[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 97 (Tuesday, June 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3302-S3304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Net Neutrality
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today in defense of net neutrality.
In April the House of Representatives took an important step in passing
the Save the Internet Act, legislation that would overturn the Trump
administration's Federal Communication Commission's wrongheaded
decision and restore net neutrality protections. Another way of saying
it is that net neutrality is nondiscrimination online. That is what it
is. It is the principle of nondiscrimination online so that large
companies just can't discriminate against smaller voices, smaller
companies, and startups.
In the Senate, we have already successfully passed the same proposal
last year. In April of 2018, my Congressional Review Act resolution
passed in the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 52 to 47. In April 2018,
on a bipartisan basis, we debated net neutrality and the Senate decided
to join the majority of Americans and support a free and open internet.
In that vote we sent a message to President Trump about what that
means: an internet, free of corporate control and open to all who want
to communicate, engage, and innovate. We made it clear that Congress
will not fall for President Trump's special interest agenda and his
broadband baron allies who just want to block, slow down, or
discriminate against content online just to charge Americans more on
their cable bills.
Unfortunately, the rules for the Congressional Review Act that allow
just 30 Senators to force the majority to schedule a vote is not an
option in this Congress. So, instead, on this, the 1-year anniversary
of President Trump's net neutrality repeal going into effect, we will
call for an immediate vote on the Save the Internet Act. Unfortunately,
our Republican colleagues are failing to listen to the voices of their
constituents and plan to block the vote from happening.
Let's be clear. Net neutrality is just another way in which the
Republican Party refuses to side with the ordinary people in our
country--regular families, small businesses, and startup software
companies. How do they get access to the internet in a way in which
they cannot feel that corporate pressure restricting their ability to
use this incredible invention to further the democratization of access
to opportunity or, at the same time, to innovate in a way which
continues to change not only our own country but our own world?
We can't let big companies discriminate against individual consumers.
We can't let big companies stifle speech. Once you pay your monthly
internet service bill, you can go anywhere you want on the internet
without your provider slowing down or blocking your path to a website
of your choosing.
This is a fight. It is a fight for innovation, for
entrepreneurialism, for the American economy, and a fight for free
speech--the cornerstone of our democracy--and a fight for the most
powerful platform for commerce and communications in the history of the
planet. The Save the Internet Act does exactly what the American people
want. It restores the rules that ensure that families aren't subject to
higher prices, slower internet speeds, and even blocked websites
because the big broadband providers want to pump up their profits.
Under Senator McConnell's leadership, the Republicans are trying to
bury this bill in a legislative graveyard. Instead of acting on
legislation, which, again, passed the Senate a year ago--it just passed
in the House in April of this year--Leader McConnell has been doing
little but confirming unqualified, extreme-right nominees for the Trump
administration.
Just listen to the bills the Senate Republicans refuse to act on: the
Violence Against Women Act, no votes out here on the Senate floor;
voting on democracy reform, no votes out here on the Senate floor; gun
background checks, passed in the House but no vote here in the Senate;
paycheck fairness; the Paris climate agreement--no, no, no.
But the Senate majority leader and his Republican colleagues can keep
populating the legislative graveyard at their political peril because
this is the agenda that the American people want to see the Senate
debating, and they want to see these laws put on the books to protect
families in our country. That is because the issues they are blocking
are enormously popular, most with strong bipartisan support.
Take net neutrality. Now, 86 percent of Americans do not approve of
the
[[Page S3303]]
Federal Communication Commission's action to repeal net neutrality
rules, including 82 percent of Republicans, and we are not going to
have a vote out here on the Senate floor.
On background checks for gun purchases, 97 percent of Americans
support requiring background checks for all gun buyers, but we are not
going to have a vote out here on the Senate floor.
On staying in the Paris climate agreement, nearly 70 percent of
registered voters believe the United States should keep its promise and
stay in that historic agreement to combat climate change, but the
Republicans will not allow us to even have a vote on that out here on
the Senate floor.
The only place where these issues don't have Republican support is in
Senator McConnell's office. Across the country, there are huge
bipartisan numbers on each and every one of those issues. It is time
that we do right by the American people, and we can start with the Save
the Internet Act to protect the internet as we know it.
More than 100 outside advocacy organizations wrote to Senate
leadership today urging a vote on the net neutrality legislation. They
want action now, and Democrats are committed to fighting on their
behalf.
I am joined today by some of our greatest fighters for net neutrality
in the Senate and across our country. The ranking member of the
Commerce Committee, Maria Cantwell from Washington State, will be out
here in a few minutes, but now I am joined by Senator Ron Wyden of
Oregon.
Senator Wyden and I introduced net neutrality legislation 15 years
ago in the House and in the Senate. Nobody understands this issue
better than Senator Wyden does. Partnering with Senator Cantwell, we
are going to continue this battle. Whether it is on the floor of the
Senate or in the House or whether it is in the courts, we will not stop
fighting until net neutrality is restored.
So, from my perspective, right from the very beginning, Senator Wyden
and I have been on the right side of history. We have been fighting for
an issue that has overwhelming public support, and we are not going to
give up until we have won this fight.
At this point, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to join my friend
Senator Markey here today. It has been exactly 1 year since the Trump
FCC engineered the repeal of net neutrality, and I am going to spend
the next few minutes making sure people understand what the effect of
that has been. I want to begin by picking up on a point Senator Markey
made with respect to what this is all about.
Net neutrality may still be a term that some people aren't familiar
with, but what it is all about is a free and open internet. It means,
in simple English, that after you pay your internet access fee, you get
to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. That is what net
neutrality is all about, and that is the essence of a free and open
internet. As Senator Markey said, we wish we had had this policy
embedded once and for all in Federal law. We wish it had happened eons
ago, because we have been working both in the Senate and in the House
to do it.
Now, if you are just picking up on this, you probably want to know:
Well, the Senators are saying how the Trump FCC changed things in the
last year; exactly what has happened? I am not sure the sky is falling
and the like. So what I am going to do for a few minutes is to talk
about actually what has happened over the last year.
Suffice it to say that the big cable companies are counting on making
these changes. As for these changes, which are going to hurt consumers
in a steady, creeping way, my sense is that the American people ought
to know, for example, what these changes are doing to them and their
service and what they pay for it.
There is one example that you have already seen. The big carriers are
selling so-called unlimited data plans that totally throw away the
definition of the word ``unlimited.'' To understand the complicated
limits on internet access in these kind of new, newfangled unlimited
plans, you almost need a degree in big-cable legal jargon. Consumers
might be forced to swallow hard and accept it, but that doesn't make it
acceptable.
Big cable companies and the entertainment giants are also reshaping
their industries through megamergers. As big carriers merge, there is
less competition and consumers have fewer choices. Some of those new
megacorporations also own the content they distribute, and they want to
reach as many consumers as possible. That means that what is happening
now is that the internet is starting to fracture.
Sign up for internet service with one company, and you will be able
to see their preferred bundle of content in high definition at top
speeds. If you want to go outside their bundle of websites and
streaming services, plan to pay a whole lot more.
That is a bad deal for the American consumer. American consumers
ought to be able to access what they want and when they want to. As
Senator Markey and I and Senator Cantwell have talked about, it is also
a nightmare for the startup companies, the engines of innovation in
America that will not be able to afford special treatment and will not
be able to compete with these behemoths.
Now, the Trump FCC repealed net neutrality--and I will close with
this--by making some very farfetched promises. They said, for example,
that there would be new innovation. They can produce new innovation,
Senator Markey, without any regulation. That hadn't happened.
The Trump FCC said the level of private investment in telecom would
boom. We are still waiting on that one too. The Trump FCC spun a tale
about voluntary net neutrality. We could all do this voluntarily--
claiming that the big cable companies would do the right thing on their
own. That doesn't even pass the smell test.
By the way, colleagues, if the companies were fine with net
neutrality, why would we need to get rid of it? They sure put a lot of
effort into getting rid of this altogether.
The bottom line is, the Trump FCC has put consumers, from sea to
shining sea--from Oregon, all the way across the country--basically at
the hands of Big Cable. That is what they did when they repealed net
neutrality.
I want to take some time to outline the changes we have seen in just
the last year because not all of these changes are going to come at
once. In fact, I think it is fair to say the big cable companies are
counting on Americans not noticing sometimes when the terms of their
contracts get worse, but, bit by bit, people are going to notice when
their prices start rising. The fractures in the internet--I guess the
big cable companies will try to figure out a way to say that, too, was
a good deal for consumers, a discount on the content within one bundle
rather than a price increase and data limits on everything else.
I will close with just one final point. That last example violates
everything that Senator Markey, Senator Cantwell, and I have stood for,
which is an open and free internet after you pay your internet access
fee. I say this today, as Senator Cantwell gets ready to close this for
us, we still envision what Senator Markey and I proposed, as I call it,
eons ago. We still have made it clear that we are going to be out here
fighting to embed, once and for all, in Federal law, an open and free
internet. That means, after you pay your access fee, you get to go
where you want, when you want, and how you want, and nothing less--
nothing less--keeps pace with the American consumer.
I thank my colleagues, Senator Markey, for his leadership on this,
and Senator Cantwell, our leader on the Commerce Committee, and I look
forward to working with both of them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my
colleague, the Senator from Oregon, who has been a long proponent of a
very strong internet economy and privacy rights. I very much appreciate
his leadership on so many of these technology issues. He and I
represent a very strong technology economy in the Pacific Northwest,
and we want to fight to keep that innovation.
He and I actually held a summit in our adjoining communities just
about the app economy. This was several years ago--probably 7 or 8
years ago
[[Page S3304]]
now. He and I worked together to formulate, with our colleges,
Washington State University and Oregon, literally just the app economy.
I think about the applications we saw 7 years ago. Some of them were
for hiking trails, some of them were for solutions for our law
enforcement to have better information, and some of them were just pure
business applications. I think about how much we have grown that app
economy in the last 7 to 10 years and how much it will be impacted by
an internet that is not an open internet and universal in giving people
access to service. I say this because those new startups know more than
anybody else that if they are not the big behemoth in the market and
they are a new interest competing against an existing business or if
they have a new idea and they don't have the clout to have fast
internet speeds, they are not going to reach consumers; they are not
going to reach their clients; and they are not going to have a business
model that is successful.
So I thank Senator Wyden for his leadership for decades on these
important issues. I thank my colleague Senator Markey for organizing us
this morning to say one thing loud and clear: After 1 year, we already
know what is happening on the internet. One thing the Senate can do is
protect consumers from big cable companies from overcharging them. That
is why we are out here to say that we should have a vote to protect
consumers, to protect companies that produce 20 percent of our economy
over 377,000 jobs in my State. I guarantee you I will be here this
morning to articulate why an internet service needs to be protected. We
know we have to fight back against companies that want to gouge
consumers or suppress competition.
It has been 1 year since the FCC decided to turn back protections for
the internet. We are here today because we know we have already seen
the inklings of what is more to come--companies that are doing things
such as slowing down speeds or charging consumers more. We know more
than 20 million people stood up and told the FCC they want strong
internet protections, and they do not want to see large-scale companies
overcharging or gouging them.
I don't even know how we can talk about getting broadband service if
there are not going to be strong rules on the internet that protect
consumers from being overcharged. The truth is, we know today that the
internet is a great economy for us. It is helping us to research. It is
helping us in lifesaving healthcare. We had one of the FCC
administrators out in the Northwest looking at healthcare applications,
and they are phenomenal for helping everything from PTSD to looking at
ways to deliver just-in-time healthcare for those who are in remote
parts of our State.
We know the internet is a great equalizer. It is helping people from
different backgrounds participate in the economy, and it is helping
with economic empowerment, but innovative businesses in every small
town and every city need to have an internet that is going to give them
access to create jobs and move their local economies forward. Today, in
the United States, three cable companies--just three cable companies--
have control of internet access for 70 percent of Americans, and 80
percent of rural Americans still only have one choice for high-speed
broadband for their homes and businesses. We are not likely to get
competition where the consumer can just say: You are artificially
slowing me down and charging me too much; I am just going to the
competition. That is not likely to happen. That is why we need a strong
FCC approach to protecting an open internet and saying they shouldn't
block, throttle, and manipulate internet access. Without these
protections, Big Cable can move faster in charging more. So I ask my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to say it is time to hold
these companies accountable and put consumers ahead of these big cable
profits.
I can guarantee that the American people know better. Literally, it
doesn't matter what political affiliation you have, the majority of
Americans all oppose repealing protections that make for an open
internet. They know it is time for us to protect consumers and that
this is only going to get more complex as our economy depends more and
more on an open internet.
As my colleague from Oregon has said, the Trump FCC has given a green
light to companies, basically, to keep doing whatever they want and to
continue to take more out of consumers' pockets.
Today, on the Senate floor, we have an opportunity. My colleague from
Massachusetts, who has been as much a great leader on these issues and
has been working to protect an open internet for decades, has an
opportunity to say where we stand in protecting the American consumer.
Just last year, a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate--49 Democrats
and 3 Republicans--joined together to overturn the FCC's repealing of
internet protections. We were here together to say we want the internet
protected.
Now the House of Representatives has done its job. It has basically
protected the internet and taken an initiative. It is time for Leader
McConnell to put the big cable companies on notice and to allow debate
on the Senate floor and hold them accountable so we can say we want an
open internet, and this type of practice should be fought against.
I hope our colleagues will be given the opportunity for this debate,
to look at why it is so important to protect consumers, the innovation
economy, and a free and open internet.
Tomorrow there is an FCC hearing before the Senate Commerce
Committee, and I hope we will be able to ask these important questions
about why cable companies are continuing to gouge consumers in many
areas.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I think Senator Cantwell and Senator Wyden
have done an excellent job in laying out the parameters of the problems
that exist if we do not have net neutrality enshrined as the law of the
land.
We believe the principles of nondiscrimination--the principles that
ensure that the internet is open and accessible to the smallest voices
as well as the largest voices. We need laws to protect the smallest
voices. We need protections to ensure that they are going to be heard,
that they can innovate, that they can take their entrepreneurial zeal,
their insights into the additional changes that can be made in this
longstanding--now a 20-year history of dynamic changes that have taken
place in the online commercial world and that they will be able to
innovate.
They should not have to get permission to innovate. They should not
have to get permission to be able to change the way in which people
communicate in our country. We shouldn't have to hire lawyers to
negotiate with the lawyers of the biggest companies in the United
States in order to ensure that investors aren't going to lose all their
money as the small company gets tipped upside down and has all of their
resources absolutely devastated by anticompetitive activity. That is
what this is all about--democracy and capitalism, entrepreneurial
spirit, the ability to innovate, the ability to be able to go to the
marketplace.
In order for capitalism to work, it has to have a conscience.
Capitalism without a conscience allows for unfettered large
corporations to take advantage of small companies, startups, and
individuals in our society. It has to have a conscience. Net neutrality
is the conscience for the online world we live in. It ensures that
there is fairness, openness, and it ensures that the apertures that are
there cannot be narrowed just because of the corporate agenda of an
individual huge company.
That is the essence of this whole debate. It is something we believe
is at the heart of what this 21st century platform of commerce should
include. It will be, in a lot of ways, the defining issue of whether
this entire era is one that is characterized by fairness or one that is
characterized by monopolistic or duopoly practices.