Disapproving the Rule Submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with Respect to Regulating the Internet and Broadband Industry Practices

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor and strong supporter of this resolution of disapproval.

Once again, we are witnessing a government regulation we do not need. There is a reason when we talk about today's economy that we talk about the cost of government overreach. Unnecessary regulations put a wet blanket on job creation, and they work against getting our economy back on track. This is a perfect example of the government standing in the way of growth and investment.

The Internet and its associated applications should be allowed to develop without excessive FCC redtape. The Internet owes a great deal of its rapid success to innovators and entrepreneurs who had the freedom to imagine, to explore, and to create. With the FCC acting as a traffic cop, this freedom will be compromised.

The subjective rules of the road, as laid out by the FCC, are a prescription for uncertainty within the industry. By handing over more power to a government agency, net neutrality rules slam the brakes on potential investment and new innovation. The ideas that should make our Internet faster, more secure, and better for consumers fall by the wayside. At the end of the day, the American consumer would suffer. The broadband marketplace would simply offer fewer services, fewer devices, and less content to paying customers.

The FCC order reads that Internet providers ``shall not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.'' It goes on to say that providers ``shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer's broadband Internet access service.''

But the terms ``lawful'' and ``reasonable'' are not easily defined. Under the order, what is lawful and what is reasonable would be determined by unelected bureaucrats. The FCC would rule as a de facto police of the open and free Internet. The FCC would be the final arbiter of what broadband service providers can and cannot do. Its judgments--not the market or the consumer--would determine how networks would be managed. The FCC is claiming to have an authority that the American public did not grant it.

The hands of the Internet service providers will be tied when the FCC has this kind of power. Without being able to run their own networks, service providers cannot maximize the online experience for the vast majority of their customers. They are, in essence, prevented from doing what they were established to do.

Equally troubling is that the Commission's order is trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Today's consumers have greater access to more Internet services than ever before. Where is the problem? Businesses have invested tens of billions of dollars in new broadband infrastructure. Internet entrepreneurs continue to offer new services to broadband users. There is no economic justification for this unprecedented intrusion into the marketplace. Policy should benefit the public, and these FCC rules do not.

In conclusion, we have seen this movie before, with regulation where regulation is not needed. Again, here we have a regulatory recipe that would produce far-reaching and damaging effects. The current landscape has allowed the Internet to grow exponentially. It is a free market of competition, productivity, and growth. The FCC's regulatory intrusion is completely unwarranted.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source