Chairman’s Statement on Incentive Auction Presentation January 30, 2014 Open Meeting First, thank you to Gary Epstein and the Task Force for that presentation and to all of the Task Force members from across the Commission for their continued hard work to make the incentive auction successful. Also, special thanks to Commissioner Clyburn for her recent diplomatic mission to Mexico. International coordination is important to the success of the incentive auction, and Commissioner Clyburn’s recent visit to Mexico helped lay important groundwork for this historic auction. Everyone in this room appreciates the degree of difficulty of this undertaking. We are attempting something that’s never been done before. With the Roadmap that has just been laid out, we now have a more detailed view of how we will make this auction a success, and the Task Force’s presentation demonstrates that we are on target to get this right. The Incentive Auction presents a two-part challenge of 1) making the right fact-based policy decisions in an open and transparent manner and 2) building user-friendly back-end systems and ensuring that they are exhaustively tested and ready to work from the start. On the first point, we can see that the report and order establishes the policy framework for the incentive auction, and the subsequent public notices will flesh out the specifics about how the auction will operate. Today’s presentation also shed light on our plans for the back-end systems and software development. I am happy to see a line dedicated to Auction Bidding System demonstrations starting next year and well before the start of the auction itself. I look forward to considering and making final determinations on the task force’s policy recommendations with my colleagues later this spring. Also, I am pleased to welcome a new addition to the Commission and Incentive Auction Task Force, Mr. Howard Symons. We are fortunate to have such a capable and experienced new Vice-Chair on the Task Force. We are also fortunate that Gary Epstein will continue to ably serve as my Special Advisor and Chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force. Finally, we have identified implementing a successful incentive auction as a top priority for the Commission. We intend to ensure Task Force has the resources necessary to do its job – that includes personnel. As is necessary, people should expect additions to the task force in the months ahead.