Net Neutrality Opponents Get No Democratic Support During Senate Debate

The Internet rules were written by “unelected bureaucrats” and fail the “common sense test” for regulation espoused by President Barack Obama, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He called the order a “solution in search of a problem” that he said would kill 3 million jobs.

The order inappropriately makes the FCC the “Internet gatekeeper,” said SJ Res 6 sponsor Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Hutchison said if the Senate has “any guts at all” it will assert itself and “keep control of run-away federal agencies that do not answer to anyone.” Congress -- not the FCC -- should determine the proper regulatory framework for the Internet, she said. Litigation over the FCC order will provide jobs for attorneys, but not innovators, she said.

"What is unreasonable about reasonable network management?” asked Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Rockefeller said his only complaint about the FCC order is that it doesn’t go far enough. But it’s a good first step that “removes regulatory overhang” and allows Internet companies to invest, he said. “While I am not opposed to the Congressional Review Act, it is a blunt instrument,” he said. “It means that all of the rules adopted by the FCC must be overturned at once. This would even mean tossing out common-sense provisions about transparency. It would deny the agency the power to protect consumers -- and it would prevent the FCC from ever adopting even similar rules."

Rockefeller said he found it reassuring that AT&T and other industry players did not oppose the net neutrality rules when they were approved last year. “I feel very happy that this was referred to by a number of the major players in this whole field as a very light touch of regulation,” he said. “There’s nothing like encouraging capital investment in something that is as important as the Internet.”

The resolution is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. Republicans say they're trying to “liberate” the Internet from the FCC, but really they're trying to “imprison” it under the key of large corporations, Kerry said: “We are standing here trying to defend neutrality."

Several Republicans linked net neutrality to broader concerns about the size of the federal government. “The Internet is not broken, but our government is,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. “I'm beginning to think the FCC stands for Fabricating a Crisis Commission, because they're trying to create a new regulation for a problem that doesn’t exist.” DeMint said under Obama the FCC has become “a very activist bureaucracy that’s inventing a crisis here in order to take control of the Internet.”

"The FCC is working to fix a problem it acknowledges doesn’t exist,” said Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark. “With this rule we're stifling innovation, investment and jobs.” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., questioned whether the FCC had the legal authority to approve the net neutrality rules. “This is a solution that is in search of a problem,” he said. To create jobs, move “the federal government out of the way of the private sector,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Several of the Republicans quoted directly from FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell’s dissent when the rules were approved on a 3-2 vote last December.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the FCC order did not go far enough and the same rules should apply to wireless broadband. “If you think about it … the entire Internet is moving to a mobile broadband platform,” she said. Rules on transparency and blocking apply to wireline but not wireless, she noted. “So we have work to do.”