Last week, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that after "a fresh accounting" it had discovered nearly 700,000 comments on its controversial net neutrality rules that had not been transferred to its public database, which means the actual number is 4 million.
The number of comments, the most in the commission's history, underscores the contentious nature of the issue, which is likely to dominate the agenda in the House and the Senate as the FCC works to complete the rule by February or March.
“I don’t doubt there’s going to be a major confrontation if [the president] and the chairman of the FCC press ahead with rules as they have been described,” Virginia GOP Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,
told Politico.
After a lawsuit filed by Verizon scuttled earlier plans, the FCC was forced to reconsider its initial proposal. President Barack Obama
weighed in on the rules in November, calling on the independent agency to implement the strongest possible rules to ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) treat all internet traffic equally.
There is concern among some that the debate over net neutrality is devolving into a partisan fight that could hamper other efforts to update the nation's telecommunications laws.
“One of the things the telecommunications community has always taken pride in is that virtually all policy debates are relatively bipartisan,” Michael Powell, a former Republican FCC chairman and current head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said in an interview with Politico.
He added that it "would immediately become the most dominant of telecommunications issues on the Hill.”
In anticipation of the upcoming battle, a group of Democrat senators, led by
Maria Cantwell of Washington, have written to incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to "preserve strong" net neutrality regulations.
“A two-tiered internet that allows Fortune 500 companies to pay for special internet access imperils the innovation that drives the internet economy, while leaving slow lanes for the rest of us,” the senators wrote. “We stand ready to work with you in ensuring that any reform of our communications laws is consistent with strong net neutrality protections.”
The president and Democrats have urged the FCC to reclassify internet service, effectively treating the web as a public utility, so that it can be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act.
Obama's comments drew a
quick response from a group of House and Senate Republicans, who wrote the FCC to argue that doing so would be reaching beyond "the scope of the FCC’s authority and would defy the plain reading of the statute,” if the FCC used Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 to develop net neutrality regulations.
“Reclassification would require the FCC to reverse nearly two decades of legally sound – and Supreme Court affirmed – reasoning that internet access services are explicitly not Title II services. Justifying this course change is no easy task under current law. Among other harms, reclassification would threaten the jobs and investment made possible by the broadband industry, which the Communications Workers of America and the NAACP state accounted for more than $193 billion in capital investment and more than 270,000 jobs over the last three years,” argued the legislators in a Nov. 12 letter to the FCC.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, also
voiced his opposition to Obama's plans, saying the president's proposal to treat the internet like a government-regulated utility would "stifle our nation’s dynamic and robust internet sector" and "would invite legal and marketplace uncertainty and perpetuate what has needlessly become a politically corrosive policy debate."
Some Republicans, as well as telecom and cable companies, believe the proposal is too much regulation.
Lobbying from both sides is sure to increase in the coming weeks as FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has not indicated the direction he plans to take, which might end up being a "hybrid regulatory approach,"
reports PCWorld.
Mike Wendy, director of free-market advocacy group MediaFreedom, says a lawsuit is likely if either side views the rules as either too weak or too strong.
“The only way to stop that would be for Congress to step in and pass something before the ‘16 elections, which, in my mind, seems unlikely. There are just too many plates in the air and issues to be settled for something comprehensive to come about,” he told PCWorld.
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