Dems planning net neutrality response

Democrats are organizing a response to GOP leaders’ draft legislation on net neutrality that they hope will be more bipartisan than Republicans’ effort. 

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said during a hearing on a potential Internet law on Wednesday that he plans to introduce a bill “in the not too distant future.”

{mosads}“I would hope to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, with the aspiration that whatever legislation is hammered out, it will be clearly, surely, nothing but bipartisan,” he said during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.

Just last week, Republican leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees released draft text of a bill to limit how Internet service providers, such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, treat traffic on the Internet. While the bill would prevent the companies from blocking or slowing Web traffic as well as from enacting online “fast lanes” for money, it would also hamstring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in other ways.

Republicans had long resisted any type of net neutrality rules but have been scurrying to write a bill in recent weeks to pre-empt the FCC from enacting tough regulations that reclassify the Internet so that it would be treated like a utility.

Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) warned on Wednesday that, by reclassifying the Internet, the FCC would be invoking its “nuclear option.”

“Given the choice between enacting prudent legislation or leaving the FCC to tackle this with tools unfit for the task, we choose to take action,” echoed Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

Democrats have been emboldened by the FCC’s expected move to reclassify Web service next month. Many liberal lawmakers have urged the FCC to take the politically controversial step, and President Obama weighed in shortly after the midterm elections.

While Democrats said they were willing to work with Republicans on some type of legislation, they urged the FCC to proceed on schedule.

The FCC has been working on new regulations for more than a year, noted the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), since a top court tossed out old rules in 2014.

“Congress cannot be expected to work it all out in 13 days,” he said.