Any Legislative Effort To Net Neutrality Must Provide Robust Protections

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing on the crucial issue of protecting an open internet.

The hearing comes the week after the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in the legal challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order. OTI is a Petitioner in the lawsuit against the FCC’s repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules that had been previously upheld twice by the D.C. Circuit.

The Open Internet Order recognized the FCC as the cop on the beat with rulemaking authority to protect internet users, and explicitly prohibited internet service providers from blocking, throttling, and engaging in paid prioritization. The Order also provided the FCC with the ability to oversee interconnection disputes and evaluate emerging and future threats to internet openness. Those rules enjoyed strong, wide-ranging support from the American public and provided critical protections for small businesses.

The following quote can be attributed to Sarah Morris, Deputy Director of New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“Today’s hearing reinforces what net neutrality advocates have been saying for years. Strong, enforceable net neutrality protections, underscored by clear rulemaking authority at the FCC, are key to protecting the open internet that has been so critical in creating open platforms for speech, content creation, and robust innovation. We had those protections in the 2015 Open Internet Order, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that the FCC’s authority to enact those rules was clear.

The broad group of petitioners challenging the FCC’s 2017 repeal of net neutrality at oral arguments last week outlined the numerous ways that the repeal was legally deficient, and we are hopeful that the Court will vacate it. In the meantime, Congress should engage by reinstating the 2015 rules legislatively. 182 members of Congress and a bipartisan majority of the Senate already took such a step in voicing their support for a CRA to undo the 2017 repeal. This Congress should build upon that effort.

Unfortunately, the bills introduced by Republicans today are simply smoke and mirrors and do not afford the protections needed in federal net neutrality legislation. Any Congressional net neutrality bill must at minimum include all of the explicit consumer protections (including interconnection oversight and the ability to stop future harms) and the rulemaking authority codified in the 2015 Open Internet Order.”