Net Neutrality Nullification Not Pointless Endeavor, Walden Says
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is undaunted by a likely presidential veto of any bill to overturn FCC net neutrality rules, he said in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators. The House Communications Subcommittee chairman isn’t worried about the lack of industry support either, he said. Walden outlined plans to aggressively pursue other communications issues once net neutrality is resolved.
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The House Commerce Committee plans to vote Tuesday on the Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval, said a committee majority memo circulated Thursday among lobbyists. The markup will start Monday afternoon, but after considering an energy bill the committee plans to recess until Tuesday morning, the memo said. Walden’s subcommittee approved the measure Wednesday in a partisan vote (WID March 10 p1).
"We don’t live in a dictatorship, so the president doesn’t get to tell the House what it’s going to do or not do,” Walden said. The congressman thinks the public cares about net neutrality, and lawmakers owe it to them to pursue the issue, he said. He’s not surprised by the lack of public support from industry, he said. Broadband providers “felt like they were in a box,” Walden said. The FCC threatened them with Title II regulation, so companies had to “reach an agreement for the lightest regulation possible,” and now they don’t want to go back on it, Walden said. “But you know, I don’t work for AT&T … or any of those companies. I'm trying to do what’s best for public policy.”
Walden believes the FCC intends to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act as soon as it loses in court on the net neutrality order, Walden said. “Otherwise, why wouldn’t they close that proceeding?"
Walden dismissed arguments that the GOP is stalling on other issues like spectrum and broadband deployment. “We have plenty of time to get after these other issues, and we intend to,” Walden said. “We're going to run a very aggressive set of hearings.” After net neutrality, FCC reform is the next priority for the Communications Subcommittee, he said. Reforms might include improvements to the rulemaking process and allowing more than two FCC commissioners to meet informally, he said. Other priorities include Universal Service Fund reform, spectrum, public safety and government funding of broadband, he said. Walden expects to find bipartisan common ground on most of those efforts, he said.
Walden is “not convinced” Congress needs to tackle privacy, he said. “This is an area that we need to take a look at, but the market generally has stepped up.” Some browsers already include do-not-track mechanisms, he said. Consumers should be in control of which websites track them online, Walden said.
Walden hopes broadcasters and the music industry can work out an agreement on performance royalties, he said. Walden said he’s more sympathetic to broadcasters. Small broadcasters can’t afford to pay large sums for playing music, he said.