Eshoo to Introduce FCC-Bolstering Legislation if Courts Overturn Neutrality Rules
If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturns the FCC’s net neutrality rules, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will introduce legislation to clarify the authority of the agency to protect an open Internet, she said during a State of the Net address. In 2011, Verizon and MetroPCS sued the FCC, alleging it overstepped its regulatory authority in establishing net neutrality rules.
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"It is essential for the Congress and the FCC to ensure” an open Internet that allows for innovation, said Eshoo, ranking member of House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. The Internet Caucus can educate members of Congress -- even those for whom these issues “may not be at the top of their agenda” -- on these crucial issues, she said: “I think the caucus is a really highly valuable vehicle for educating members on both sides of the aisle."
Making more spectrum available for mobile broadband would promote Internet innovation, Eshoo said. Without that unused spectrum, “we risk stunting” economic growth, she said: “We should all be thinking of spectrum as gold.” Nineteen million Americans have no access to broadband, “so we have our work cut out for us” to create an environment where future wireless innovations can flourish, she said. Additionally, the FCC should reevaluate the process by which it assigns spectrum, she said: The agency should recognize that “not all spectrum is created equally."
Regulators should ensure that Internet access is “not hindered by discriminatory caps,” Eshoo said, citing data about Netflix users, who, for the first time, streamed 1 billion hours per month in June. Data caps would hinder consumers’ ability to access these services and their creators’ ability to innovate, she said.
The D.C. Circuit case is a “contingency that would affect the conversation of the authority of the FCC to protect the current model” of the Internet ecosystem, said Corie Wright, Netflix director of global public policy, during a subsequent panel at the event. Technology author and consultant Larry Downes said if the court overrules the open Internet order that doesn’t necessarily mean that citizens are without protection. He said if such a scenario were to occur, regulatory jurisdiction would likely shift from the FCC to the FTC. “They will then take over disciplining the market using traditional procedures and an antitrust standard.” Downes said it might be best to “do nothing” to reform the ‘96 Telecom Act. “Regulation is not able to respond to a dynamic marketplace,” he said. It would be best to let the ecosystem “evolve in the strange trajectory that it already does and only interfere when something is broken.” But failing to rewrite the Telecom Act would be the “worst thing that could possibly happen,” said Christopher Yoo, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The ‘96 law wasn’t written with the Internet in mind and will apply outdated rules to a rapidly evolving marketplace, he said. But any major rewrite takes time, he said, and it’s easier to stop legislation in Congress than to push it forward. “Any of industry groups could stop it in its tracks.”