Rick Boucher is an attorney and former 28 year Member of the US Congress. Previously, he served for 7 years as a member of the Virginia State Senate. He was a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Sidley Austin (2011-2020), where he founded and lead the firm's Government Strategies practice. He retired from the firm in December of 2020. Now as a sole practitioner he counsels clients on strategies for engaging the federal government.During his time in Congress, he was a senior member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce where he chaired the Subcommittee on Communications and the Internet and the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. The former has jurisdiction over all aspects of telecommunications, including traditional telephone networks, multichannel video distribution platforms and Internet policy. The latter develops federal environmental policy and oversees the Environmental Protection Agency.For 28 years he was also a member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.Early in his congressional service he chaired the subcommittee that oversaw the commercialization of the Internet and its transition from a government-owned R&D project to the global platform we know today. In that role he was the primary author of the 1992 law that permitted the first commercial use of the Internet.He was one of two co-founders of the Congressional Internet Caucus, and served as the Democratic co-chairman of the 170 member group for 15 years. Rick was instrumental in the formulation of greenhouse gas control legislation. He chaired 28 days of hearings on global climate change and drafted the cap and trade legislation which became the foundation for the Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the House in 2009.Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe appointed Rick to co-chair a bipartisan commission to recommend reform to Virginia’s ethics laws in the wake of high profile scandals involving public officials.