[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 204 (Thursday, December 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S8020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Net Neutrality

  Finally, Mr. President, a word on the FCC's vote today on net 
neutrality. We depend on a free and open internet to spur innovation 
and job creation. Our economy works best when innovators and 
entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes compete on a level playing 
field. Net neutrality, very simply, says that everyone deserves the 
same, fair access to the internet. Consumers, small businesses, 
students, everyone from the elderly couple using Skype to talk to their 
grandchildren who are half a country away, to the startup company 
operating out of its founder's basement--everyone deserves the same 
access to and quality of internet as the big corporations.
  When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my father owned a small 
exterminating business. If his competitor down the street had received 
a preferred electricity rate, he would have rightly been outraged, and 
the law would have protected him from unfair treatment. We don't 
reserve certain highways for a single trucking company, and we don't 
limit phone service to handpicked stores. We shouldn't reserve high-
speed internet for a favored few corporations either. Yet now President 
Trump's appointed Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, is on the verge of 
eliminating net neutrality, which will bring to an end the free and 
open internet that has enabled so many successful companies and has 
created so many jobs.
  Our internet is the envy of the world. Why are we changing it in a 
way that could harm it? If net neutrality is eliminated, the internet 
may resemble a toll road, with the highest bidders cruising along 
private fast lanes while the rest of us inch along on a single, 
traffic-choked public lane. We could be forced to purchase internet 
packages, much like cable packages, and pay for more popular sites. It 
is hard to imagine an entrepreneur building the world's next 
revolutionary, billion-dollar company while she sits in bumper-to-
bumper traffic online. It is hard to imagine that average consumers are 
going to get a good deal if internet service providers are unshackled 
and offer premium service to premium customers.
  Again, President Trump talks one way and acts another. He talks like 
he is helping the middle class. He is fully supportive of the FCC and 
his handpicked Chairman while he hurts the middle class and helps the 
big interests when it comes to the internet.
  By ending net neutrality, Chairman Pai and the Trump administration 
are once again siding with corporate interests against consumers and 
small business. Once again, the Trump administration is picking CEOs 
over citizens--just as in the tax bill and now on net neutrality--and 
thwarting the comments of millions of Americans who have sent comments 
to the FCC asking them to save net neutrality and to keep the internet 
free and open to everyone.
  The American people have spoken. I hope Chairman Pai and President 
Trump are listening.
  Before I yield the floor, I want to thank my friend, the senior 
Senator from Connecticut, for his valiant and strong struggle to keep 
the internet free, open, and available to the little guy and gal 
equally as it is to the big shots.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to thank the senior Senator 
from New York, our minority leader, for his very powerful and eloquent 
remarks on net neutrality. He has been a leader in protecting consumers 
in so many areas, and this one is preeminently important.
  We are here on a day when the FCC may well repeal the net neutrality 
order. I spoke at length about it yesterday, and I am struck by the 
mockery that the FCC will make of consumer protection if it proceeds 
with this very misguided and mistaken course. It is a course that will 
be reversed, I believe, in the courts if it is followed, and it should 
be reversed in this body as well. It is profoundly important to the 
future of the internet to have access and affordability to innovation, 
to our economy, and to job creation. The open and accessible internet 
is part of our lifeblood economically and culturally in this country. 
Part of what makes America great is the freedom of access and 
innovation.