[opendtv] News: Blackburn Reintroduces Bill To Kill Net Neutrality Rules
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 07:53:08 -0500
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/461871-Blackburn_Reintroduces_Bill_To_Kill_Net_Neutrality_Rules.php
Blackburn Reintroduces Bill To Kill Net Neutrality Rules
Internet Freedom Act is her first order of business in new,
Republican-controlled House
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2011 4:56:27 PM
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Wednesday filed her Internet Freedom
Act as her first order of business in the new, Republican-controlled
House of Representatives.
The bill, which has more than 60 co-signers including the majority of
Republican members of the House, would invalidate the FCC's network
neutrality regs, which a 3-2 Democratic majority approved Dec. 21 in
the face of promises by Blackburn and others that they would try to
block it legislatively.
"The FCC's Christmas week Internet grab points out how important it
is that we pass this bill quickly," she said in announcing the bill.
"The only sector of our economy showing growth is online. In these
times, for an unelected bureaucracy with dubious jurisdiction and
misplaced motives to unilaterally regulate that growth is
intolerable. The Internet is more than a communications platform with
modems, fiber, and e-mail. It is a marketplace; one that should be
kept free."
Blackburn recognizes that getting such a bill through Congress will
take time. She called it an intermediate step, and backed the more
immediate move of invoking the Congressional Review Act.
The FCC regs are not yet in effect, and won't be for at least a
couple more months since the FCC has set a trigger of 60 days after
the rules get the OK from OMB that they do not run afoul of the
Paperwork Reduction Act, which has yet to happen.
Blackburn, a long-standing and strong critic of net neutrality regs,
filed a similar bill not long after the FCC voted last October to
launch the rulemaking to expand and codify its network neutrality
guidelines.
Last month, she joined with incoming House Energy & Commerce
Committee leadership to pledge to fight the net neutrality rules by
whatever means necessary.
Blackburn, who has compared the FCC to a lifeblood-sucking vampire at
the throat of the Internet, said at the time she would be
reintroducing her bill, which came on the first day of the new
Congress.
At the December press conference, the Republican leaders said they
would explore at least three ways to block implementation of the
order: legislation (Blackburn's, for example), defunding the FCC
appropriation, or a special congressional resolution that would
nullify the rules. "We are going to explore every option to try and
reverse this order," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) now the chairman
of the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee. "This will be the
first hearing out of the box," in the next Congress, he said, with a
series of hearings to follow over the next several weeks. "There is
going to be no stone unturned."
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