House Republicans Tee Up Resolution to Overturn Net Neutrality Rules

Congress/AFP image

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

The next front in the war for Internet freedom is about to begin in Congress with a new battle over net neutrality.

On Tuesday, the House voted 241-178 to take up a Republican-backed resolution to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality rules. The vote was largely down party lines. The resolution states:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to the matter of preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practices (Report and Order FCC 10-201, adopted by the Commission on December 21, 2010), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

Once the resolution officially passes the House, it will move on to the Senate, where the outcome is less certain because the Democrats, who typically favor net neutrality, maintain a narrow majority.  Since the resolution relates to a federal agency, Senate rules do not allow a filibuster, so only 51 votes will be needed to pass the Senate.  This week, President Obama threatened to veto the resolution if it passes.

“Report and Order FCC 10-201” refers to the net neutrality regulations enacted by the FCC last December.  Net neutrality rules limit Internet broadband providers’ ability to block or slow down access to legal websites.  Without these regulations, a provider would have the right to force website publishers to pay for the privilege of users being able to access their sites at high speeds, while sites that could not pay (or whose message a provider did not like) might only be accessible at slow speeds.

Many Republicans, as well as Internet providers such as Comcast and Sprint, have framed the net neutrality regulations as an attempt by liberals and the Obama Administration to control the Internet.  Supporters of the regulations counter that net neutrality, by its nature, is designed to prevent control of the Internet by corporations, not to give the Government additional control.

On another front, on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed lawsuits attempting to overturn the net neutrality rules, which had been filed by Verizon and Metro PCS .  However, the suits were only dismissed because of a timing technicality (the complaints were filed before the net neutrality order was formally published), so the carriers will almost certainly refile their lawsuits at the appropriate time.

David Makarewicz is an attorney practicing internet law concerning privacy rights and copyright defense for websites and blogs. Visit Dave at Sites and Blogs to keep up with breaking Internet news.