Here's the full text of what Federal Communications Commission chair Julius Genechowski had to say at Brookings this morning, as he both announced the FCC's more aggressive approach to keeping the Internet open and provided a sketch of his ambitions for his tenure at the head of the commission...

Right at this very moment, Federal Communications chair Julius Genachowski is appearing at Brookings to announce that the Obama-era FCC will be taking a more aggressive approach to defending net neutrality principles. "The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads," reads Genachowski's scripted remarks. The Obama-era agency's first substantive move on neutrality will be to codify former chair Michael Powell's "Four Freedoms" as commission rules, as well as to add a two-part Genachowski addendum: Internet service providers will be prevented from discriminating against particular content or applications other than for the purpose of reasonable network management, and they must be fully transparent about whatever it is they do do that falls under the "network management" loophole. And what's a revolution in telecom policy without a micro-site to commemorate the event? Nothing, that's what. And so the FCC is also announcing today the launch of OpenInternet.gov as a hub for push for a free and open Internet.

What's amazing, on this day, is to take a look back at what a coup the mainstreaming of "net neutrality" as a political virtue truly is for the online left -- the netroots, if you will. Whatever the constructive equivalent of a "blog scalp" is, this is it...

Let's see...carry the one...adjust for the short month...and, yep, it's been 103 days since Barack Obama nominated his campaign technology advisor Julius Genachowski to serve as the chair of the Federal Communications Committee. But Reuters reports and the Senate Commerce Committee confirms that Genachowski's confirmation hearing will be held next Tuesday, June 16th, at 2:30pm ET. Genachowski's confirmation has been scheduled and canceled once before, but this event seem destined to actually happen. Currently-serving Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell has been renominated for another term on the FCC, creating a balance of power that helps smooth Genachowski's way. McDowell's re-confirmation is also scheduled for Tuesday. On fleshing out the rest of the commission, Reuters also reports that "A source familiar with the committee's agenda said a separate hearing was likely to be held at a later date for Mignon Clyburn to fill a Democratic seat and Meredith Attwell Baker to fill a Republican seat."

Which means Genachowski will avoid presiding over at least the early days of the rocky digital television switch happening tomorrow. And it also means that we'll likely soon have a fuller picture of what the Genachowski-era of telecom reform and regulation will look like. Right now, it's much speculation. Since we still have a few days to kill, let's speculate a bit more. There is an interesting and underdiscussed context raised in the comments section of the left-leaning site Crooks & Liars, tied to a post about yesterday's Holocaust Museum shootings and the reaction of Fox News' Glenn Beck and other television talkers. In addition to net neutrality, broadband access, and other tech-focused areas where Genachowski will have dominion, the FCC is also responsible for overseeing media diversity. As much as we don't know where Genachowski stands on many topics, we do know that he played a large part in drafting candidate Obama's technology platform during the campaign. And on a relevant point, that platform read, "As president, Obama will...clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum." How active might a Genechowski-led FCC be in pursuing a "clarification" of what broadcasters owe the public, especially when the subjects of controversy are more violent extremism than nipple slips and dirty words? Stay tuned.

Some good news for those of you eager to see Julius Genachowski finally installed at the FCC sometime before a draft of the national broadband plan is due on the president's desk in April 2o10. Reuters is reporting that currently-serving Republican FCC commissioner Robert McDowell will be getting another tour of duty. And it's looking more and more likely that Meredith Attwell Baker will be chosen to fill the other Republican slot at the commission. Setting those two in place on the right side of the FCC clears the path for Genachowski's Senate confirmation.

The most salient reason Julius Genachowski's Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to be chair of the Federal Communications Commission has been delayed seems to be an understanding by congressional Republicans that the U.S. is perched on the cusp of historic, transformative change in the media landscape. Republicans are searching for a heavyweight representative to the FCC who can put a conservative stamp on the commission. (It echoes, in many ways, Obama's search for a new Supreme Court justice who can provide not only a liberal vote, but a counterbalance to some of the intellectual might on the right side of the bench.)

The evidence in favor of the idea that FCC will be overseeing a historic shift includes the billions of dollars dedicated to telecom reform in stimulus spending, the journalism world in upheaval, and the diminishing stature of traditional corporate telecom companies in DC -- at least in relation to the Googles and Microsofts of the world.

Acting FCC chair Michael Copps made the case yesterday that a window of opportunity has opened that makes possible communications reform on par with past historic periods of great change:

[T]he good news, the happy news, the historic news is that change has come to America. Change has come to Washington, DC. Reform breezes are blowing through the corridors of power all over this city. And if things go well, we may be launched on an era of reform to match what the Progressives and New Dealers of the last century gave us. What a shining, beckoning opportunity we have.

But it’s no sure thing that it will end so well. Reform is never on auto-pilot, and in spite of all the marvels of twenty-first centurytechnology, there is no GPS system that can deliver us to a new, progressive promised land. My friend, the late Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., believed that periods of reaction in America are succeeded -- with a lot of blood, sweat, toil and tears -- bywaves of reform. But it’s impossible to predict how long the window of reform will remain open. I don’t think we’ll be circling the wagons any time soon -- but if we’re not quick about it and smart about it and thorough about it, the winds of change could blow themselves out before our job is done. We must seize the opportunity when we have it. Us. Now.

Copps isn't one to shy away from the dramatic -- quoting Hamlet, here, to proclaim that "When it comes to public policy, eight years of shallows and misery was enough for me."