Having Lost on Net Neutrality, Republicans Offer a Deal

Having Lost on Net Neutrality, Republicans Offer a Deal

When the FCC delivered a clear victory to advocates for net neutrality by announcing that it would treat the Internet as a common carrier, congressional Republicans reacted furiously. Speaker John Boehner denounced "overzealous government bureaucrats" for developing "a secret plan to put the federal government in control of the Internet." Senator Marco Rubio said the move "threatened to over-regulate the Internet." Other GOP lawmakers questioned whether President Obama had interfered with an independent regulator, since he had put out a statement endorsing net neutrality just a few months earlier. (At the time, Senator Ted Cruz compared the proposal to "Obamacare for the Internet.")

Yet nearly a month later, GOP lawmakers remain divided over how to respond; one proposal would explicitly block the agency's change through a "resolution of disapproval," while another would actually cut the FCC's budget and rein in some of its authority. Court challenges to the ruling are considered inevitable, and Republicans grilled FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a trio of hearings this week on Capitol Hill.
 
The most interesting possibility, however, is a bipartisan compromise that, according to its supporters, would legally bar the broadband industry from segmenting the Internet into "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" while also returning the web to its status as a communications service, not a common carrier, as it was for a dozen years before the FCC announced its change. While the difference may seem like a technicality, it has taken on great significance for activists concerned that powerful firms like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast could block content based on their business interests, or favor one company over another by providing faster or slower loading speeds over its broadband network (streaming Netflix is a frequently-cited example of something that could be affected).

Proposing the new bill are some of the same senior Republicans—Senator John Thune and Representatives Greg Walden and Fred Upton—who long opposed the very concept of net neutrality but who have changed course as advocates for Internet freedom have gained momentum over the last year.

+Yahoo News  +The Atlantic