[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 203 (Wednesday, December 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7993-S7995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Net Neutrality

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am willing to wager that the term 
``net neutrality'' has no meaning to many Americans. It is a term that 
refers to a practice and a set of rules that are likely a total mystery 
to the vast majority of the people who are affected by them. As often 
happens in Washington, DC, the terms of art are highly technical and 
obtuse and obscure, but the effects of these rules matter to almost 
every American, openly, and they will be of increasing importance to 
Americans if the current net neutrality rules are reversed tomorrow.
  That is why I am here. The Federal Communications Commission, under 
the leadership of its new Chairman, Ajit Pai, has a reckless and 
needless plan to repeal those rules that are vital to a level playing 
field and fair access to consumers of the internet content that they 
value and need. To put it very simply, Chairman Pai's plan would 
disastrously disadvantage small businesses. It would harm our economy. 
It would threaten the internet's incredible success, including 
innovation. It would harm consumers by giving them higher prices and 
possibly lower speeds in accessing what they want from the internet.
  The background here is pretty simple. In 2015, the FCC adopted its 
open internet order to preserve the open nature of the internet. The 
internet has thrived on its openness. That is, in a sense, its spirit 
and its great advantage. It is uniquely American in that way--open and 
accessible.
  The order created three very bright line rules: no blocking, no 
throttling, no paid prioritization. Nobody could stop access or block 
it. Nobody could diminish the availability--no throttling and no paid 
authorization. That is to say that nobody is to get a benefit from 
faster speeds simply because he is paying more. Those rules really put 
the internet at stake--the vitality and innovative energy is at stake 
here.
  Blocked sites, slower speeds, fast lanes and slow lanes, and more 
fees will

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be our future on the internet if these rules are revoked, as Chairman 
Pai says they will be tomorrow. Some of today's internet service 
providers will benefit. They already have clear conflicts of interest. 
They own content companies. They want their customers to spend more 
time on their content. Comcast, for example, owns the media giant 
NBCUniversal. Verizon owns Yahoo and AOL.
  We are having a hearing this afternoon that involves Comcast and 
NBCUniversal, and I am deeply troubled by the expiration of the 
conditions that have been put on the merger. Those conditions help to 
protect competition and consumers. They have a questionable effect in 
that purpose, but even the modest comfort or protection they provide 
will completely evaporate as the conditions expire. So I will ask today 
that there be an investigation by the Department of Justice to sustain 
and continue those conditions and ask that the court that approved them 
actually extend them to meet the needs of competition and consumers.
  Our current net neutrality rules prevent companies from becoming 
gatekeepers, toll takers, in a way that favors their own content. If 
they are the gatekeepers and the toll takers, they are the ones who 
block, and they are the ones who collect the fees. If they have the 
ability to pick and choose between the content providers that belong to 
their competitors or the content providers that are independent, they 
are going to choose their own content providers. They are going to 
favor their own over the others. Gutting the net neutrality rules, in 
effect, gives them free rein to favor their own content and their own 
political views.
  If the internet service providers are able to block content or charge 
higher fees for access, eventually the ones who will suffer will be the 
consumers. They will pay higher prices, or the content will be slowed 
in reaching them. Make no mistake. Companies that are willing to pay 
the toll for fast lanes will transfer those costs to consumers. They 
are not going to just absorb the additional expense. The folks who have 
no idea what the term ``net neutrality'' means--who may have never 
heard it--are the ones who are going to pay the freight. They are going 
to be the ones who suffer the consequences.
  These rules are for a reason. They were not simply picked out of the 
air. They are not some product of some overactive regulatory 
imagination. They have meaning and consequence for ordinary people who 
use the internet, which is one of the economic giants of our 
generation. We are, in effect, throttling, blocking, and raising prices 
for the people who depend on innovation and access and openness.
  The right thing for Chairman Pai to do is to cancel tomorrow's party-
line vote and abandon this misguided plan to destroy the free and open 
internet. He is acting, in essence, at the behest of the economic 
giants--the cable companies--that stand to benefit because they will 
raise prices and favor their own content.
  No matter what he decides, the fight is only really beginning. We 
will no doubt bring legislation to the U.S. Senate--not an easy task to 
pass it. Any final action in the FCC unquestionably, undoubtedly, will 
be challenged in the courts. I am actually hopeful that we can avoid 
litigation. Litigation is always a last resort. But there will be 
litigation because the 2015 open internet order was actually based on 
10 years of evidence in a fact-based docket. Again, it was not pulled 
out of the air; it was based on factfinding and thought and redrafting 
that then, in fact, resulted in litigation that was upheld in the 
courts. In fact, in the court of appeals, it was judged to be legal and 
rationally rooted in real fact. That is the internet order that should 
be sustained.
  I hope that Chairman Pai will postpone this misguided plan. I hope 
that he will abandon it. There is no need to recklessly repeal the net 
neutrality rules without demonstrating a significant and substantial 
change in factual circumstances. That is what is required statutorily--
a significant and substantial change in factual circumstances to 
justify revoking and repealing a rule that was based on circumstance 
and fact.
  In the meantime, millions of Americans have already given their 
opinions. They have weighed in. They have said to the FCC: Stop playing 
with the internet in a way that favors the big guys--the cable 
companies--the ones who will block or throttle and raise prices.
  We should not allow Chairman Pai to silence their comments, to ignore 
them, or disregard them.
  The FCC has a responsibility here. It is a public trust. It matters 
to the millions of Americans who have never heard and will probably 
never hear that term ``net neutrality'' and who will never understand 
what its consequences are until they see them personally, up close, 
firsthand--higher prices, blocking, throttling. That is the evil we can 
and must avoid.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


     National Endowment for the Art and National Endowment for the 
                           Humanities Funding

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the 
vital importance of the connection between the arts, education, and 
progress.
  I am from a little town in Delaware named Hockessin. Hockessin was 
not much when I grew up there. We had about 1,500 people, some dairy 
farms and mushroom farms. Over the last 40 years, it has gradually 
developed.
  A not much widely noted big day happened back in 1994 in Hockessin, 
DE, when one of America's greatest jazz performers, Cab Calloway, 
passed away in the little town of Hockessin, DE. Cab Calloway gave his 
name to a remarkable performing arts school. This is a school that 25 
years ago was created dedicated to the idea that if you want to elevate 
learning, if you want to strengthen education, you should make sure you 
have a robust range of opportunities to engage with the arts.
  I thought I would use that as an example today to talk for a few 
minutes about why what we do here can be important across our whole 
country and why a connection between the arts and education can make a 
lasting difference for families all across our country.
  Back in 1965, when I was just 2 years old, a group of Senators, 
Republican and Democratic, came together to create two things--the 
National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for 
the Arts. These two federally funded national programs are absolutely 
critical educational, economic, and cultural drivers that have impacted 
thousands of communities across the United States.
  Why is this a subject of any contention or discussion here? Well, 
because unfortunately our President's budget this year proposed to 
eliminate funding for both of these organizations--both the National 
Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities--
proposed to be removed, zeroed out, cancelled, despite their almost 
more than 50-year record of successful impact and service across the 
country.
  In my little State of Delaware, the National Endowment for the Arts 
and the National Endowment for the Humanities funded all sorts of 
valuable programs with significant impacts. Last year, I invited the 
head of the National Endowment for the Arts to come and visit us in 
Delaware and to pull together the whole range of folks who received 
some grants from them--$681,000 last year. It is about 17 percent of 
all the funding for arts in my State. It helped support 100 grants to 
nonprofits all up and down our State.
  I will give a few examples. The Grand Opera House has a summer in the 
park series because of the National Endowment for the Arts. The 
University of Delaware Community Music School holds a musical theater 
camp every summer, serving dozens of kids--about 80 kids. The 
Christiana Cultural Arts Center in downtown Wilmington brings vibrant, 
cutting-edge arts programming to a neighborhood that might not 
otherwise enjoy it. The Creative Vision Factory provides individuals 
with behavioral health disorders an opportunity for self-expression, 
empowerment, and recovery through the arts. I

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can give many more examples, but these are four of the hundreds.
  The National Endowment for the Humanities gives a comparable number 
of grants and supports programs up and down our State. I will mention 
one--art conservation at Winterthur. Winterthur, which is a magnificent 
museum and collection of the American arts, has a partnership with 
museums in places around the world--from Haiti, to Iraq, to Syria--
where, because of conflict, critical pieces of cultural history have 
been at risk of being lost. Because of these NEH grants to Winterthur, 
those partnerships have been strengthened.
  We have been blessed to have in my friend Governor Jack Markell and 
his wife Carla, over the last 8 years, strong, longstanding support for 
the arts in our State. We have lots of leading individuals in our 
State. Tatiana Copeland, for example, helped build the Queen Theater 
and helped support the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. They work in 
partnership with the Delaware Division of the Arts. A gentleman named 
Paul Weagraff is now the executive director of the Delaware Division of 
the Arts under the new administration of Governor Carney.
  I am hopeful that we here in the Senate can sustain bipartisan 
support for arts and humanities funding and that the young people of 
Delaware, our communities, and our families will continue to enjoy the 
blessings that these investments in creativity bring. How much are we 
talking about? It is about $150 million--$149.8 million, to be 
specific--this fiscal year for each of these two endowments. That is a 
tiny percentage of the total Federal budget. Now, $150 million may 
sound like a lot, and $680,000 of grants for my whole State of Delaware 
may sound like a lot, but across these two endowments for the arts and 
humanities, $300 million in Federal money has a dramatic impact. It 
leverages private funding 9 to 1. In recent studies looking at the 
impact of the National Endowment for the Arts, they concluded that they 
were particularly focused and particularly effective and that where 
there is a leadership grant given by the NEA, it leverages $9 more for 
every Federal dollar used.
  I think Federal funding for the arts and humanities has to remain a 
priority. I think it is important that we embrace the model that the 
Cab Calloway School has championed in Delaware and across the country 
where educational excellence is shown by working together with the 
expressive and creative arts.
  It was William Butler Yeats--a famous Irish poet--who once said that 
education is not the mere filling up of a pail, it is the lighting of a 
fire. If you want to ignite the aspirations, hopes, and dreams of young 
people, don't just engage them in trigonometry, biology, chemistry, and 
physics--although those subjects can be interesting, engaging, or 
challenging--light the fire of their spirit with art, give their spirit 
room to soar, give them an opportunity to paint on the canvas of their 
lives, and give them the gift of artistic training and skills, and 
there is no limit to where they can go. That has been our experience in 
Delaware. That has been our experience across the country.
  It is my hope that we will find a way on a bipartisan basis to 
continue to sustain investment in the humanities and the arts.
  In 1960, President Kennedy said:

       There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy 
     to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in 
     the arts.

  Citing three important periods in history, he said:

       The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of 
     Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The 
     age of Elizabeth was also the age of Shakespeare, and the new 
     frontier for which I campaign in public life can also be a 
     new frontier for American art.

  It is important that we remember here that the modest amounts of 
Federal money we invest in the arts bear enormous positive, multiplied 
benefits to the people of our country and to our place in the world.
  I am grateful for all who work in arts education, and I am grateful 
for the opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis to sustain our 
Federal investment in the arts and humanities.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.