The National Journal’s Drew Clark reports that the Telecom Bill voted out of the House Commerce Committee last week won’t be headed to the floor this week after all. It seems that the Judiciary Committee has sought referral of the bill, meaning that Judiciary believes that it has some jurisidiction over the legislation and wants to review the bill before it hits the House floor.
Judiciary made clear last week that it is troubled by the bill’s net neutrality language and Clark says in his piece that some Republican leaders are worried about the impact a vote might have on the mid-term elections. They are worried that a vote against net neutrality regulations might become a political liability with voters.
Lobbyist Vin Weber, a former House member (R-MN), is quoted as saying “I would not like to cast a vote that can be portrayed by bloggers and others as a vote against the Internet.” (Yup, that’s just about the size of it — people really, really like their Internet the way it is. No matter what the truth is, it sounds scary to the uninitiated, and even to the initiated, to start talking about two tiers and fast lanes and what-not).
Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and ranking member John Conyers (D-MI) have purportedly drafted their own net neutrality language that is tougher than the provisions in the bill voted out of the Commerce Committee. The Sensenbrenner-Conyers bill is said to give authority to bring lawsuits over discriminatory Internet activities to DOJ, not the FCC.
Meanwhile, Ted Hearn at Multichannel News is reporting that the Senate bill is finally out from under wraps, and it’s a doozy. The 125-page bill, introduced by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) covers every topic, including cable franchising, rural phone subsidies, Internet network neutrality, sports programming and Internet piracy of digital-TV programming.
Regarding net neutrality, the Stevens bill would merely require the FCC to “study” the issue each year for the next five years. Co-chairman of the Committee Daniel Inouye (D-HI) is clearly not happy with the net neutrality provisions.
“We cannot ignore concerns about the potential for discrimination by network operators, but the draft appears to do just that by failing to create enforceable protections that will ensure network neutrality,” Inouye said in statement quoted by Hearn. “The legislation must promote the availability of affordable broadband services and extend consumer protections on a competitively neutral basis.”
More on the Senate bill later.
Cynthia Brumfield at 9:44 PM|Comments(0)
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