Providing for Congressional Disapproval of A Rule Submitted By the Federal Communications Commission

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, last year, in 2017, we watched a series of battles related to the very fundamental vision of our Constitution-- whether we are going to do the people's work or whether we are going to be a Senate run by the most powerful and privileged in America. There is no question how that came out. It was the powerful and the privileged.

Three major things happened in 2017. The first was a health bill designed to destroy healthcare for some 30 million Americans, thereby also affecting everybody else by raising the costs of healthcare and putting our rural healthcare clinics and our rural hospitals out of business. That was a bill for the powerful and the privileged and against the people.

Then we had the tax bill--a bill that borrows $1.5 trillion from the next generation. Our pages on the floor here are the next generation. We gave the bill to them and then gave the proceeds to the very richest of Americans, increasing and accelerating inequality in wages and inequality in wealth. That is legislation by and for the powerful--not we the people.

Then we saw the theft of a Supreme Court seat, done directly to maintain a court case called Citizens United, which allows the wealthiest Americans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to drown out the voices of the people here in our democratic republic. That is government by and for the powerful and the privileged instead of we the people.

Wouldn't it be amazing if this Chamber actually believed in this Constitution--this vision of distributing power among the voting citizens--so we have, as Jefferson said, laws that reflect the will of the people?

Here we are today with another issue that is a battle between the vision of our Constitution and government by and for the powerful. It is called net neutrality

What is net neutrality? It is making the internet a place where we can all participate on an equal foundation, with the freedom to have a full right to participate in the information world of today and tomorrow and a full opportunity to participate on a level playing field in the economic battleground of today and tomorrow. Freedom is what net neutrality is about.

This is what the Federal Communications Commission wants: It wants to have a fast lane for the rich and the powerful, and it wants to have a slow lane, where you are hardly moving at all, for all the rest of us-- all of working America, stuck here in a congested internet while they sell off the fast lane to the wealthiest. That is what this is about.

The FCC, or the Federal Communications Commission, proceeded in its decision to take away equality on the internet, to ignore the technical experts, to produce studies that are debunked by the experts, and to conduct a fraudulent public comment period where bots, or robotized comments, were filing fake comments by the millions. They didn't even want America to be able to weigh in legitimately.

We said: Redo the comment period and put up an interface to stop the bots so real people can weigh in. You could have real input from real Americans. That is ``we the people'' government. The FCC said: No way, because we are bent on our track.

What was their track? To allow discrimination on the internet by the type of user, to allow discrimination on the internet based on the type of business or the type of social content, to allow discrimination on the internet by the type of website, to allow discrimination by the type of platform or by using an iPhone or a desktop, to allow discrimination based on the software application--is it Safari or is it Google?

Why is that? Because the internet service providers can sell, through that license to discriminate, a fast lane to the rich and powerful while the rest of us are stuck in traffic.

It is totally unfair. People in America get it. They understand that this is the opposite of what it means to have a government that reflects the will of the people.

If we go back to our Founders, James Madison said: ``The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.'' ``The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the guardian of true liberty.'' But today a sizable share of the Members of the Senate want to shut down advancement and diffusion of knowledge on a level playing field and sell our right to equality to the highest bidder.

They want to put the modern user--the student, the child, the math teacher, the entrepreneur, the small business--they want to lock them in chains and say: We are taking away your freedom to participate in the public square on an equal basis. That is simply wrong. We know it is wrong because millions of Americans have weighed in.

On some days in my office, I have had phone calls that are 100 to 1-- 1 or 2 or 3 people arguing: Sure, let the powerful sell off our freedom. But for every 1 of those folks, there are 100 citizens saying: No way, fight for fairness. Fight for equality. Fight for our freedom to participate on a level playing field.

We hear it from all kinds of small businesses. More than 6,000 have formally weighed in. We hear it from all kinds of organizations. I hear it from the Realtors. I hear it from the restaurant owners. Everyone who isn't one of the superelite in America wants equal participation and freedom on the internet, but there is a whole host of colleagues today who are considering voting for the elite and rich and powerful over their constituents.

I encourage you to rethink your priorities because we have a responsibility, under our Constitution, to do government by and for the people, not the powerful.

We have heard from chiropractors. We have heard from people who perform at music venues. We have heard from graphic design artists. We have heard from medical startups. We have heard from everyone across the spectrum saying: Give me a fair chance to compete.

A fair chance to compete is an American value. Let us not trounce that value into the mud today.

I anticipate that at 3 p.m. we are going to have a vote on this floor, and the majority of this Senate--a slim majority--is going to fight for freedom, and the rest are going to say: No way, I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for the big and powerful people in America.

That is just wrong.

Then this bill will go to the House. When it goes to the House, there will be another battle. So having won here by a slim margin--a slim, bipartisan margin--we have to win in the House, which means that we need the American people to weigh in.

Here is the thing. The rich and powerful really want to win the fight. Oh, they are going to be spending a lot of money to win this fight. They are going to be sending a lot of lobbyists down the hall to win this fight. So we have to have the people of America weigh in and let them know across the hall, down the hall, down this road to the House that as the people's House, they should do the people's business.

Let's set the example here in the Senate. Let's not have a slim majority fight for freedom for Americans. Let's have the entire body weigh in with a robust, extensive majority, fighting--fighting--for freedom on the internet. Let's win this battle today, and let's win it in a few days down the hall.

Thank you, Mr. President.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source