Net Neutrality Vote Leaves GOP Hungry for Capitol Hill Oversight

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., plans a March 18 hearing with all five FCC commissioners, he said Thursday at the Newseum. He repeated his call for bipartisan net neutrality legislation and said Obama and the FCC haven't been willing partners.

The House Judiciary Committee scheduled a net neutrality hearing for March 17 and invited Wheeler to testify. “We plan to support and urge our colleagues to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving the ‘Open Internet’ rules,” which “would prevent the FCC from relying on Title II for any future net neutrality rules” unless Congress dictates otherwise, more than a dozen GOP members led by Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told Wheeler in a letter. The lawmakers said they're mulling “introducing legislation to ensure the antitrust laws are the preferred enforcement method against anticompetitive conduct on the Internet,” which “may include a restriction on the FCC’s ability to regulate the Internet.”

The House Communications Subcommittee invited all five FCC commissioners for an oversight hearing later in March, focusing on general oversight issues as well as agency reauthorization, a committee aide said. The subcommittee scheduled a different reauthorization hearing for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in 2322 Rayburn. The one witness is FCC Managing Director Jon Wilkins. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, had summoned Wheeler for a hearing the day before the FCC vote, which Chaffetz postponed due to Wheeler’s refusal.

The Senate Commerce “hearing will have a broad scope covering every aspect of the agency, and it will allow me and my colleagues to directly question the chairman about his overreaching broadband reclassification order,” Thune said. “I am also disturbed by reports about the highly partisan nature of Chairman Wheeler’s process and by reports indicating the FCC has attempted to gloss over the influence of White House officials on that process.” He cited Wheeler’s “capitulation” after Obama’s Title II backing: “Perhaps one of the pending congressional document demands or maybe even a Freedom of Information Act request will shed light on what really happened.” The hearing will be at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell and also touch on FCC reauthorization and the agency’s budget request, a notice said.

The FCC net neutrality vote “will be challenged in court,” Thune predicted during a committee markup. “Given these realities it is my sincere hope that this committee will yet act in a bipartisan manner. … This issue is squarely within our jurisdiction.”

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., offered an “admonition” about changing technology but reassured Thune he's open to collaborating. “The expert agency -- after thorough review and voluminous public input -- has now acted,” Nelson said in a later statement. “I remain willing to continue discussions regarding true bipartisan legislation.”

“This tremendous success story shows that Washington can work,” House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said in a statement. “That is why I remain open to truly bipartisan efforts to enshrine the FCC’s work into law. But first, it is time for the FCC to show its work. So I want to thank Chairman Wheeler for his commitment to me that he will to do everything in his power to release this order as soon as possible.” Reps. Gene Green, D-Texas, and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said they were receptive to legislation.

Many observers “are frankly stunned and saddened that the chairman of an independent agency is taking an action which he himself earlier felt was ill-advised,” Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said during the markup, saying any court challenge “will be lengthy and costly.” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called neutrality a “solution in search of a problem.”

Every GOP member of the House Communications Subcommittee joined to savage the order, predicting “a stampede to the courts” and uncertainty. “We believe the Internet has worked well under current rules, but we were -- and we remain -- willing to come to the table with legislation to answer the calls for legally sustainable consumer protections for the free and open Internet that has fostered a generation of innovation, economic growth, and global empowerment,” the Republicans said.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, blasted the order as “a secret plan to put the federal government in control of the Internet” and lamented Wheeler’s refusal to testify. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor: "The Obama administration needs to get beyond its 1930s rotary telephone mindset and embrace the future. That means encouraging innovation, not suffocating it, under the weight of an outdated bureaucracy and poorly named regulations like this one." Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is investigating the White House net neutrality influence and criticized the order's “complete lack of transparency and refusal to submit to any congressional oversight” as “corrupting.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., lauded the FCC order. “The fight isn’t over as some Republicans are already working on legislation to undo all of this,” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said. “So in the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to make sure everyone understands what’s at stake, and why we need to stand by the strong rules adopted by the FCC.”