Prospects Dim for Capitol Hill Deal on Net Neutrality

The GOP believes “there is not sufficient time to ensure that Chairman Waxman’s proposal will keep the Internet open without chilling innovation and job creation,” Barton said Wednesday. “It is not appropriate to give the FCC authority to regulate the Internet. If the Congress wants to prevent the FCC reclassifying Internet service under Title II it should go ahead and do so without qualification. … If the majority wants to work on a solution to continue a free and open Internet, let’s consider the issue deliberately, rather than punting with a halfway measure two days before the end of Congress."

Barton said the effort should send a message to the FCC not to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. “With Chairman Waxman’s effort comes a tacit admission that the FCC is going down the wrong path, a path that will stifle investment and create regulatory overhang in one of the most dynamic sectors of our economy,” Barton said. The FCC declined to comment.

Waxman and other committee Democrats had been waiting for Barton to sign off on the net neutrality deal before introducing it, a House staffer said. “Without his support, there is no deal.” The chances of Barton’s approval looked grim earlier Wednesday when Boehner signaled his own opposition to the deal. A Boehner spokesman said the minority leader “has long opposed greater government regulation of the Internet."

Waxman hasn’t closed the door on moving legislation in a lame-duck session, he said after Barton’s announcement. “Cooler heads may prevail after the elections.” But the FCC should move to reclassification if Congress can’t find bipartisan consensus, he said. “The bottom line is that we must protect the open Internet. If Congress can’t act, the FCC must.” Barton’s opposition “is a loss for consumers and a gain only for the extremes,” Waxman said. “We need to break the deadlock on net neutrality so that we can focus on building the most open and robust Internet possible.” The legislative effort “was predicated on going forward only if we had full bipartisan support in our Committee,” Waxman said. “We included the Republican staff in our deliberations and made clear that we were prepared to introduce our compromise legislation if we received the backing of Ranking Member Barton and Ranking Member Stearns."

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., is “disappointed that we were unable to introduce the Open Internet Act of 2010 on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “The measure would have been a significant step forward for the Internet community, and I remain willing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact it into law later this year,” Boucher said.

Waxman said the effort had received support from “phone and cable companies, technology companies, and consumer and open-Internet groups.” Consistent with a draft leaked earlier this week, the proposed law would have sunset in two years, Waxman said. It would have restored FCC authority to enforce its open Internet principles, prevented cable and wireline telcos from “unjustly or unreasonably discriminating against any lawful Internet traffic,” prevented wireless carriers from blocking websites and competing voice and videoconferencing applications, and directed the FCC to issue transparency regulations. It also would have allowed the FCC to impose fines from $75,000 to $2 million for violations.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said she hopes to “reach consensus in the months ahead.” The proposed law would “set a floor for net neutrality principles to be lawfully enforced; not a ceiling,” she said.

"Nothing’s going to happen on net neutrality this year,” Stupak told us after speaking to the NAB Radio Show Wednesday morning. “There’s been some discussions with Boucher, but nothing’s going to happen.” Waxman had been aiming for passage in the lame duck session (CD Sept 29 p1) but Stupak said he doubted Congress could pass the bill then. “There’s going to be a couple things that have to be done” in the lame duck, but net neutrality probably won’t be one of them, he said. “I've been here 18 years and we haven’t had a real lame-duck section yet, other than the impeachment of [former President Bill] Clinton."

"You're hard pressed to find any Republicans who are supporting this,” Blackburn said in an interview Wednesday morning. She condemned the Waxman bill as an “eleventh-hour effort” that “we need to defeat.” Blackburn believes it would be “very difficult” to pass the bill this year. “The American people are in no mood to tolerate any expansion of federal regulations,” especially on the Internet, she said. Blackburn said she doesn’t trust deals made with the Democrats after what happened with the healthcare and cap-and-trade bills. “Those deals don’t serve you very well, and the devil’s always in the details,” she said. “The bill that is worked up and agreed to in committee is not always the one that is going to make its way to the floor."

The Waxman bill “kicks the can down the road” two years and would create regulatory uncertainty that will hamper industry innovation and kill U.S. jobs, Blackburn said. It’s “completely the wrong step at this point in time.” Blackburn would prefer passing her own bill (HR-3924) which would prohibit the FCC from imposing net neutrality rules. But Stupak, who is retiring this year, predicted the next Congress will be active on a Telecom Act rewrite. “There’s going to be some major rewrites of telecommunications,” he told the Radio Show. “In the next Congress, we're going to see serious attempts at it."

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., praised the Waxman effort for prohibiting FCC reclassification of broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. At a Safe Internet Alliance conference Wednesday (see separate report in this issue), the ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee said the FCC shouldn’t act unilaterally either to reclassify during the recess or lame duck. Stearns said Congress shouldn’t add net neutrality to a continuing resolution or otherwise bypass the committee process.

Senate Republicans won’t want to do much of anything in a lame duck if they gain seats in November, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told the Radio Show on Wednesday. Bennett predicted Republicans could have at least 47 seats in the Senate after the election. If so, “none of the current 41 will want to have anything to do” with any Democratic initiative,” Bennett said. NAB President and former Senator Gordon Smith agreed: “If they're united now, they'll be doubly so when they see the prospect of” extra seats.