No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I thank my ranking member on the Communications and Technology Subcommittee and the chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee.

There are two questions here. First is net neutrality. One of the biggest decisions that the FCC made was to protect net neutrality.

Before they issued their order, they had literally millions of comments from people all across this country, in your district and in mine, urging that net neutrality be maintained and preserved. The chairman and the FCC did that with their order.

Now, that has raised some questions as to whether the assertion of FCC authority is going to result in micromanaging through regulation, and that would be a legitimate concern if it were a concern.

But the chairman has made it extremely clear that he has no intention whatsoever of doing any kind of rate regulation under title II. He is not going to do it. It hasn't been done.

So this bill, which is going to ``prohibit rate regulation'' has some significant and potentially very dangerous consequences for two things, net neutrality and protection of consumers.

We need an FCC that is going to be there to protect consumers against some potentially bad practices, like cramming or overbilling, things that traditionally the FCC has done as the agency that is protecting consumers against bad practices.

The reason why many experts believe that this bill would result in that happening is because there is no definition of rate regulation. There is none. The burden on legislators, when we propose something, is to be clear and specific as to what it is that is being proposed. There is no definition whatsoever in this bill about rate regulation. This bill is founded on an apprehension that something bad will happen, but it gives an undefined answer to prevent an undefined event from happening. So the effect here is that you have a bill that is playing on the fear of the unknown.

My preference would be for us to not pass this bill, not endanger the authority of the FCC to take steps that help consumers in your district and in my district, and to focus where we should be focusing, in my view, on steps that we can take to improve broadband access in speeds, particularly for rural areas, rural Vermonters. There is a common goal that we have in our committee to try to get the broadband out and deployed at higher speeds in all of our areas, particularly the rural areas that are in jeopardy.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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