O’Rielly Underwhelmed by Net Neutrality Protests
HOT SPRINGS, Va. -- Commissioner Mike O'Rielly questioned the significance of net neutrality protests staged at the FCC last week, before Thursday’s net neutrality vote (CD May 15 p1). Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said most of news media failed to get the story right as the FCC voted on a net neutrality NPRM and three orders tied to the TV incentive auction. Both spoke Friday night at the annual FCBA retreat.
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"No disrespect to anyone who was out protesting, beating the drums, I actually had an opportunity in my many years on Capitol Hill to see some real protests,” O'Rielly said. “This one didn’t cause me any heartburn per se.” O'Rielly said he also received lots of emails prior to the vote: “Some of them I couldn’t repeat here.”
O'Rielly dissented on all three major items last week and confirmed that he was left out of negotiations (CD May 14 p1) before the vote. “I actually had a lot of free time” before the meeting, he said. “I got to write some statements and pour my heart out into the statements, but I didn’t have a lot of activity. … I obviously had difficulty with what we did.”
"There were three other very significant items,” but all the focus of the news media was on net neutrality, Clyburn said. “There were very few media outlets that really got it right,” she said. The FCC only approved an NPRM looking for a “sustainable pathway forward,” missing since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the commission’s net neutrality rules in January in Verizon v FCC, she said. “We do not have clear rules of the road."
"What is the right balance that we're attempting to achieve?” Clyburn asked. “Every single one of us, every company, every individual … should see something positive coming out of this space,” she said. “If one particular class of customer or consumer sees a disproportionate benefit, I don’t think we've done the right thing.”
Clyburn said it was difficult for her to prepare for the meeting, especially since Chairman Tom Wheeler decided to allow lobbying on net neutrality up until the day before. “You're trying to get yourself together, you're trying to pull it together,” she said. “To do that and balance meetings up until midnight the night before is a big task.”
O'Rielly said he will look at the record closely during the 120-day comment period on net neutrality, looking for any comment on “actual harm to consumers,” absent rules. “Then I'll be looking at how the record develops regarding authority,” he said.
A 2015 TV frequency incentive auction remains the FCC’s goal, Clyburn said. “We are working towards that,” she said. “For me it’s more important to be right than quick,” O'Rielly said. “That’s the hard part, is getting it right.”
Clyburn hopes the FCC can find ways to streamline the federal E-rate program, while funding faster connections, especially to libraries, she said. “It’s capacity, capacity, for me, and streamlining, and making sure the management of the entire ecosystem is one of which we can be proud."
"I'm not sure that this has to be a contentious issue,” O'Rielly said of E-rate. “I concur with a lot of my colleague’s points.” But the FCC has to make sure that E-rate expansion doesn’t mean higher fees for consumers, he said. “I want schools to have broadband. I want libraries to have broadband speeds that meet their needs. … But I want to be sure that we don’t pay for more than they need.”
O'Rielly also questioned whether the FCC should enlarge its oversight of cybersecurity. “I do have concerns around how great of role the commission has in this space in terms of its authority, what did Congress ask us to do?” he said. As a Senate staffer, O'Rielly said he spent a lot of time drafting legislation on cybersecurity. “There are a ton of really dedicated workers working on this issue every day, in every capacity, including the telecommunications sphere,” he said, but the FCC has only 34 information technology professionals on staff. “Our role … is going to be much smaller than I think some of the conversation that has occurred” would indicate, he said. (hbuskirk@warren-news.com)