Eshoo Derides Hill GOP Desire to 'Leapfrog' FCC Net Neutrality Vote

“That’s a very important element in this,” Eshoo said of the FCC’s expected Feb. 26 decision on its net neutrality proposal. “And I think that Congress, from both sides of the aisle, should review it, understand it, discuss it, debate it, but I don’t think that leapfrogging into a compromise. … A compromise on what? See?”

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., outlined his desire Wednesday to legislatively pre-empt the FCC’s net neutrality vote and avoid any potential reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service (see 1501070049). Thune has worked with Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on a potentially bipartisan bill but said Democrats may not want to pre-empt the FCC. This legislation would likely involve creating a new “Title X” to encompass broadband service, allowing net neutrality protections without Title II involved. Thune and committee Republicans met Thursday on the issue. Eshoo disputed that such a preemptive bill would amount to any compromise on net neutrality.

“This needle has to be threaded extraordinarily prudently because how this moves forward in terms of the Internet, and Internet equality, is going to be a determinant for our national economy,” Eshoo countered in an interview. “How youngsters learn, how people are educated, how commerce is conducted, so zero plus zero equals zero. I don’t know where the word 'compromise' comes in, at the beginning. Compromise comes in after everything has been reviewed, after everything has been debated, after votes have been taken, after a review of what an agency is recommending. I think there’s some kind of misorder in this that we will be pursuing, moving down the wrong path. I don’t think it’s the appropriate way to do that.”

Partisan Divide

Industry officials told us Senate Commerce may hold a Jan. 20 hearing pegged to net neutrality but were short on details. House Commerce Republicans have said they want to hold an FCC oversight hearing on net neutrality ahead of any new rules.

Lawmakers offered differing partisan statements following FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s remarks at CES Wednesday (see 1501070054), suggesting he will embrace Title II, as the White House recommended following the November midterm elections. Public Knowledge also began a campaign asking people to tell Congress to back "real" net neutrality rules and calling for Title II reclassification. The group slammed a possible Hill effort to thwart the FCC moving forward.

"The endgame should not be heavy-handed regulation that will lead to a bonanza of litigation and uncertainty," House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Thursday. "Instead, we would encourage the chairman to join Congress in working to enact a shared set of principles that will withstand legal challenge. We can achieve a bipartisan solution to provide consumers the protections they deserve, the choices they want, and give job creators legal certainty ensuring continued investment in the Internet. At the end of the day, working together, we can and will get a win for consumers, growth, and innovation."

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is “pleased” that Title II guides Wheeler, he said, urging the agency to “act quickly” in enshrining these new rules. “From my ongoing conversations with Chairman Thune and other colleagues, it is clear to me that bipartisan interest exists to pursue legislation that clearly addresses potential harms to an open Internet without creating onerous regulations,” Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said. “I believe the FCC would be wise to let elected officials on Capitol Hill continue working before proceeding to any vote on a new order in February.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted Wednesday she was “glad” the FCC was voting on rules that “will protect innovators & consumers,” calling the open Internet “crucial.”

Eshoo has backed a Title II approach to net neutrality and also backed legislation that Democrats reintroduced Wednesday, a bill that would ban paid prioritization deals.

“No one should be fearful of ideas,” Eshoo insisted, urging Congress to wait for the FCC to act. “I have my positions, someone else has theirs, we have to be respectful of all of that. But I think what’s disrespectful of the process is to decide that you want to snuff out what someone else is going to say or do. … Those kinds of decisions will not have the strength to stand on their own.”

Neutrality Won't Upend Rewrite, Eshoo Says

The House Communications Subcommittee will have 13 Democrats, including Eshoo, the same number as during the 113th Congress. Republicans had gained members at both the committee and subcommittee level, with 18 on the subcommittee and many eager for a telecom rewrite (see 1501050039). Other Communications Subcommittee Democrats will be Reps. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania; Peter Welch of Vermont; John Yarmuth of Kentucky; Yvette Clarke of New York; Dave Loebsack of Iowa; Bobby Rush of Georgia; Diana DeGette of Colorado; G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina; Doris Matsui of California; Jerry McNerney of California; Ben Lujan of New Mexico; and Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the ranking member of Commerce who bested Eshoo for that position in November. The Commerce Democrats’ 75-minute meeting took place in Rayburn.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., will remain ranking member of Commerce’s Trade Subcommittee, its jurisdiction encompassing data security and cyber issues, according to a Thursday roster circulated among Democratic staffers. Its seven other members are Clarke; Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts; Tony Cardenas of California; Rush; Butterfield; Welch; and Pallone. The full House Commerce Committee will ratify all Republican and Democratic subcommittee positions 1 p.m. Tuesday in 2123 Rayburn, a meeting initially scheduled for Friday.

Eshoo said there’s a “very full agenda” on deck for her “beautiful” subcommittee roster, reflecting on her pride in bipartisan spectrum legislation she backed in the last Congress and pledging that the subcommittee can operate more productively than the rest of Congress: “We have an enormous opportunity in the 114th Congress to build on the successes of the past and help shape a telecommunication landscape, certainly the Internet, communications for the 21st century.”

Both GOP-controlled chambers of Congress will attempt to update the Communications Act this year, and Eshoo doesn't believe net neutrality will spoil that opportunity, as some fear. The House began the process last year under the guidance of Walden.

“Look, we’re grown-ups,” Eshoo remarked. “Come on, just because some people are not of the same view on one issue doesn’t mean that that’s going to replicate itself in another quarter. You have to be limber and flexible and open and fair, so just because I don’t see eye to eye with someone on one issue doesn’t mean that across the board that that is going to be the case. So no, we have to work on these things. People expect us to.”

Walden and Eshoo have “genuine mutual regard for one another” and “need to set the framework for it,” Eshoo said. “Because this shouldn’t be leapfrogging from one issue to another issue. I think that we need to come up with an architecture of mutually agreed upon principles and then we can start filling in what those are. But if we can agree to some operating principles relative to reforming some parts of the Telecommunications Act, we can proceed.”