House Republicans slam FCC net neutrality proposal, tout own bill
House Republicans warned that tough new regulations for online traffic, expected to be adopted Thursday, risk years of legal uncertainty and argued that the GOP's more restrained legislation was the best way to protect the Internet.
Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas) called the proposed rules by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler "net nonsense" and predicted that they would be struck down again by federal judges.
"It's not going to work," Barton said at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday. "It is going to be tested in court and it's going to fail in court."
Telecom companies twice before have won court orders blocking so-called net neutrality rules, largely on grounds that the FCC had overstepped its authority. The industry has vowed to sue again should the Democratic-controlled agency adopt Wheeler's proposal Thursday.
The FCC is taking a different and more controversial approach this time that is meant to withstand a legal challenge, but a lawsuit still could take three or more years to be resolved, experts said.
That has both sides worried. Some critics at the hearing said the lengthy legal battle could harm investment in broadband networks. Supporters said net neutrality protections would be at risk if a court tossed them out at a time beyond the 2016 election when the FCC could be controlled by Republicans.
"I'm concerned that if Congress does not act, all protection for network neutrality is at risk of being lost," said Rick Boucher, a former Democratic congressman from Virginia who now chairs the Internet Industry Alliance, a telecom industry trade group.
Wheeler has proposed such rules as prohibiting broadband providers from charging websites for faster delivery of their content. But enforcing those rules depends on classifying broadband Internet service as a more highly regulated service under Title 2 of the telecommunications law.
The proposal would put broadband in the same utility-like legal category as conventional phone companies, reversing an FCC decision in 2002 that classified broadband as a more lightly regulated information service.
But the move would address a key problem in the last court ruling, in January 2014. Federal judges said then that the FCC overstepped its authority by trying to treat Internet service providers as utilities without classifying them that way.
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House Republicans slam FCC net neutrality proposal, tout own bill