A robust debate took place on the Senate floor on Wednesday as lawmakers debated a measure introduced in February by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and other Republican lawmakers to repeal the “Net Neutrality” rules established by the Federal Communications Commission in December 2010, which will go into effect November 20, 2011.
A vote on the measure is scheduled for Thursday, and it is expected to be close, according to the Boston Globe. But even if the Senate votes in favor of the measure, the White House has vowed that President Obama will veto it when it lands on his desk.
Sources close to the White House told TPM that the Obama Administration is not concerned that the legislation will be even be approved, let alone reach the President’s desk.
The GOP-controlled House already voted in favor of repealing Net Neutrality in April, 240 to 179, with all Republicans and six Democrats supporting the repeal.
Republican Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) kicked things off early Wednesday morning with a statement again recycling the Republican talking point that the FCC’s net neutrality rules were an unnecessary government intervention that would kill private sector jobs.
“We should think long and hard before we allow unelected bureaucrats to tinker with [the Internet] now,” Sen. McConnell said, NBC Kentucky affiliate WPSD 6 reported. “Everywhere I go in Kentucky, I hear from businesses large and small that they’re struggling to comply with the mountains of rules and regulations coming out of Washington. At a time when the private sector would like to create jobs and grow the economy, it seems like too many in Washington want to create regulations and grow government.”
Sen. Hutchinson added much the same opinion, saying “the Obama administration’s relentless imposition of new and destructive regulations have really not helped us get into a recovery and are in fact freezing our economy,” PC World reported.
Later, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) came to the defense of the FCC rules. Or, more accurately, as the Boston Globe reported, Kerry came on the offense, accusing Republicans of trying to “imprison the Internet within the hands of the most powerful communications entities today to act as the gatekeepers,” i.e. the Internet Service Providers, who under Net Neutrality aren’t allowed to throttle download speeds for users based on content — a provision enacted after Comcast was in 2007 caught throttling the speed of users using BitTorrent websites to download files.
“That’s what’s happening, these providers who think if I can control the pipe now I can also control the flow,” added Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), CNET reported. “Why allow telcos to run wild on the Internet charging consumers anything they want based on the fact that they have control of the switch?”
The Senate is due to answer that question when it votes on the repeal sometime Thursday. Stay tuned.
