IP Democracy: Hill Staff Grappling with "Balanced" Net Neutrality Rules

According to this piece by Bara Vaida in the National Journal’s Tech Daily, key legislators will meet today to decide the fate of telecom reform legislation in the current Congress. The discussions will involve all the key decision-makers including House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), Energy and Commerce ranking member John Dingell (D-MI) and Reps. Fred Upton (R-MI), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MI).

One bone of contention is whether the bill should move forward with bi-partisan support or only Republican support. On the House side, the first Telecom Act rewrite draft bill had bi-partisan support while Democrats feel they were excluded from the second draft bill.

The biggest issue is network neutrality, which was substantially watered down in the second draft. One key problem for staff is drafting net neutrality rules that achieve two somewhat conflicting goals: bar broadband providers from blocking services and applications without imposing overly intrusive and possibly regressive rules on those providers.

Lawmakers and staff have been arguing over whether and how to write network neutrality language so that it does not impede telecommunications and cable company efforts to grow their businesses in new directions — while also ensuring that no company has a leg up over the other in using the infrastructure of the high speed Internet to distribute its content. Among the questions that committee staff are trying to answer is when activity would “trigger” network neutrality rules, and how much flexibility network operators would have under the rules, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

It could be wishful thinking on the part of the Republicans, but the piece quotes a Bell lobbyist as saying a House Telecom and Internet Subcommittee vote on draft legislation could come as early as December 12.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on December 7, 2005 7:08 AM to IP Democracy