Maloney Introduces Legislation to Block FCC Rollback of Net Neutrality
Last Friday, just days before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on its proposed roll back of Net Neutrality rules that protect the open internet (Thursday, Dec. 14) Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-Newburgh) introduced the Save Net Neutrality Act (H.R. 4585) to stop the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would result in a final rule eliminating the existing Net Neutrality policy.
“The FCC’s proposal to screw up your Internet is just about the worst plan I’ve seen – the comment period was a mess and the rest of the proposal is full of holes,” said Rep. Maloney, in a media statement. “My bill would stop this rule from going into effect and keep the Internet the way it is – affordable, open, and full of innovation.”
The FCC offered an NPRM on May 18, 2017, which would roll back Net Neutrality rules established by the Commission in 2015. These rules classified Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as “common carriers” under Title II of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 and Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which subjected them to regulation as utilities. Net Neutrality prevents these ISPs from blocking, speeding up or slowing down the transmission of content, or increasing costs to consumers by changing the current pricing model.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires federal agencies to consider relevant comments as part of the NPRM by establishing a formal comment period and process for considering the opinions of people who would be affected by a new proposed rule. According to Maloney, the FCC has come under intense scrutiny for its bungling of the comment process on this proposed rule. As well, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has uncovered evidence that tens of thousands of New Yorkers may have had their identities used to file fake comments. Additionally, analysis by the Pew Research Center has found that only 3% of the comments received by the FCC definitively went through a verification process to ensure emailed comments came from legitimate accounts. This allowed many comments (both pro and con) to be submitted using fake accounts. The analysis provides the example that over 7,500 comments came from the same (bogus) email address, according to Maloney.
The Save Net Neutrality Act would prevent the FCC from relying on the NPRM process that concludes with a final vote on Dec. 14. The bill does not consider policy, but instead invalidates the process that culminates in the creation of an enforceable rule authorized by the APA. Without the ability to rely on the rule, the FCC would have to start over from the beginning.
“People are lifting up their voices for Net Neutrality, and the message is loud and clear,” said Matt Wood, Policy Director, Free Press Action Fund, which has endorsed Maloney’s bill. “The rules and the legal framework we have today at the FCC are working. We have called on Congress to stop FCC Chairman Ajit Pai from taking those successful rules away. We don’t need legislators to fix Net Neutrality; we need them to fix the current rules in place. We thank Rep. Maloney for working to do that.”
