Net Neutrality Nullification Not Pointless Endeavor, Walden Says
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is undaunted by a likely presidential veto of any bill to overturn FCC net neutrality rules, he said in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators. The House Communications Subcommittee chairman isn’t worried about the lack of industry support either, he said. Walden outlined plans to aggressively pursue other communications issues once net neutrality is resolved.
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The House Commerce Committee plans to vote Tuesday on the Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval, said a committee majority memo circulated Thursday among lobbyists. The markup will start Monday afternoon, but after considering an energy bill the committee plans to recess until Tuesday morning, the memo said. Walden’s subcommittee approved the measure Wednesday in a partisan vote (CD March 10 p1).
"We don’t live in a dictatorship, so the president doesn’t get to tell the House what it’s going to do or not do,” Walden said. The congressman thinks the public cares about net neutrality, and lawmakers owe it to them to pursue the issue, he said. He’s not surprised by the lack of public support from industry, he said. Broadband providers “felt like they were in a box,” Walden said. The FCC threatened them with Title II regulation, so companies had to “reach an agreement for the lightest regulation possible,” and now they don’t want to go back on it, Walden said. “But you know, I don’t work for AT&T … or any of those companies. I'm trying to do what’s best for public policy.”
Walden believes the FCC intends to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act as soon as it loses in court on the net neutrality order, Walden said. “Otherwise, why wouldn’t they close that proceeding?"
Walden dismissed arguments that the GOP is stalling on other issues like spectrum and broadband deployment. “We have plenty of time to get after these other issues, and we intend to,” Walden said. “We're going to run a very aggressive set of hearings.” After net neutrality, FCC reform is the next priority for the Communications Subcommittee, he said. Reforms might include improvements to the rulemaking process and allowing more than two FCC commissioners to meet informally, he said. Other priorities include Universal Service Fund reform, spectrum, public safety and government funding of broadband, he said. Walden expects to find bipartisan common ground on most of those efforts, he said.
Spectrum is the biggest job creation issue the subcommittee can deal with, Walden said. He supports a spectrum inventory. On the 700 MHz D-block debate, Walden said he'd like to know how public safety would use its current 100 MHz allocation and “what they really need.” There is a budgetary concern because the D-block is worth $3 billion, he said.
USF has “gotten too big,” said Walden, who comes from a rural district. Walden wants to make sure that money keeps flowing to those high-cost areas, but the government should fund multiple providers in one area, he said. “There’s room to evaluate … who’s getting it now [and] do they really need it?"
Walden is “not convinced” Congress needs to tackle privacy, he said. “This is an area that we need to take a look at, but the market generally has stepped up.” Some browsers already include do-not-track mechanisms, he said. Consumers should be in control of which websites track them online, Walden said.
Walden thinks there’s a “role for public broadcasting,” but the question is how much should taxpayers support, he said. Walden, a former commercial broadcaster, voted for the House Continuing Resolution that included defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The issue is “how many things can we afford when we're borrowing 40 cents on the dollar,” he asked.
Walden hopes broadcasters and the music industry can work out an agreement on performance royalties, he said. Walden said he’s more sympathetic to broadcasters. Small broadcasters can’t afford to pay large sums for playing music, he said.