in calls for reregulating the power industry. In the finance industry, growing concerns about the risks in Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae's mortgage-linked securities portfolios have caused an increasing demand for government reregulation of those institutions. And with our airline infrastructure teetering on the edge of insolvency, I wouldn't be surprised to see proposals for a return to a more regulated environment in that industry as well.

My bet is that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the great infrastructure deregulation experiment that started with airline deregulation in the early 1980's. This sea change could turn out to be one of the most important changes in the US economy in the coming years. 

(For more on this subject, see the columns from November 11, 12, 13 and 15, December 5 and 10, February 10, 21 and 24, and March 4,  6 and 7.)