Save the Internet Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Chair, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for his work on this amendment, and the Democrats for accepting this very thoughtful approach.

Americans are more and more concerned about the role that tech companies play in this Information Age. You read about how content gets blocked, gets prioritized, or in some cases allegedly shadow banned.

We increasingly see these tech giants' inability to curb harmful and illicit behavior online while they monetize our personal information.

Now, these are incredibly important platforms as well, they are great American companies, but in most cases, they come about as close to a monopoly as I have ever seen.

Meanwhile, these edge providers get special protection under section 230 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act and they are not covered by the net neutrality rules that we are discussing today. They are not covered at all.

This bill does nothing to protect consumers from online abuses.

When Republicans were in the majority, I personally presided over hearings with the heads of some of the most important tech companies in America. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter came before our committee, sat inside the Rayburn hearing room, and talked to us for hours.

Our majority enacted landmark protections against online human sex trafficking that received the support of both sides of the aisle. We moved forward with that legislation. It is now law.

Just as the internet has not stopped working from rescinding the 2015 order, the internet has not stopped working because we enacted protections like FOSTA and SESTA. The internet still works.

But more improvements can be made in how we bring responsibility to this sector of the internet. We should review all participants in the virtuous cycle of the internet ecosystem, and that is the aim of this amendment.

The amendment calls on the Government Accountability Office to recommend solutions in dealing with edge providers, so they do not abuse their special privileges that the 1996 act gave them.

This is our third revision of the amendment to make it acceptable to move forward with the majority. I certainly had hoped we wouldn't outsource this responsibility to the GAO over the FCC, not to mention the Energy and Commerce Committee and Congress, but I certainly believe we must make progress on this issue for the benefit of all American consumers and for the health of the overall internet ecosystem.

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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Chair, I want to thank Mr. Latta for bringing this very thoughtful amendment to the House floor, and I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who, I believe, agreed to accept it, if I heard that correctly.

The bill would codify the forbearance of 700 regulations into law, as you probably heard, Madam Chair. However, we just don't know what those 700 provisions that are being forborne upon are.

We have repeatedly asked for that information in the subcommittee, in the full committee, and every step of the way.

In fact, I don't think the authors of this legislation could tell us today what those 700 provisions are, although they get referenced from time to time. We are told that is really the underpinning and crux of this legislation, that, in all these areas of law, the FCC said, ``We are not going to, basically, regulate in this area,'' and they said there are about 700 of these.

So I think it does matter, if you are in business or just whatever you do in your life, to not know what the government--a pretty big, powerful government here in Washington--is going to enforce or not enforce or regulate or not regulate, and we don't know. But we are being asked today, in this bill, to enshrine in Federal law the whole 700 of these that the FCC--not this one, not a future one, we are told--would ever regulate in.

So we want the list. That is what this amendment asks for.

But wouldn't it be better when we legislate to actually know what we are legislating on before we vote? That is a pretty simple concept in good legislating, I think, and that is why we repeatedly asked for it; and, obviously, we have not been able to get it, so it is a bit of an irony.

Now, at the same time, they say don't worry because the FCC--you can trust us. The FCC is never going to regulate in this area. And, in fact, we are going to take these forbearances and lock them into statute and they can never come back and everything is locked down solid, boom. But that is like locking the front door of your house while you open the backdoor.

And the backdoor is another part under title II. This is the argument on the floor today. It is not about blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization. You have heard us go back and forth, and we both agree. We can stop those bad behaviors, and we should, and that could become law. This bill will not become law.

But they open the backdoor and say to the FCC: You have got the right, under sections 201 and 202, to basically do anything you want through a rulemaking. So all the agency has to do is do a rulemaking, and basically they can do everything they have done before and more.

It is that uncertainty of regulation on the internet that we have referred to as the heavy-handed government. And this could be about taxing the internet, fees on the internet, et cetera, et cetera.

So I am glad we are doing this amendment, and I am glad the majority is going to accept it. I only wish it were a list before us in the Record today, Madam Chair.

Mr. MICHAEL F. DOYLE of Pennsylvania. Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

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