Boucher, Stearns Meet with Industry on Targeted Internet Legislation
House Communications Subcommittee leaders met Thursday with ISPs and others about narrow legislation on network neutrality and the FCC’s broadband jurisdiction. Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., invited Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and most of the companies that talked to the FCC behind closed doors (CD June 25 p8) on June 21, Boucher said. Attendees included AT&T, Verizon, NCTA, Google and the Open Internet Coalition, industry officials said.
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Boucher said the meeting wasn’t his first with the industry groups. “For several months I have been hosting bipartisan conversations on the prospect of legislating a narrow set of principles assuring Internet openness,” he said in a statement Thursday. “These discussions involve essentially the same individuals who have been conducting discussions on this matter at the FCC. While the topic of the conversations is essentially the same as the meetings being held at the FCC, the meetings in my office are focused on the prospect of passing legislation, while the discussions at the FCC are designed to inform the ongoing rulemaking being considered at that agency."
It was “a meeting with telecommunications stakeholders to discuss the future of broadband and efforts by the FCC to regulate the Internet,” Stearns said prior to the gathering. Boucher said last week that he thought the closed-door FCC meeting with industry on network neutrality principles could be “very constructive."
The Boucher meeting occurred a day before a second Hill meeting hosted by staff on the House and Senate Commerce Committees and Communications Subcommittees. The 30-plus participants from last week’s meeting with staff (CD June 28 p1) were all invited back, industry officials said. Hill staff plans to hold Friday’s meeting at 11 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, a House Commerce Committee spokeswoman said Thursday.
"It is encouraging that there seems to be a real interest on the part of the legislative leaders to seriously consider legislation,” said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation. Groups attending Thursday’s meeting didn’t comment.