[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 202 (Tuesday, December 12, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7961-S7963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Net Neutrality

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the Trump administration's 
irresponsible plans to dismantle net neutrality.
  This is a very important and timely issue for Rhode Islanders. The 
Federal Communications Commission's--the FCC's--efforts to repeal net 
neutrality protections could have a devastating impact on students, 
small businesses, and ordinary Rhode Islanders who cannot afford to pay 
higher premiums on internet traffic.
  I have joined many of my Democratic colleagues in urging the FCC to 
abandon its reckless plan because it would radically alter the free and 
open internet as we know it and be an abdication of the FCC's 
responsibility to protect consumers.
  Net neutrality does something incredibly important. It requires 
internet providers to treat all data equally. Net neutrality ensures a 
level playing field for everyone on the internet. It means free and 
open access to websites and information.
  Over the past 20 years, the internet has become central to the lives 
of Rhode Islanders and, indeed, millions of Americans--practically 
every American. From students completing homework assignments to small 
businesses conducting e-commerce, or family members communicating with 
loved ones on the other side of the country or the world, the internet 
is now our primary means of communication. As such, I believe this is 
an issue of fundamental fairness and equality of opportunity.
  This proposed repeal of net neutrality protections undermines the 
principles of a free and open internet and could be an unprecedented 
giveaway to big broadband providers, benefiting a few large 
corporations at the expense of their customers who use and rely on 
affordable access to the internet every day.
  Net neutrality protections also ensure that all content is treated 
equally. Without these rules, large internet service providers may 
choose to block, throttle, or prioritize certain internet traffic. 
Without these protections, big internet service providers will be given 
the power to erect virtual toll booths for some customers and fast 
lanes for others. As a result, the repeal of net neutrality rules will 
likely be bad for consumers, businesses, students, and everyday 
Americans who cannot afford to pay additional premiums for internet 
access.
  If these rules are repealed, internet providers can essentially say, 
if you want a quick download from a Web site, you have to pay more. 
They can go to businesses and ask them to pay more for this fast 
service. They can't do that today. Everyone is treated equally.
  This is particularly important when it comes to small businesses. As 
I go around Rhode Island to small businesses, as I have done these last 
few weeks, one of the reasons they are growing is because they are 
starting to take a presence on the internet. They have an internet 
business; they are beginning to sell across the country or across the 
globe. A small business in Wickford, RI, East Greenwich, RI, or 
Smithfield, RI, is not going to be able to pay the same premium for 
access that Amazon or a big corporation like Walmart can, and they will 
be squeezed further. The reason a lot of these small businesses are 
able to keep a store open in Rhode Island--or anyplace else in the 
country--and employ local workers is because they are starting to see a 
share of their profit come from the internet. They would like to see 
that grow, but if that diminishes, then the pressure on them to stay in 
business locally becomes acute.
  These are real consequences, not hypothetical. If these rules are 
repealed and net neutrality is done away with, the consequences for 
businesses, communities, and individuals will be significant.
  Let me make another example. Places of learning like our libraries, 
schools, and institutions of higher education all rely on offering 
internet access, which is already expensive. I did a press event at a 
public library, and they pay significant amounts of money so they have 
broadband access, and it is a mecca for everyone to come. The head 
librarian told me that they have people sitting on their doorsteps in 
the morning before they open and after they close so they can get a 
broadband signal from the library. Why are they doing that? You can't 
get a job today unless you can get online because that is where they 
post job offerings, that is where you have to send your resume, that is 
where you have to get the response back when you have a job interview. 
If you can't get on the internet, the chances of getting a job today 
are close to zero. It was a lot different 20, 30, or 40 years ago, when 
you could go down to the factory, fill out the form, pass it over the 
divider to the person in charge, and they would give you a telephone 
call back or you would come back in a few days and see how you were 
doing.
  Local libraries are also the place where students across Rhode Island 
and the Nation gain access to the internet to do their homework, apply 
to college and financial aid, and explore the world around them. This 
is particularly the case in poorer neighborhoods. They can't afford to 
have computers or internet in their home. If you go to the public 
library in South Providence, right next to St. Michael's Church, in the 
afternoon, the kids are all there and are on the computers doing their 
homework. They can't do

[[Page S7962]]

that, in many cases, at home. They simply don't have the access.

  We are always sitting around here talking about how we have to 
educate our young people and how we have to get them ready for a 
technologically challenging world, and then we are about to pull the 
rug right out from underneath them because that library will not be 
able to afford access to some sites that these young people need.
  It is not just the young people who are using the libraries; it is 
also seniors who want to stay in touch with their families. There are 
functions that are so critical--as I mentioned before, you literally 
cannot apply for a job today unless you can get online. How does a 
person struggling, particularly in low-income, working-class 
neighborhoods, get online when they can't afford already expensive 
service, which could be more expensive if these rules are withdrawn and 
net neutrality is abandoned?
  I heard about all of this in detail when I visited the Providence 
Public Library. Providence is an urban center, so there are other ways, 
perhaps, to compensate for access to libraries. But when you go to a 
rural area, those libraries are especially important. More than 83 
percent of libraries report that they serve as their community's only 
provider of free internet and computing services in rural areas. If you 
need free service, the only place you can go to is the library. This is 
going to put another cost on them at a time when public-private support 
is being diminished.
  We have a tax bill pending before us that is going to eviscerate 
charitable contributions. It is going to take away the deduction. Some 
of that money goes to our public libraries. If it doesn't go there, 
they will not have access.
  I mentioned small businesses because, as I said, this is particularly 
critical. We have seen an improving economy, and for a lot of small 
businesses, that is because they are starting to have a presence on the 
internet. If that presence now comes with a higher price because the 
providers can say that if you want to get access and fast downloads, 
you have to pay X, once again, that X to a small mom-and-pop business 
could be huge. That X to an Amazon or Walmart is just a rounding error.
  We know it is going to happen. It is not fair. It undercuts what we 
think is the heart and soul--I know it is the heart and soul of our 
economy in Rhode Island for small business, and it is another big 
benefit for the well-to-do businesses that can pay more and will pay 
more. This is not a direction we should be going.
  Even more disturbing is that the FCC's proposed action may be based 
on a skewed public record. As we all know, under the Administrative 
Procedure Act, when a rule or change is proposed, they have to take 
public comments. There are credible reports that bots--the electronic 
networks of computers--impersonating Americans filed hundreds of 
thousands of phony comments to the FCC during their net neutrality 
policymaking process, thus distorting the public record. Their 
supposedly fact-based and comment-based approach could be fictitious. 
It could be a product of special interests who decided to link together 
thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands, of computers that randomly 
generated messages--or not so randomly, but deliberately generated 
messages.
  What we have done is join our colleagues, and we have urged that the 
FCC abandon this proposal. As I said, I have joined many of my 
colleagues in asking, at least, that the FCC delay the vote on net 
neutrality until it can conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that 
it has a clear and accurate understanding of the public's view on this 
important topic. It is not based on a group of individuals and many 
electronically linked computers; it is based on the true sentiment of a 
broad range of the public. At least delay the proceeding until you can 
assure us that.
  Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. This attempt 
appears to be part of a larger program the Trump administration is 
using to roll back regulations that protect ordinary working men and 
women throughout the country. The Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, and 
the administration seem to say, very deliberately, that this is their 
goal. Just roll back regulations, without analysis that is appropriate, 
without a sensitivity to the benefits as well as the costs.
  My view is that rather than trying to limit access to the internet, 
they should be doing things to make it easier, make it cheaper for 
small businesses, for libraries, for individual Americans to get on and 
use the internet, not to take advantage of the rulemaking process to 
fatten the bottom line of big companies that are doing quite well 
already.
  It is clear that the FCC should not vote this week, or ever, to 
repeal net neutrality protections that have benefited so many Rhode 
Islanders and Americans. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposition 
to the FCC's proposed dismantling of the net neutrality rules. It is 
important. It is important for our constituents. It is important for 
our small businesses. It is important for our future generations as 
they prepare for a very complicated and challenging world, and, for 
some of them, the only way to get access to the computer is the public 
library. The only access for a small business to the new marketplace on 
the net is being able to afford to be on the net. That is all in 
jeopardy today. I hope we can stop these net neutrality rule appeals, 
and do it immediately.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as a U.S. Senator, one of the most 
important and consequential choices I make is whether or not to support 
a judicial nominee.
  The men and women of the bench are often the final gatekeepers of our 
Nation's justice system--and the right kind of judge shows up to work 
every day to make the system work for every citizen, free from 
prejudice or bias.
  With that principle in mind, I strongly oppose the three nominees for 
the circuit court whose nominations are before the U.S. Senate.
  While President Trump has the right to make nominations, Members of 
this Senate also have the right to reject those nominations.
  It is clear, based on the records of the three nominees before us, 
that is exactly what Members of this Senate ought to do.
  Vote no.
  Don't be a rubberstamp for this President's hateful agenda or his 
obvious disdain for the rule of law.
  The first nominee this Senate should reject is Leonard Grasz, whom 
President Trump picked to serve on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  Mr. Grasz is a notable nominee but for all the wrong reasons.
  He is notable because his peers at the American Bar Association 
unanimously found Mr. Grasz ``not qualified''--just the third nominee 
in nearly 30 years to receive this distinction.
  The ABA report shows his peers questioned whether Mr. Grasz could 
look past his ``deeply-held social agenda and political loyalty to be 
able to judge objectively, with compassion and without bias.
  These are serious red flags--and it is unconscionable for any of my 
colleagues to turn a blind eye to relevant information regarding Mr. 
Grasz's ability to do his job fairly.
  I am also disturbed by the willingness of several of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle to slander the nonpartisan ABA as some sort 
of liberal front group instead of evaluating its factual assessment.
  The ABA has done this body a great service of neutral and fair 
evaluation over many decades, for which Members of the Senate should be 
grateful.
  I also have grave concerns regarding Don Willett, one of two nominees 
for the Fifth Circuit.
  Mr. Willett has been unabashed in his criticism of equal rights for 
women--expressing caustic views on pay equity, justice for sexual 
assault survivors, and age discrimination.
  He has resisted equality for LGBTQ Americans and defied the key same-
sex marriage ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
  No judge who thumbs their nose at the Supreme Court is fit for a 
lifetime appointment.
  No person who compares the right of one person to marry the person 
they love to a ``right to marry bacon'' is fit to administer justice in 
this country.
  President Trump's other nominee for the Fifth Circuit, James Ho, has 
a similarly disturbing track record on LGBTQ rights.
  He has also called for eliminating all restrictions on campaign 
finance and is

[[Page S7963]]

an ardent defender of giving the executive branch even more power.
  I can see why President Trump would want Mr. Ho on the court, but Mr. 
Ho's pattern of giving more leeway to the executive branch should be 
deeply concerning to everyone else.
  In sum, the three nominees President Trump sent to this Senate for 
review fall far short of the standards this Senate should demand or 
that this country deserves.
  I want to make clear that these nominees have a completely backward 
and harmful record on women's constitutionally protected reproductive 
rights--and would seek to undermine Roe v. Wade.
  Stacking our courtrooms with judges who will bend to the will of one 
President's hateful, divisive agenda is wrong--and will not be 
forgotten.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a stand. 
Reject President Trump's politically driven attacks on women's health 
and rights. Reject efforts to chip away at fundamental rights and 
respect for the LGBTQ community, and reject his judicial nominees who 
will serve only to give him the green light to expand his own power.
  Vote no on circuit court nominees Leonard Grasz, Don Willett, and 
James Ho.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise to vote against Leonard Grasz's 
nomination to serve as a circuit judge for the Eight Circuit. Mr. Grasz 
is one of two Trump judicial nominees who has received an 
``unqualified'' ranking from the nonpartisan American Bar Association, 
ABA. I am appalled that Republicans advanced this nominee out of the 
Judiciary Committee and are bringing this vote to the floor.
  Republicans have made it their mission to fill our judiciary with 
radical ideologues. The Trump administration has outsourced judicial 
nominations to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, and 
their nominees have included a nominee who believed in corporal 
punishment, one who questioned the constitutionality of the 14th 
Amendment, and one equated a woman's right to an abortion to chattel 
slavery. Many of these nominees are simply unfit to serve and 
undeserving of the prestige of receiving a lifetime appointment.
  No judge nominated by the Obama administration received an 
``unqualified'' ABA rating. When asked to clarify their rating for Mr. 
Grasz, a spokesperson for the ABA said that ``[t]he evaluators and the 
Committee found that [Mr. Grasz's] temperament issues, particularly 
bias and lack of open-mindedness, were problematic. The evaluators 
found that the people interviewed believed that the nominee's bias and 
the lens through which he viewed his role as a judge colored his 
ability to judge fairly.'' I am disappointed that, instead of insisting 
on qualified nominees, my colleagues have decided to instead attack the 
ABA's ranking system.
  I sincerely hope that many of my colleague across the aisle will vote 
no against this nominee and demand more from the Trump administration.
  Mr. REED. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.