Hill Democrats Show Renewed Focus on Strength of Net Neutrality Rules

"I oppose special Internet fast lanes, only open to those firms large enough to pay big money or fraught enough to give up big stakes in their company,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1wejwaQ). “Fortunately, the court’s decision gave the Commission a clear path forward to prohibit discrimination and paid prioritization. The law allows the Commission to protect consumers and innovators with strong, but tailored rules defending the open Internet from a wide variety of threats. I believe the FCC should follow the court’s guidance and reclassify broadband as a Telecommunications Service under Title II of the Communications Act."

Pelosi referred to the January U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision striking down the FCC’s 2010 net neutrality rules. Wheeler has said the court decision laid out a road map for writing new rules under Section 706. But Title II would give the agency “certainty to protect consumers from fraudulent billing practices and privacy infringements while maintaining the guarantee that Voice-over-Internet Protocol calls and other data will reach their destination without interference, as called for in the Network Compact,” Pelosi said. “The law’s forbearance mechanism is an appropriate tool to refine modern rules and will prevent the FCC from overburdening broadband providers.” The same net neutrality rules should apply to both wireless and wired connections, Pelosi said.

Several congressional Democrats have now backed Title II reclassification, and Republicans have warned against it. Others have targeted paid prioritization, which some net neutrality advocates argue can only be addressed through stronger Title II-based rules. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced legislation this year to ban prioritization but have not specifically backed Title II reclassification.

Both Leahy and Matsui plan net neutrality events this month. The Senate Judiciary Committee set a hearing Sept. 17 at 10:30 a.m. in 216 Hart, Leahy said Tuesday. Leahy already has held one field hearing in Vermont on the topic and urged Wheeler to hold net neutrality listening sessions around the country. “Next week’s hearing will build on the discussion the committee started in Vermont,” Leahy said in a statement. Matsui, meanwhile, will join Democratic FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel for a Sept. 24 net neutrality forum in Sacramento.

Free Press seized on Pelosi’s remarks. “This unequivocal message from Nancy Pelosi shows the serious momentum for real Net Neutrality,” Free Press President Craig Aaron said in a statement. “Chairman Wheeler can no longer claim that there’s no political support for reclassifying broadband as a common carrier. The more politically perilous path is digging in and defending his unworkable proposal.” Advocates for Title II-based rules have pointed to remarks from President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as giving political cover to Wheeler.

Marvin Ammori, a New America Foundation fellow and longtime net neutrality proponent, tallied the number of lawmakers who back Title II -- 14 senators and 38 House lawmakers, he said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1uiTCmU). He also lists multiple lawmakers who he believes would support the FCC if it pursued used Title II, including Reid, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., citing quotes about Title II or their openness to any rules.

Eshoo also zeroed in on net neutrality. She will join former Republican Commissioner Rob McDowell at a Hudson Institute event to discuss that topic, among others, later this month. She also launched a reddit contest last month to rebrand net neutrality -- the concept gets lost in the jargon and legal statutes, she argued. She had planned to pick the most popular entry as the winner Monday, she said then, but did not do so. A spokesman declined to comment on contest results. Eshoo’s reddit thread generated 3,671 responses as of Tuesday, and the top response argued that no rebranding was necessary: “A simple solution exists: regulate internet service providers as common carriers,” said reddit user SteevR. “Net Neutrality doesn’t need a new name and a fresh coat of paint -- doing so will require millions of dollars to re-educate citizens and the media that they rely on for conveying information about these topics. I consider a rebranding of this cause to be a severe setback at best; a hijacking of the movement at worst."

"Nancy Pelosi didn’t reach a legally informed conclusion,” TechFreedom President Berin Szoka told us, saying Title II would not prohibit paid prioritization deals as Pelosi contended. Her letter outlined a case that’s “not how Title II works,” he said.

"It is hard to imagine that Congress will not play an important policy role going forward,” Stuart Brotman, senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution and Harvard Law School professor, told us. “I believe it can best be a constructive voice if the two major parties reflect a sophisticated understanding of the beneficial durability of existing communications policies in deliberations.” He acknowledged the struggle Congress faces on the issue, given the “current political gridlock and the prospect of both houses of Congress being in Republican hands after the mid-term elections,” but pointed to “considerable history that Democrats and Republicans alike can draw upon.”