Disapproving the Rule Submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with Respect to Regulating the Internet and Broadband Industry Practices

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we don't use the Congressional Review Act often. In fact, I think we have only used it once successfully. But the regulators are working at a breakneck pace, and I think the overreach we see in this rule and some others that are coming out right now really requires the Congress to pay attention, requires us to revisit the reason the Congress gave itself the ability to look at rules and regulations and see if they make sense.

Simply put, on this regulation, the Federal Communications Commission lacked the legal standing to produce the order we are debating today. The net neutrality order the FCC enacted is not based on the facts or on the law. In fact, I have yet to hear credible defense of why we would want to have this massive regulatory burden. In fact, we have talked about net neutrality for several years now, and the definition continues to change because the free marketplace has driven the innovation beyond every debate we have had. The marketplace where people invest and grow the Internet and access to that Internet has meant that as soon as a debate would be engaged on this issue of so-called net neutrality, it no longer mattered. I think that is what we see here as well. But it will begin to matter if we begin to manage the Internet in a way that slows down investment, that slows down innovation.

Three years ago, the FCC attempted to reach far beyond any legislative mandate they had to regulate the Internet through a rule. Last year, a Federal court struck down that rule, saying the Commission had no authority to do so. Now we find ourselves debating a measure which in a roundabout way attempts to accomplish the same end with a result that might be disguised in some other way. The Commission is using a provision of the Communications Act, which was enacted to allow the FCC to ``remove barriers to infrastructure investment.'' Why would we want to do that? Why would we want to remove barriers to infrastructure investment? Why would we have passed that law? Because we want to encourage infrastructure investment by removing barriers. The basis the FCC is using was actually deregulatory, not regulatory. They are basing this on a law that said they could do something 180 degrees different from what this rule would do.

Repeated government economic analysis has reached the same conclusion: There is no concentration; there are no abuses of market power in the broadband space. And even if there were, we have a lot of laws to deal with that. We have antitrust laws. We have consumer protection laws. There are plenty of ways to approach that if it happens, but nobody thinks it is happening.

The Commission, like many other Federal agencies, has often been put in a position where one industry competitor is being asked for a regulation that somehow would benefit them in their competition with somebody else. This order would greatly increase the frequency of those requests.

This order puts the FCC in a position of constantly having to monitor new innovations on the Internet.

One of the FCC Commissioners who didn't agree with this order clearly laid out the dissent when he said this. This is a quote from Commissioner McDowell:

Using these new rules as a weapon, politically favored companies will be able to pressure three political appointees to regulate their rivals to gain competitive advantages. Litigation will subplant innovation. Instead of investing in tomorrow's technologies, precious capital will be diverted to pay lawyers' fees. The era of Internet regulatory arbitrage has dawned, and to say that today's rules don't regulate the Internet is like saying that regulating highway on-ramps, off-ramps, and its pavement doesn't equate to regulating the highways themselves.

In releasing the net neutrality order, the FCC charted itself on a collision course with the legislative branch as well as with the Federal judiciary, which has already struck down a similar attempt to regulate this sector by the FCC. They stated unequivocally in that attempt that the FCC lacked the standing to do so.

This is a solution that is really searching for a problem. Let me guarantee that whatever anybody thinks the problem is right now, that will not be the problem 6 months from now unless we figure out how to slow down innovation in this area and suddenly we are dealing in a static environment instead of a dynamic environment.

Even if there were a legal basis for this legislation, we still cannot get away from the fact that it is a massive and unnecessary overreach into the private sector, which has thrived while our overall economy has slowed and stalled.

In 2003, only 15 percent of Americans had access to broadband. According to the Commission's own National Broadband Plan, last year 95 percent of Americans had access to broadband. Between 2003 to 2010, 15 percent to 95 percent--it sounds to me as if that access is doing what you want it to do and occurring how you want it to occur. Fixed and mobile broadband Internet access, expanded and improved upon by the private sector, is the fastest growing technology in history. In only 7 years, 95 percent of Americans got to where 15 percent were 7 years earlier.

Competition in this field is robust. Technology advances, network buildout, and infrastructure improvements are happening quickly, to the tune of billions of dollars of investment and innovation and an ever-expanding array of applications for consumers. More competition is on the way as providers make use of increased amounts of spectrum coming online and lay new networks of fiber to connect Americans in rural areas in the country.

The telecommunications sector contributes more than $60 billion annually to our economy. Net neutrality would slow that down.

With the order that was set forth, the Commission will begin to speculate on what might happen as opposed to what clearly is happening.

First, the kind of anticompetitive action the Commission seeks to remedy is already illegal.

Second, the competition in this space is far too fierce. Their rule is far too repressive. Most Americans already have two options for wired broadband access at work or at home, and the number of wireless competitors available is exponentially higher.

No government has ever succeeded in mandating investment and innovation, and until this order nothing has held back Internet investment and innovation in this country, and that is why it has done so well.

Broadband buildout is a thriving success story on which virtually all Americans now count. We now even take it for granted. It is incumbent upon us to look at this rule to understand the negative impact it will have on a thriving way to communicate, to do business, and to talk to each other, and to reject this rule and let this system continue to develop with the same innovation, the same intensity, and the same incredible success it has had in the past 7 years.

I yield the floor.

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