[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2560-S2561]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Net Neutrality

  Mr. President, I would like to switch gears for just a moment and 
turn to another important topic that was addressed moments ago by the 
Democratic leader; that is, net neutrality. There is widespread 
agreement among Senators of both parties that we need to maintain a 
free and open internet, and there is widespread agreement among both 
parties that we need net neutrality legislation. But as with other 
issues that should be and technically are noncontroversial, Democrats 
have decided to take the issue of net neutrality and make it partisan. 
Instead of working with Republicans to develop permanent net neutrality 
legislation, they decided to try to score political points with a 
partisan resolution that would do nothing to permanently secure net 
neutrality.
  For years, the commercial internet flourished under a light-touch 
regulatory regime. Free of onerous, heavy-handed legislation, the 
internet grew and thrived, offering Americans a steadily increasing 
array of benefits from online education to online shopping. But during 
the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission, on a 
party-line vote, decided to change the way in which the internet was 
regulated. Instead of the regulatory approach that had worked for 
years, the Obama FCC decided that the internet should be regulated 
under a set of regulations that were developed over 80 years ago to 
manage monopoly telephone services. Think about that: the 
Communications Act of 1934 that was designed to govern and regulate Ma 
Bell being used to regulate the internet.
  That decision posed a number of problems for the future of the 
internet. For starters, heavyhanded government regulations tend to 
stifle the kind of growth and innovation that always flourished around 
the internet.
  There was also serious reason to be concerned that this new 
regulatory regime would discourage companies from expanding access to 
broadband. That is a big concern for my State, where too many 
individuals still lack reliable internet service. In fact, the FCC 
found that the decision to regulate the internet under the 1934 
telephone regulatory regime has, in fact, slowed investment, which has 
restricted the improvement of internet services for rural Americans, 
like many I represent in South Dakota.
  In response to these problems, the FCC recently decided to restore 
the light-touch regulatory regime under which the internet had thrived. 
Up until 2015, for two decades, the internet was regulated under the 
light touch. Everybody agreed that was the best approach. Let the 
internet grow, flourish, innovate, and expand to give more people 
access to high-speed internet services. Well, the FCC decided to change 
that. It created the opportunity for us to adopt net neutrality 
legislation to permanently address concerns about blocking, throttling, 
paid prioritization, and deal with these concerns under a regulatory 
regime that is suitable for the 21st-century internet. That is what the 
FCC did when they went back to what we had for two decades prior to 
2015. They opened the door to address this the way we should address 
this--through the people's representatives here in Congress.
  People are concerned about the blocking of lawful content on the 
internet and the throttling of internet speeds. Let's lock it into law. 
Let's put rules for the open internet into law so that we fully 
understand and can move forward in a way that doesn't have this 
constant ambiguity and back-and-forth from one FCC to the next or, 
worse yet, spending it in litigation in courtrooms.
  But instead of moving forward with that approach with Republicans to 
draft such legislation, the Democratic leadership decided to try to 
score political points by pushing a resolution to undo the FCC's 
decision, even though undoing this decision will do nothing to provide 
a permanent solution on net neutrality. The Democratic leader's 
position to pursue this partisan course stalled conversations that were 
occurring on a bipartisan basis between Members on both sides of the 
aisle who have wanted to come together to deal with this issue. I have 
been engaged in those conversations now for the last 3

[[Page S2561]]

years. We were making progress. We were coming together around a 
legislative solution that would get rid of all this uncertainty and 
unpredictability and ambiguity and the clouds that hang over this issue 
and allow open internet rules to be put into place and allow the 
internet to continue to thrive and grow and innovate.
  For decades, the commercial internet has been a source of innovation, 
economic growth, and opportunity, but that growth and opportunity will 
be stalled and stifled if we keep going the way we are going. We can't 
have internet regulations ping-ponging back and forth from 
administration to administration or from year to year, for that matter. 
That will bring innovation and investment to a standstill, and that is 
the worst possible thing you can do for those people across this 
country--many of whom I represent in South Dakota--who still don't have 
access to high-speed internet services. Nobody is going to be 
interested in taking risks or investing in innovation if they can't 
predict what the rules will look like a year down the road.
  The only way to preserve the dynamism of the internet, while also 
protecting consumers, is for Democrats and Republicans to come together 
on legislation to provide long-term certainty. For that to happen, 
Democrats are going to have to rise to the occasion, and they are going 
to have to stop playing political games to score political points and 
start focusing on actually legislating, because you see this CRA, this 
Congressional Review Act resolution, is going nowhere. Yes, they might 
narrowly get a vote out of the Senate because we have a Senator missing 
here, but it is not going anywhere in the House, and it is not going to 
be signed into law by the President. All it does is prolong this debate 
we are having. We could settle this debate once and for all if we were 
willing to sit down and actually work on a legislative solution.
  I hope that once the Democrats have gotten this latest political 
stunt out of their system, they will be willing to come to the table 
and develop a real solution that will allow the internet to flourish 
for generations to come.
  The Democratic leader, who was just down here, said the question here 
is, Whose side are you on? Well, I think that is a good question to ask 
because the question is, Whose side are you on? I think the choice is, 
Are you on the side of Big Government and heavyhanded regulation that 
stifles investment in the internet, stifles innovation, or are you 
truly for a free and open internet, a free market where the internet 
continues to thrive and to grow and to provide so many opportunities 
for people around this country?
  He said passing the CRA makes economic sense. Well, not if you want 
to get 5G, not if you want to provide high-speed internet services, not 
if you want to deploy broadband to rural areas in this country, because 
that takes investment. Investment follows certainty. They want to know 
what the rules are. They want the rules to be clear and unambiguous so 
that this can move forward, so that they can move forward and continue 
to see this economic miracle of the internet advance and continue to be 
taken advantage of and benefited by so many Americans.
  We have a chance to do that. We really do. But we can't do it when we 
sit around and mess around with political theater and political stunts, 
which is precisely what this is, and everybody knows it. Our colleagues 
on the other side know it. I have talked to lots of them who say: We 
want to work with you on legislation, but, you know, right now, we have 
this CRA we are going to vote on--which is a shiny object, and 
everybody gets to shoot at it. People can go out and raise money, and 
they can get people fired up at the grassroots that this is somehow 
going to be some magic solution, but it is not. It doesn't do anything.
  Even if it succeeded, what are you doing? You are just creating more 
back-and-forth from one FCC to the next. You are just requiring more 
money to be spent in courtrooms on litigation and lawsuits rather than 
invested in the types of technologies that will bring that high-speed 
access to more people in this country, that will get us to the fifth 
generation of technology, which is where everybody wants to go. Why 
don't we just sit down and do that? Why is this so hard? Well, it is 
because people think there are partisan political points that can be 
scored by doing this.
  Remember one thing too: The Congressional Review Act resolution of 
disapproval was created by Congress to unwind or prevent harmful 
regulations from going into effect--that an administration might be 
putting into effect. It is a way for Congress to be heard from if, in 
fact, the Congress--the people's representatives--believes the 
administration is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to some 
regulation.
  The CRA has never been used to reregulate. That is what this is 
doing. The FCC is unwinding the heavyhanded regulation that went into 
effect in 2015, and this is going to attempt now to reregulate, not to 
deregulate or prevent regulations from going into effect. That has 
never happened before. Do my colleagues on the other side honestly 
think that Republicans in the House of Representatives are going to 
vote for that or that President Trump will sign it into law? No. 
Everybody knows better than that.
  So what are we doing? We are playing a silly game here at the expense 
of a real solution--a solution that is out there waiting for us if we 
will simply sit down, as we should as elected representatives, as 
Senators, on both sides of the aisle, and address an issue that is very 
important to our economy and very important to a lot of Americans. I 
hope we can do that. We are not going to get there as long as we 
continue with this charade that we are taking on here today and in the 
weeks ahead.
  It is time for clear rules. We want an open and free internet that 
investors can invest in--and people can benefit from that investment--
and that provides opportunities and gains in productivity and continues 
the economic miracle that the internet has been for this country. That 
is what this debate is about, pure and simple. It is nothing else. We 
have a chance to do that, but we can't do it if we continue to play 
this sort of a game.
  I hope my colleagues will at some point--maybe we will go through 
this, and maybe we will have this vote. If we do, maybe they will win. 
They might win by a one-vote margin. It is not going anywhere. We all 
know that. Let's get serious on behalf of the American people. If there 
are legitimate, serious concerns about potential abuses by internet 
service providers when it comes to throttling speeds or blocking lawful 
content or any of that sort of thing--paid prioritization--let's 
address that in law. Let's quit messing around. Let's get to work.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Connecticut.