Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

THE INTERNET

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, tomorrow in the other body, the House of Representatives, they will begin debating one of the most important communications issues facing our country--the future of the Internet.

Since the other body will begin that discussion shortly and we have had debate beginning in the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Stevens who worked so cooperatively with Senator Inouye, I wish to take a few minutes and talk about why I think this issue is so important and what the stakes are for our country.

We all understand what has been so exciting about the Internet. The Internet has been a tremendously democratizing force, ensuring that in every nook and cranny of America, opportunities are there for Americans to learn, to tap the free enterprise system and to secure health care to name a few. This is an extraordinary array of opportunities.

Today on the Internet, after you have paid your access charge to use the Net, you go where you want, when you want, how you want, free of discrimination because you have paid that one original access charge.

Unfortunately, there are huge communications lobbies, consisting particularly of some of the major phone companies and some of the major cable companies, that want to change the way the Internet works. They would like to make consumers and businesses in our country pay tomorrow for what is free today.

Today, when small businesses or consumers pay their Internet access charge, they can go wherever they want, whenever they want, however they want, without racking up extra charges and without facing discrimination. Unfortunately, these big communications lobbies would like to change that. For example, we see reports in distinguished business publications, such as the Wall Street Journal. They talk there about communications plans that are ``pay to play.'' If you were going to go to a variety of Web sites, under the approach they are proposing in the Wall Street Journal, the Web sites or the consumer would have to pay every time they went to one of these Web sites, in order to get good quality service.

I don't think that is right. I think that is discrimination. I think it is discriminating against consumers, I think it is discriminating against small businesses. I think it will do extraordinary damage to the inherent beauty of the Internet, which has been all about a fair shake for every American, for every consumer.

In an effort to spin this discrimination by the big cable companies and big phone companies against the consumers, the big lobbies are engaged in a huge advertising blitz. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, these big lobbies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements to convince the American people that discrimination and these extra charges they would face on the Internet are actually good for consumers and businesses.

If it is so good for the consumer, why are these lobbies spending millions of dollars on these advertisements to tell the American people about it? If discrimination was so good, wouldn't consumers have been interested in paying higher prices a long time ago?

It is hard to open the pages of a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing an advertisement urging people to stop Congress from ``regulating the Internet.'' One trade association has even placed ads in the airports around Washington, DC, hoping Senators and Representatives traveling back to their States will see them. I can't imagine the executives of these large corporations would commit such large sums to advertising if they didn't think these kinds of advertisements would pay off handsomely in profits.

Groups, such as Hands Off the Internet, a front group for some of the big communications lobbies, have offered some eye-popping ads. Look at this recent ad, for example, in which they display a copy of my legislation, the Internet Nondiscrimination Act. The only thing accurate about this ad is the top page of my bill. It has my name on it. It clearly says the ``Internet Nondiscrimination Act,'' but just about everything else is dead wrong. What they have done is falsely add what looks like hundreds, if not thousands, of pages to my bill. This is how they demonstrate what my legislation is all about. Here is the reality, Mr. President. Here is what they say I propose. However, this is just not accurate. Here is what my legislation looks like, what the big communications lobbies ought to describe as the real world; a piece of legislation that is 15 pages long.

The bill I have introduced, this 15-page bill, doesn't look like anything along the lines of what the big communications lobbies are spending such vast sums on saying it looks like.

There is an even more disturbing misrepresentation in this ad. It says, stamped up at the top, ``regulation.'' My legislation isn't about regulation. All I want is to leave the Internet alone. I don't want it to be subject to discriminatory changes, changes that would hit the American consumer in the pocket.

I think any fairminded American who looks at my record will see that I have never sought to regulate the Internet. On the contrary, when I came to the Senate, I was a leader in the effort to keep the Internet free of discriminatory taxes. I fought to keep the Internet free of regulation. Now I am trying to keep control of the Internet in the hands of the American people and not force Americans in this country to pay tomorrow for what is free today.

If you looked at these advertisements, Mr. President, you would think that neutrality is some newfangled idea that threatens the Internet. Net neutrality is what we have today, and the Internet has thrived precisely because it is neutral. It has thrived because consumers, and not some huge phone company or some huge cable company, get to choose what they want to see and how quickly they get to see it.

I want to make it clear that those of us who are fighting to keep the Net neutral, which means that when you go to your browser, you go where you want, when you want, how you want, after you pay that initial access charge, are not interested in regulating anything. The people who want to make the changes, the big telecom and cable lobbies, are the ones who want to meddle with the Internet. They want to put their hands on the Internet so they can heap all these extra charges on the American people.

Right now there is a small business, a craft maker, in Tigard, OR, who has a Web site where she sells her products all over the world. If these big lobbies have their way, she will have to pay a new hefty fee so customers can continue to have the same access to her Web site. That is not right. The consumer, after they pay that initial access charge, ought to be able to go where they want, when they want, how they want to get there. To make them pay tomorrow for what they get for free today is wrong.

Colleagues are waiting to speak. I had anticipated spending a bit more time on this, but I think this ad says it all. We ought to
of discrimination. We ought to protect consumers against multiple and discriminatory access charges. The next time somebody sees one of these ads, ads that seem to have millions of dollars of lobby money backing them up, they ought to know that this which purports to represent my legislation is false. What is in this ad suggests scores and scores of pages. The reality is my bill to keep the Internet free of discrimination and protect the consumer is 15 pages long.

This argument at the top of the ad that there will be a host of Net-neutrality regulations is similarly false. It is not about regulating anything on the Internet. I want to keep the Internet the way it is--an open, vibrant system, accessible to all.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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