Net Neutrality Rhetoric Flies Ahead of Critical FCC Vote

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., led off a net neutrality media call with advocates for strong rules Tuesday. The advocates are “so close now” to “seeing the kinds of rules being put on the books that we really do need,” Markey said. “This is truly a 21st century battle, and all of you are Paul Reveres.” Advocates came from the Center for Media Justice, Common Cause, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. Markey called the Thursday vote on Wheeler’s net neutrality order “our greatest victory” and strong net neutrality rules part of “an economic job creation engine.”

“Public sentiment is everything,” House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said at Comptel’s Washington summit. “Over 4 million people last year contacting the FCC -- that’s unheard of.” She praised the vote on net neutrality as historic and disputed the idea that Communications Act Title II reclassification will cause problems. She alluded to the “Greek chorus” warning of dangers to innovation and investment but dismissed those concerns as “scare tactics.” She’s never backed “regulation that was really heavy handed,” she said.

Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner now with Common Cause, hailed the vote as a reversal of “the worst vote in perhaps all of its history” by reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. “The rest of us decided not to be damned,” Copps said of the advocates’ fight against cable and telecom industry forces. “The FCC will right a costly wrong.” Wheeler’s order will “of course be challenged by entrenched interests” but it “will stand,” Copps said.

“There will be lies, there will be damn lies, and there will be whatever [Commissioner] Ajit Pai is saying -- don’t believe it,” said Free Press President Craig Aaron. Pai has led a campaign against Wheeler’s net neutrality order, asking for him to make the circulating order text public as well as to delay the vote. Copps dismissed Pai’s arguments as part of a “major-league effort” to delay the vote and urged people not to pay it any mind. No one group or individual caused Wheeler to come out with this order, Aaron said.

"Free Press appears worried that Commissioner Pai’s opposition to President [Barack] Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet is striking a chord with the American people," a Pai spokesman countered. "But their ad hominem attacks will not dissuade him from continuing to tell the American people the truth about President Obama’s plan."

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., was also to back the FCC vote Tuesday evening in a call with Democracy for America. But three of the four witnesses for a House hearing, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in 2322 Rayburn, plan to slam that approach and favor congressional action.

"There is good reason to believe advocacy groups such as Free Press and Public Knowledge intentionally coopted the issue of net neutrality into a stalking horse for far broader changes in our nation’s heretofore successful Internet policies,” Information Technology & Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson plans to testify. “Claims to the contrary by those who have long pushed for much more sweeping changes than the formalization of net neutrality norms should not be taken at face value.” Atkinson, as expected (see 1502230064), plans to attack what he believes are the uncertainties and costs of Title II and push for a legislative solution.

Net neutrality legislation “is the superior solution,” Internet Innovation Alliance Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher plans to say in his testimony. Boucher is a former Democratic House Communications Subcommittee chairman, and his alliance includes AT&T. So far no Democrats have backed the GOP net neutrality draft legislation circulating on Capitol Hill since last month. “Committee members have expressed concerns about specific provisions of the draft legislation,” Boucher, an opponent of Title II, will testify. “These matters can be the subject of bipartisan discussion and resolution.”

The order “seems more designed to serve short-term political goals than the long-term health of the most valuable technology platform invented since the Industrial Revolution,” Larry Downes, a project director with the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, will testify. “These actions threaten the long-term health of and continued investment in the entire Internet ecosystem.” Downes accuses net neutrality advocates of always wanting Title II reclassification and never just the protections, citing proof in the form of “deafening silence” from advocates on the GOP net neutrality legislation. “On that basis, the draft legislation has been rejected outright by pro-public utility advocates as a basis for resolving a decade-old issue, even though its passage would secure the goals they claim to have been pursuing without further legal, technical and economic uncertainty,” Downes will say.

Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman will back Title II reclassification and Wheeler’s approach. He pointed out at a Jan. 21 Senate hearing what he judged to be many problems with the GOP net neutrality legislation (see 1501210049). “While we appreciate Congress’s role in updating the Communications Act periodically, we remain concerned that current legislative proposals are likely to cause more harm than benefit,” Kimmelman will testify Wednesday. “We urge the FCC to move forward on Title II rules and urge Congress to evaluate those in light of broader policy goals.”