[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 203 (Wednesday, December 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7987-S7990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Net Neutrality
Mr. President, almost 60 years ago, America entered the space age. We
pushed the bounds of human knowledge to do, see, and create things that
fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. The government was
right smack at the center of all of it, dedicating resources and
manpower to explorations of science, medicine, engineering, and
technology. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA,
was a product of that commitment, and it was there at DARPA that a
bunch of government and government-funded researchers created the
internet.
In the intervening decades, what started in that government Agency
provided the building blocks for what we experience as the internet
today. Creative minds in government, at colleges and universities, in
businesses, and at homes and garages all across the country toyed and
tinkered and pushed us into the digital age.
Today, internet use is nearly universal. Although internet access
remains limited in many rural and low-income areas, students of all
ages go online to access educational tools and conduct research for
many school assignments. Entrepreneurs and small businesses sell goods
and transact business online. Families come together to watch their
favorite movies or shows. The internet and broadband services have
become an important part of our lives.
Government is just as important now as it was back when the internet
was created. By enforcing and implementing America's communications
laws and rules, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, plays a
critical role in making sure that the internet remains fair and open.
In 2015, the FCC enshrined that commitment in an open internet order,
establishing net neutrality rules--strong, public interest rules that
prevented big companies from deciding how or when we use the internet,
rules that have the overwhelming support of the vast majority of
Americans, Republican or Democrat.
But big internet companies don't want the FCC to work in the public
interest; they want the internet to work for them. Long before the FCC
passed net neutrality rules, those giants were working to establish
control over the open internet. After net neutrality rules were passed,
they stepped up their attack, deploying armies of lobbyists and lawyers
and investing massive amounts of money to bury net neutrality rules.
Now they have the champagne chilled and ready to pop open. They have
a President and a GOP-controlled Congress that is more interested in
stuffing the pockets of the rich and powerful than taking care of the
workers, small businesses and entrepreneurs, students, children, the
sick, the elderly, and just about everybody else. President Trump's
choice to lead the FCC, Ajit Pai, is dedicated to transforming the FCC
from an agency that works in the public interest into a big business
giveaway group.
Pai has been a vocal opponent of net neutrality rules for a very long
time. After President Trump won the election, Pai gleefully declared
that net neutrality's days were numbered. Pai claims that
nondiscrimination rules harm giant internet companies by making it more
difficult for them to create new and better products. He thinks that if
these giants can discriminate against small businesses or individuals,
then these giants can pick who gets the fast lane into your television
set and who is stuck off on the dirt roads. If these giants can dictate
which startups get a foothold and which ones are left on the ground,
then the giants will be better off. Of course, he is right--the giants
will be better off, but everyone else will be a lot worse off.
Chairman Pai is so committed to these internet giants that he is
willing to rewrite the Federal rules in order to help them out. He is
even willing to rewrite the rules so State and local governments won't
be allowed to pass any consumer protection laws to protect their own
citizens. Chairman Pai's notion of a fair and open internet is one that
works for the highest bidder and it just leaves everyone else behind.
Tomorrow, the FCC will vote on whether to eliminate the protections
that ensure that the internet remains fair and open to all Americans--
protections that the vast majority of Americans support. Pai has
barrelled full speed ahead despite disturbing reports that potentially
hundreds of thousands of comments submitted during the public comment
period were fake, and he has ignored the FCC's responsibility to turn
over documents of consumer complaints about discriminatory behavior by
internet providers.
If the FCC eliminates net neutrality protections, giant internet
companies will pop open those champagne bottles. They will have the
power to block access, to filter content, to charge more--three
powerful ways that they will pick the next round of America's winners
and losers. That is not the way it should work in America. The internet
doesn't belong to big internet companies; it belongs to all of us, and
all of us should be part of this fight.
Net neutrality matters. For the entrepreneur working around the clock
on a shoestring budget to build an invention that can change the world,
net neutrality matters. For the small family business that depends on
online customers to keep its lights on and its doors open, net
neutrality matters. For the blog writer or local journalist who works
each day to bring us important news about our communities, our
government, and our world, net neutrality matters. For every American
who uses the internet for any reason, net neutrality matters.
Ingenuity is in America's DNA. It is that spirit of curiosity and
adventure that has put us at the forefront of the search for what is
next. Government works best when it makes sure everyone has equal
access to the resources that make that possible.
In Massachusetts, Free Press, the Massachusetts Chapter of the ACLU,
Fight for the Future, and countless other groups have led the fight to
defend net neutrality and help citizens make their voices heard.
I urge every American to speak out about why net neutrality matters.
I urge the FCC to abandon its plan to kill net neutrality rules, and I
ask the FCC to defend an internet that is fair and open to all.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I introduced the Senate's first strong net
neutrality bill back in 2006. I rise today to give my strongest
possible condemnation of what the Federal Communications Commission's
head, Mr. Pai, is seeking to do, which is to roll back protections that
ensure a truly free and open internet for our people.
This is a handout. It is a holiday gift to a collection of giant
internet companies to increase their profits at the expense of the
consumer.
Before I actually begin my remarks, I see Senator Franken is on the
floor, as well. I would like the public to know how important his
leadership has been on these issues. He and I have partnered on these
issues ever since he came to the Senate. He was on the key committee,
the Judiciary Committee. He has been a go-to figure in a key spot on
this issue.
I want to continue this discussion after Senator Warren's terrific
presentation. I know my colleague is going to speak on this, as well.
I want the public to know that Senator Franken has made a big
difference for the consumer on these issues. Those
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of us who have been toiling in these precincts are very appreciative of
what he has done.
I want people to understand what net neutrality is, because Senator
Franken and I have talked about this over the years. I think there is a
little confusion over what it is. Net neutrality means that after you
pay your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you
want, and how you want. It is the essence of ensuring that everybody
gets a fair shake, that all bits are created equal. It is the
foundation of what has kept the internet free and open.
Before I get into my prepared remarks, I want people to understand
what happens if you don't have net neutrality. If you don't have net
neutrality, in effect, big companies can manipulate who is going to win
and who is going to lose in the marketplace. They will continue to
manipulate who wins and who loses until and after we get fewer services
and the consumer gets higher prices. So this is not some kind of
abstract discussion.
Let me flesh out some of these remarks for a few minutes because I
know my colleagues have been waiting, as well.
Since the origins of the internet, the defining feature has been that
all information--all bits, as we know it--gets the same fair shake. If
you are a big company or a mom-and-pop ice cream shop with a website,
your content gets to everybody's home at the same speed. That is what
net neutrality is all about. Net neutrality keeps internet service
providers from favoring one type of content over another.
The market has changed since 2006 because the market for access to
the internet has changed. Where once there were legions of dial-up
providers and DSL resellers, we were seeing a few monopolies and
duopolies dominating neighborhoods across the country. With their power
to dictate where you could go and what you could see on the net, they
had and continue to have the power to suppress those sites and those
services that you would have chosen yourself in a free marketplace,
driving them out of business.
Again, to lay out what this means for people who are following this,
that means that instead of Netflix, YouTube, or Amazon, you could be
forced to get your video content from something called go90, whatever
the heck that is. It certainly isn't a service that has been able to
compete in a free internet market. But all that changes when Verizon
can charge you more to get to YouTube or Facebook than it costs to
reach their own service.
Without strong net neutrality protections, AT&T might provide--and we
always put it in quotes--``free data'' for customers streaming
HBO. That is pretty good if you watch HBO, but without net neutrality,
it could starve other creators and subscribers necessary to survive,
until soon enough, as Senator Franken has pointed out in some of our
discussions, free data is gone. That is it. Free data goes away, and
the American consumer--which is my fear when you think about what it
really means to somebody sitting in Minnesota at home, and I see my
colleague Senator Merkley from Oregon as well. The free data goes away
under what I described, and the consumer at home in Minnesota or Oregon
is stuck with few choices at higher prices than they have today. That
is what the loss of net neutrality means.
I care deeply, as my colleagues do, about innovation and startups and
small businesses. Senator Warren was eloquent on this point. There are
going to be a lot of people who aren't a startup. They are going to
ask: What does it mean to me? What it means--I have just walked people
through an example--is, that typical person is going to be stuck with
fewer choices at higher prices.
Two years ago, Tom Wheeler, then the head of the Federal
Communications Commission, put in place a strong framework, something
with teeth that was enforceable, called title II of the Communications
Act, to make sure the government, the FCC, had the tools to protect net
neutrality.
Chairman Wheeler, like Chairman Pai, worked for industry for much of
his career in Washington, but rather than serve his former employers,
Tom Wheeler said: I am going to use my experience working in the
private sector, my experience in how companies operate, to design and
implement constructive and effective consumer protections. What a
contrast between the two Chairs of the Federal Communications
Commission. Both of them are from industry. Both of them did well in
industry. We consider it a good thing in America that we have a
prospering private economy. Tom Wheeler used it and that expertise to
help the public. That is not what we are seeing today.
There isn't any need to fix what isn't broken. There are strong net
neutrality protections in place right now. Since the 2015 rules went
into place, our economy has grown up around this leading principle of
equal access to information and customers.
The day before Thanksgiving, Chairman Pai released his proposal to
strike down the 2015 rules that ensure real net neutrality but also
prevent States from introducing their own approach to net neutrality.
Rather than listening to the millions of voices who spoke up on
behalf of real net neutrality and against this proposal to allow pay-
for-play or what I really call--I say to the Senator from Minnesota--a
trickle-down telecommunications policy, which is to just let the big
guys make as much money as they want, and maybe something eventually
trickles down to rural Minnesota or rural Oregon.
Chairman Pai is going to keep pushing pay-for-play and is expected to
ignore the will of the public and demolish net neutrality rules.
The first key vote is tomorrow, December 14. What I have been doing
is spending a good chunk of my waking hours--obviously, we have the tax
issue, which is enormously important. This is enormously important,
too, to tell the American people this is a time to make their voices
heard. My message to the American people on net neutrality is to get
loud. This debate is far from over.
We know Chairman Pai plays a strong hand tomorrow--there is no
question about that--but then it goes to the courts. Some of our
colleagues are looking at approaches here on the floor. I want, as much
as anything, to make sure the American people know we understand--
Senator Franken and Senator Merkley--that political change doesn't
start in government buildings in Washington, DC, and trickle down is
bottoms up. If ever there was an issue for bottoms up, it is net
neutrality.
Not only are the majority of Americans opposed to Chairman Pai's
proposal, many of the comments solicited for input are fake. These fake
comments have been attributed to bots and false identities or linked to
Russian IP addresses.
Any argument that this agency, the Federal Communications Commission,
has a transparent process with comments from the American people is not
true. This is not government for the people. This is government for the
special interests.
Just a couple of other points, and let me wrap this up so my
colleagues can have the floor.
Chairman Pai has been out there arguing falsely, in my view, that
without title II protections, Big Cable will make more money and use
those profits to invest in infrastructure. This is what I call the
trickle-down theory about telecommunications.
First of all, the existing regime was called title II--tough rules.
It has not been a roadblock in investment and broadband. In fact, cable
giants have continued to invest in broadband infrastructure even when
strong net neutrality protections were put in place in 2015.
Publicly available documents show that investment by internet service
providers was 5 percent higher during the 2 years after strong net
neutrality rules were adopted than for the 2 years prior. Comcast, for
example, has increased its investment by 25 percent since 2013.
Big Cable, in their own statements, show that none of the major
internet service providers told their investors that net neutrality
protections negatively impact their investments. That is based on
publicly verifiable documents.
What we have is Chairman Pai making the argument that net neutrality
provisions with teeth are going to be pretty much the end of investment
and sort of Western civilization as we know it. Public documents show
otherwise.
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Publicly available documents show otherwise.
The FCC Chairman once claimed that a policy of voluntary net
neutrality would be another way to go. Any talk of a voluntary solution
to net neutrality is just nonsense.
Allowing a net neutrality provider to follow net neutrality has about
as much of a chance of working--there is about as much of a chance that
the big cable companies will honor voluntary net neutrality as there is
of getting Ava and William Wyden, my 10-year-old twins, to voluntarily
limit the number of desserts they have at dinner. It is not going to
happen. It is not going to happen, folks. It is not going to work for
open and fair access to the internet; it wouldn't work with Ava and
Will Wyden.
On the same exact date as the Federal Communications Commission
produced its rulemaking rollback to title II, Comcast removed the
pledge on its website that it does not prioritize internet traffic or
create paid fast lanes--so much for voluntary policy.
In my view, the only way the potential of the internet can be fully
tapped is by ensuring that one form of content is not provided a
preference over another form of content by their internet service
provider.
The Trump Federal Communications Commission is barreling ahead to
blow up this level playing field that is so crucial to innovation and
free speech.
I close only by way of saying that this is also a lifeline for the
startups. Those startups are dreaming of being the next YouTube,
Google, or eBay. This is not about Google or eBay. This is about the
startups.
I would be staying to hear my colleague Senator Franken make his
remarks on net neutrality but for the fact that we are about to start
the tax conference. I close my remarks where I opened them. Senator
Franken has been our go-to person on these issues since he came to the
Senate. We are so grateful he looked at this issue through the prism of
what it means for the person without power and clout. I thank him for
his leadership.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Oregon, my
friend, for his extraordinarily kind words. He, too, has been a leader
introducing the first net neutrality bill back in 2006, before I came
to the Senate.
I rise to talk about tomorrow's vote at the FCC on a proposal that
would throw out the strong net neutrality rules Americans have fought
so hard for. They are rules that ensure that all content on the
internet receives equal treatment from broadband providers regardless
of who owns it or how deep their pockets are.
Plain and simple, these rules are about ensuring that the internet
remains the platform for innovation, economic growth, and freedom of
expression, as it has always been.
As I reflect on my time in the Senate, there are, of course, moments
that stand out as particularly significant. One such moment came in
February 2015, when American consumers and businesses celebrated the
FCC's landmark vote to preserve a free and open internet by
reclassifying broadband providers as common carriers under title II of
the Communications Act.
While I had long urged the FCC to ground net neutrality rules in the
agency's authority under title II, it wasn't just the outcome of this
vote that made such an impression on me then, or now, as I am looking
back.
The FCC's 2015 vote came after the agency received nearly 4 million
public comments, making it the then most commented on FCC issue by a
factor of three. The vast majority of these comments urged the agency
to enact strong rules protecting net neutrality, protecting the equal
treatment of all content on the internet, which has been the
architecture of the internet since the very beginning. Americans from
across the political spectrum organized to ensure that their voices
were heard, and they were. This was democracy in action.
Now, as Chairman Pai pushes forward to undo the open internet order,
we have seen another awe-inspiring demonstration of grassroots
advocacy. Millions of Americans from every corner of the Nation and
background imaginable are joining the movement online and in the
streets to ask the chairman to rethink his dangerous proposal and to
preserve net neutrality.
When things get tough, as they have, time and time again in the last
year, Americans have resisted in protest. It is these movements that
make the difference. Just look at the Republicans' failed attempt to
repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
Ironically, the kind of civic participation that has aspired so many
of us in recent months and has affected real change depends, in no
small part, on an open internet. If the Chairman ultimately has his
way, we will be entering a world where every voice might not matter, a
world where a handful of multibillion-dollar companies have the power
to bury sites offering alternative viewpoints or control how users get
their information, a world where the deepest pockets can pay for a fast
lane while their competitors stall in a slow lane.
See, it is because of net neutrality that people from across the
Nation can connect with each other, share their ideas on the internet,
and organize a community effort just like the Project Net Neutrality
protests we have seen at Verizon stores across the country.
I have spent nearly the entirety of my time in the Senate pushing for
strong net neutrality rules. I have always called it the ``free speech
issue of our time'' because it embraces our most basic constitutional
freedoms. Unrestricted public debate is vital to the functioning of our
democracy. Now, perhaps more than ever, the need to preserve a free and
open internet is abundantly clear, so we can't give up now.
Three years ago, the FCC sustained strong net neutrality rules, and
millions of Americans voiced their support for them. The FCC must
maintain and fully enforce the important court-tested rules that are
already in place. Also, perhaps more importantly, the agency must
respect the democratic process and the voices that made themselves so
clear in 2014 and over the course of the last few months. There is just
too much at stake.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for
being such a champion on this issue, and many others, where it is a
question of whether we have government of and by the powerful or
government by and for the people of the United States of America. We
have seen issue after issue after issue this year on healthcare, on
taxes, and now on net neutrality, and I thank the Senator from
Minnesota for his advocacy.
Mr. President, last night we had an election. I have heard many of my
colleagues on the Republican side say that elections have consequences.
Now, however, we see that they are attempting to deliberately slow down
the opportunity for the newly elected Senator from Alabama to come here
and serve in the U.S. Senate. They took quite a different view when the
question was a special election in Massachusetts, when a Republican
Senator was elected to take the seat once held by Ted Kennedy. The
Democrats concurred and the President of the United States, President
Obama, concurred that he should be seated; that nothing should be
jammed through in a fashion that tried to bypass the weight and opinion
of the people of the State of Massachusetts in who would represent
them. But this Chamber seems ready, under this majority leadership, to
absolutely try to trample the people of Alabama, who said where they
stand last night. This Chamber wants to deny them that voice here on
the floor of the Senate.
Back a few years ago, in June of 2013, there was a House election in
Missouri, and a Republican was elected to that empty seat. Jason
Kander, the Democratic secretary of state in Missouri, said that he
should absolutely be seated in Missouri's Eighth District. Jason Smith,
the candidate chosen by Missouri, was seated in the House of
Representatives, I believe within 18 hours--within 18 hours--so the
people of Missouri could have fair representation. So Democratic
Senators and a Democratic President and a Democratic secretary of state
in a Southern State said to honor the people of the United States. I
call upon the majority leader to defend the people of Alabama and seat
their Senator and do it under the same 18-hour standard.
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We are here today to talk about another example of the powerful
versus the people. We have seen time and time again, over the course of
the last few months, the President of the United States standing up for
the powerful and trying to crush the people of the United States,
trying to rip healthcare from 30 million Americans in order to give
special benefits to the richest Americans. We have seen the President
of the United States sign in the Oval Office a measure that would
enable a powerful company, when in a dispute with a consumer, to choose
the judge, to pay the judge, to promise a judge future business. What
kind of fairness is that for an ordinary American up against a powerful
company, where the powerful company gets to choose a judge? Yet my
Republican colleagues voted overwhelmingly to crush the opportunity of
an ordinary citizen versus a powerful company in a consumer dispute.
Then we have the tax bill. The tax bill says that if you earn less
than $30,000, you get a tax increase, and if you are in the middle
class, 87 million of you will get an increase in your taxes. And by the
way, we are going to give several trillion dollars to the very richest
Americans and the most powerful corporations. It is another example of
a bank heist on the National Treasury--our Treasury--to deliver
benefits to the best off, to the richest in America.
Oregon is about 1 percent of the national population. If you take 1
percent of $1 trillion, that is $10 billion. I can tell my colleagues
what we can do for families in Oregon with $10 billion. We can invest
in needed infrastructure to have a stronger economy and put a lot of
people to work with living-wage jobs. We can add teachers to our public
school classrooms so that our classrooms offer better opportunity for
our children to learn and to thrive. We can make college more
affordable. We can improve our community health clinics to make sure
healthcare is available to all, which is so critical to quality of
life. But no. My Republican colleagues say: Let's give this money to
the richest Americans. Let's raid the National Treasury and enrich the
best off among us.
That is because we have a fundamental cycle of corruption in
campaigns that is enabling such a bizarrely inappropriate bill to ever
get heard on the floor of the Senate. I say ``bizarrely inappropriate''
because our government wasn't founded to mimic the powerful kingdoms of
Europe that govern by and for the richest. We had a vision of
government of, by, and for the people.
Now we have this issue of net neutrality, and once again President
Trump and the Republicans are weighing in to crush ordinary people in
favor of powerful corporations. The internet has become essential to
all of us in our daily lives. We consult it to find out where to go to
a restaurant or what movies are playing. We check the internet to find
out what the sports scores are and what is the latest news. We order
our airline tickets. We do so many things on the internet during the
course of our everyday lives. Yet here is President Trump saying: We
want to take that level playing field of fairness for consumers across
America and let some powerful companies decide who gets to provide
information, which websites to allow to have information and which ones
we are going to slow down, whom we are going to put in the fast lane
and whom we are going to put in the slow lane.
The internet is so critical to the freedom of information. This is
really an assault on freedom of information. It was James Madison who
said that ``the advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only
guardian of true liberty.'' Yet my colleagues and President Trump want
to give powerful companies the ability to control what information is
shared in America.
Think of a highway. We have a highway and everyone gets to use it,
and you can be in the slow lane if you choose because you want to save
fuel, or you can get in the fast lane and pass somebody who is going
more slowly. We don't have someone saying: Hey, we are only going to
allow the richest Americans to drive in the fast lane. We are only
going to allow the most powerful corporations to be in the fast lane.
For the rest of you, you get to go to the slow lane. I don't care if
there is a truck going 25 miles per hour, you are going to be stuck
behind it unless you pay me a whole lot of money to get out of that
lane.
The internet for the rich and powerful is wrong, and we have to stop
it. If the Federal Communications Commission doesn't get the message
this Thursday, we need to overturn their rule here on the floor of the
Senate.
I get a chart each day showing me the calls from yesterday. Here I
have a bar saying how many people called about net neutrality and which
side of the issue they weighed in on. So 544 people called in favor of
net neutrality, and according to this chart, zero people called in
favor of powerful corporations instead controlling the internet. I have
since been informed we did get 1 call, so let's make it 544 to 1
instead of 544 to zero. Have you ever seen an issue where you have that
kind of ratio of ordinary people weighing in and saying: Don't let the
powerful take over our internet. People want a level playing field for
consumers, a level playing field for distributing knowledge, a level
playing field for entrepreneurs so that the new startups can compete
with the Googles and the Amazons of our country.
I ask you, if you had a choice between two websites last night to
follow the election in Alabama and one was in the fast lane and could
replenish its numbers instantly and one was going so slow that the
numbers were going to take 5 minutes to get posted, which site would
you have gone to? Of course you would have gone to the site that can
update quickly. That is the point.
We shouldn't allow powerful companies to extort Americans over the
information flowing through the internet. It is not fair to American
citizens. It is not fair to American entrepreneurs. It is not fair to
the distribution of knowledge. We must defeat it.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.