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

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I was in a conversation with a group of Oklahomans just last week, and the issue of net neutrality came up in that conversation. A gentleman there who had published his content on the internet seemed very concerned about net neutrality and wanted to make sure that the content he had he could continue to publish, and he would not have to go to every single ISP--internet service provider-- across the country and negotiate a deal with them. That is what happens with net neutrality.

I said: It is very interesting. Has that happened to you? Have you faced that?

He said: No, but I am afraid I might.

Here is the problem we have with this conversation about net neutrality. For 20 years, the internet functioned under a very clear set of rules. The Federal Trade Commission had a set of rules both for content providers and for the fiber--the internet service providers. There was a clear set of rules. They couldn't violate any trade practices. They couldn't do monopolies. They couldn't violate the basic rules of commerce. There was a very clear set of rules.

Then, 2 years ago, the FCC--the FTC is the Federal Trade Commission, and the FTC has been the one regulating the internet for two decades. The FCC decided they wanted to regulate not the content and the internet service providers, just the internet service providers. So the FCC, in an unprecedented ruling that had already gone to court multiple times and failed, grabbed the regulatory control from the FTC and said: We will take the internet service providers, and we will manage them, and you keep the content folks. That is the fight we are in right now.

It is the funniest thing to me to be in a conversation about net neutrality because the implication is that the internet will not be free if the government doesn't regulate it with this particular entity--the FCC. When I ask people ``Would it be OK if the government regulated with the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission?'' most people say ``Well, that would be fine too.'' Well, good, because that is the way it has been for 20 years. For 20 years, there has been one set of rules on the superhighway of the internet--the Federal Trade Commission.

Here is what I would like to say to people who are trying to listen in and trying to figure this out: Most of the arguments and the fights that have come about cost increases and about paid prioritization and about blocking and about people monitoring content haven't been from the internet service providers. It has been from the content folks.

You tell me, when you go to your news feed on whatever social media site you go to or whatever news site you go to, are there paid commercials that come up first, and then your friends come up second? Probably most of the time. Are there certain bits of content that you pay more for if you are on Facebook? You can put this out, but you will reach more people if you pay for it? Yes. But that is not net neutrality.

The argument about net neutrality doesn't have anything to do with those content folks. It is about the internet service providers. So why do I bring this up?

Here is what has happened. Over the past 2 years, America has been drawn into a fight between two sets of megacompanies. Google, Facebook, and Netflix are at war with AT&T, Comcast, and all the major internet service providers. You have the content folks on the web fighting with the internet service providers that actually provide the fiber that connects the content. They are fighting over their business, and the way the content providers have worded it, they have said: We want the internet to be neutral. We don't want to have customers pay more for certain content, and we don't want the internet service providers to charge more based on that content, while the whole time the content folks are charging people for the type of content. They are literally arguing and saying: We don't want them to do what we do every single day--what Google does every day, what Facebook does every day. In fact, they fight about not wanting internet service providers to filter out content when, of late, Facebook seems to put out every week a new release about how they are filtering content from places they don't like.

Here is what we really want: a fair, flat playing field for everyone, and everyone who wants free speech can have free speech on the internet. If you want to start a new business, you can put up a website on the internet, and you don't have to worry about somebody filtering you out. This is not China--a place where they will filter out and decide whether you can put your content out. This is the United States of America, and everybody wants their content to be able to go out, to be fair, and not to have someone judge it. That is what we want with an open internet. By the way, that is what you have if the Federal Trade Commission goes back to regulating, as they have for 20 years.

I ask a simple question: Was the internet open and fair for content in 2015? I believe it was. If you check your history books from 3 years ago, I think you will find that the internet was open in 2015. Facebook was out there. Netflix was out there. YouTube was out there. It was open in 2015.

We are not talking about any set of rules that is different than how the internet operated in 2015. But what we don't want to have is two different sets of rules where this set of companies--Google and Facebook and Netflix--gets to tell a different set of companies, the fiber, how to do their business. Neither do we want the fiber companies telling the content folks how to run their businesses. Let them compete.

A lot of people say that there are only a few internet service providers that are out there. Well, in the United States, there are 4,500 internet service providers that are out there. Yes, there are some big ones, but there are a lot of small ones. If the big ones misbehave, guess what happens. Competition will beat them down, and those small companies will beat them because the big companies get out of line. It is the way America works and the way competition works when you keep it fair and open.

It is a misnomer to talk about net neutrality as if it is not neutral right now. There are a lot of fears and a lot of innuendos. There are a lot of accusations and what-ifs and maybe they will come out and I am afraid the boogeyman is going to come and take the over the internet. Really, what is happening is that two giant sets of companies are competing and asking the government to jump in the middle and the Googles and Facebooks and Netflix are asking this government to put restrictions to the internet service providers that they are not willing to actually have themselves.

Why don't we just do this: Let everyone compete and not try to have the government in between. Can we have net neutrality where we don't have blocking of content, where we have fair trade rules, where we make sure everyone gets access to the internet? Yes. We can have that when the Federal Trade Commission actually oversees those rules as they have for two decades.

There is a lot of hyperbole in this. I just wish there were more facts coming to the table at the same time the hyperbole is coming out.

The simplest conversation I can have is actually a conversation I had with a mayor not long ago. We were talking through the complexity of this and about fiber networks and about broadband and capabilities and speed and all these things.

He said: Hold on. I am a mayor. Can we talk about water pipes for a minute?

I said: Sure.

He said: So what you are telling me is there is lots of water going into the water pipe and lots of people who are using that water, and we have to find a fair way to be able to get all that water out because there is more water trying to get into that pipe than we can actually get out on the other end, and it is backing up.

I said: Yes, sir. That is exactly what I am saying, but it is zeros and ones running through a piece of fiber, not water running through a pipe.

He said: I can get that. Let's just keep it fair so that every person who wants to get access to it can get access to it and we are not discriminating on the water coming through the pipe.

It is pretty easy. We can do that right now with the Federal Trade Commission.

Tomorrow, I am chairing the hearing in the subcommittee that I lead in Appropriations. We will have the Chairman of the FCC and the Chairman of the FTC sit down for a 2-hour conversation, and I am sure much of it will be on this issue of net neutrality. My encouragement is for people to actually listen in to get the facts about net neutrality and not the emotion and not what the Googles and Facebooks and NetFlix are telling you what to think, because they are competing against the other guys. Come and get the real facts. We will lay the facts on the table.

If there is an area that needs to be handled with new regulations, I would be glad to engage, but quite frankly, I think the internet needs the lightest touch possible. I don't see a reason why the Federal Government should get in the business of free speech and tell people what they can and can't say. Let's keep the internet open and free and fair and not block content, but let's also not try to jump between two sets of megacompanies and pick winners and losers at the same time. Let's keep it open and stay out of the business of telling businesses how to run their businesses.

Mr. President, I yield back.

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