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Congress Blocks FCC Push to Regulate the Internet

May 26, 2010 06:15

A bipartisan group of politicians on Monday told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in no uncertain terms, to abandon his plans to impose controversial new rules on broadband providers until the U.S. Congress changes the law. A separate letter from 37 Senate Republicans, also sent Monday, was more pointed. It accused Genachowski of pushing “heavy-handed 19th century regulations” that are “inconceivable” as well as illegal.

From Shelly at ByteStyle.tv

A somewhat unexpected development on the net neutrality front:

From CNET:

The Federal Communications Commission’s plan to impose Net neutrality regulations just became much more difficult to pull off.A bipartisan group of politicians on Monday told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in no uncertain terms, to abandon his plans to impose controversial new rules on broadband providers until the U.S. Congress changes the law.

Seventy-four House Democrats sent Genachowski, an Obama appointee and fellow Democrat, a letter saying his ideas will “jeopardize jobs” and “should not be done without additional direction from Congress.”

A separate letter from 37 Senate Republicans, also sent Monday, was more pointed. It accused Genachowski of pushing “heavy-handed 19th century regulations” that are “inconceivable” as well as illegal.

“Questions about the FCC’s legal authority should be decided by the Congress itself, and not by applying to the Internet a set of onerous rules designed for a different technology, a different situation, and a different era,” AT&T’s senior vice president for legislative affairs, Jim Cicconi, said Monday.Last month, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that the FCC’s attempt to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers–in a case that grew out of Comcast throttling BitTorrent transfers–was not authorized by Congress. The opinion called the FCC’s claims “flatly inconsistent” with the law.

Supporters of Net neutrality say new Internet regulations or laws are necessary to prevent broadband providers from restricting content or prioritizing one type of traffic over another. Broadband providers and many conservative and free-market groups, on the other hand, say some of the proposed regulations would choke off new innovations and could even require awarding e-mail spam and telemedicine identical priorities.

This is good news. Granting the FCC broad (and unnecessary) power to regulate an internet they clearly don’t understand opens the door for abuse and unintended consequences, and risks putting US tech businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

Rockefeller and Snowe are (shockingly) leading the charge in favor of internet regulation.

And finally, a few snippets from Reason:

As there is no real problem with the Internet, it’s not surprising that some of our top minds have been working diligently on a solution.

I know [net neutrality] sounds wonderfully fair. But the reality of net neutrality makes as much sense as mandating that tricycle riders have the same rights and privileges as cars and trucks on our roads—highway neutrality.