House Votes Against ‘Net Neutrality’
By EDWARD WYATT
NYT
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives approved a measure on Friday that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating how Internet service providers manage their broadband networks, potentially overturning a central initiative of the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski.
The action, which is less likely to pass the Senate and which President Obama has threatened to veto, is nevertheless significant because it puts half of the legislative branch on the same side of the debate as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in restricting the F.C.C.’s authority over Internet service.
House Joint Resolution 37, which was approved by a vote of 240 to 179, was spurred by the F.C.C.’s approval in December of an order titled “Preserving the Open Internet.” The order forbids the companies that provide the pipeline through which consumers gain access to the Internet from blocking a user’s ability to reach legal Internet sites or to use legal applications.
But Republicans in the House maintained that the order exceeded the F.C.C.’s authority and put the government in the position of overseeing what content a consumer could see and which companies would benefit from Internet access.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives approved a measure on Friday that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating how Internet service providers manage their broadband networks, potentially overturning a central initiative of the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski.
The action, which is less likely to pass the Senate and which President Obama has threatened to veto, is nevertheless significant because it puts half of the legislative branch on the same side of the debate as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in restricting the F.C.C.’s authority over Internet service.
House Joint Resolution 37, which was approved by a vote of 240 to 179, was spurred by the F.C.C.’s approval in December of an order titled “Preserving the Open Internet.” The order forbids the companies that provide the pipeline through which consumers gain access to the Internet from blocking a user’s ability to reach legal Internet sites or to use legal applications.
But Republicans in the House maintained that the order exceeded the F.C.C.’s authority and put the government in the position of overseeing what content a consumer could see and which companies would benefit from Internet access.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
Please explain how the House can vote against something that does not exist yet ?
The FCC has announced they will issue a rule and what the rule will be, but they have not formally issued it yet ... once they do, Congress has 60 legislative days to weigh in (which they are doing here) but it appears to me that they are taking action before they legally can.
That aside, they voted against this in the afternoon, and then when the voted to fund the government, the agreement drops Republican-backed provisions that would have barred funding for the Federal Communications Commission to implement "net neutrality" rules (as well as funding for Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases.)
Do the Republicans in Congress know what they are doing ?
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