[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6915-S6918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



     Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, last week, when I joined my colleagues to 
recognize Senator Isakson, I mentioned that when Johnny says he is 
going to get something done, you know it will get done. The bill we are 
getting ready to pass today in a few hours, the Over-the-Counter 
Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act, which he has worked on 
with Senator Casey, proves it once again.
  Every day, people head to their local pharmacy or retail store for 
over-the-counter medications to deal with a cough or a sore throat or a 
stomach ache. Every day, parents across the country turn to the 
medicine cabinet after someone comes home with a scrape or a bug bite 
or poison ivy. Every day, there are countless other health concerns 
people look to treat quickly, safely, and effectively with over-the-
counter drugs. That is why this legislation is so important.
  The pace of scientific discovery seems to speed up every day, but the 
over-the-counter monograph system--the system for how these drugs are 
regulated and brought to market--has not kept pace. The current system 
has not changed, actually, since 1972, and it sorely needs to. Right 
now, even after the science has made clear that small changes to the 
monograph, or recipe, for an over-the-counter drug might make it safer 
or more effective, it can take years for those changes to be approved 
under the current outdated process. Even small changes to a drug label, 
including changes regarding important new safety information, can be 
held up for years.
  The Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act 
takes long-needed steps to address this problem and streamline the way 
over-the-counter drugs are regulated and brought to market. These 
changes will allow the Food and Drug Administration to do more to 
protect public health and make sure over-the-counter drugs, 
ingredients, and labels reflect the latest science. It will also 
encourage the development of new products to better meet the needs of 
patients. The legislation allows the FDA to collect user fees for 
reviewing over-the-counter drugs to make sure it has the resources it 
needs to do this important job.
  Many families rely on over-the-counter drugs each day for a lot of 
different reasons. It is very important that these medications and the 
labels we turn to for information about them are safe, that they are 
effective, and

[[Page S6916]]

that they are as up-to-date with the latest science as possible. Thanks 
to the efforts of Senator Isakson and Senator Casey, this bill we will 
vote on this afternoon will help accomplish that by updating the over-
the-counter monograph system for the first time in decades. I know how 
important this bill has been to Senator Isakson and how he has worked 
so hard on it for many years. I want to tell him how grateful I am. I 
want him to know that I am particularly grateful for his commitment to 
getting this done for families back in Georgia and across the country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 682

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, today I rise in defense of net neutrality. 
This week marks the 2-year anniversary of the Trump FCC's wrongheaded 
decision to repeal net neutrality.
  First, let's be clear about what we are discussing today. Net 
neutrality is just another way of saying nondiscrimination. That is 
what it is all about. It is just another way of saying that big 
companies online can't discriminate against individual consumers; that 
large companies can't discriminate against smaller companies and 
startups; that corporations can't stifle speech online; that once you 
pay your monthly internet service bill, you can go anywhere you want on 
the internet without Charter or Comcast or AT&T or Verizon slowing down 
or blocking your path to a website of your choosing.
  Despite all this, 2 years ago this week, the Trump Federal 
Communications Commission voted to throw out net neutrality at the 
behest of the broadband barons. Since then, we have watched as 
countless citizens, companies, and activists have continued to stand up 
and demand that net neutrality be restored.
  This spring, the House of Representatives took an important step in 
passing the Save the Internet Act. My legislation in the Senate would 
overturn the Trump administration FCC's decision and restore net 
neutrality protections. In the Senate, we have already successfully 
passed the same proposal on a bipartisan basis.
  In April of 2018, my Congressional Review Act resolution passed in 
the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 52 to 47. 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 it means to have an internet free of corporate control 
and open to all who want to communicate, engage, and innovate. We made 
clear that this Congress won't fall for President Trump's special 
interest agenda that just wants to block, slow down, or discriminate 
against content online just to charge Americans more on their cable and 
internet bills.
  Unfortunately, the rules for a Congressional Review Act that allow 
just 30 Senators to force the majority to schedule a vote is not an 
option in this Congress because the right to bring a Congressional 
Review Act resolution to the floor has a time limit on it, which has 
now expired. So, instead, today we once again call for an immediate 
vote on the Save the Internet Act.
  Already, in June, our Republican colleagues failed to listen to the 
voices of their constituents and blocked a vote from happening. Sadly, 
the Republicans plan to stonewall us again and to block this vote. This 
is yet another example of the Republican Party refusing to side with 
the ordinary people in our country--families, small businesses, 
startups, entrepreneurs, anyone with an idea who needs the internet to 
get it off the ground.
  Under Senator McConnell's leadership, the Republicans have buried 
this bill in their legislative graveyard. Instead of passing 
legislation, instead of acting on legislation which already passed in 
the Senate in 2018 and which passed the House of Representatives this 
April, Leader McConnell has done little but confirm unqualified, 
extreme-right nominees for the Trump administration.
  Just listen to some of the bills that Senate Republicans refuse to 
act on that have already moved through the House of Representatives 
this year: the Violence Against Women's Act, voting and democracy 
reform, gun background checks, paycheck fairness, and the Paris climate 
agreement. The answer from the Republican leadership is no, no, no, no. 
That is what continues to happen. Net neutrality is part of that chorus 
of ``noes'' that the Republicans aim at legislation the American people 
want and need to have passed here in the Senate.
  But the Senate majority leader and his Republican colleagues can keep 
populating the legislative graveyard at their political peril because 
this is the agenda the American people want to see the Senate debating. 
They want to see these laws put on the books to protect families in 
this country. The issues they are blocking are enormously popular, and 
most have bipartisan support. Net neutrality is one of those issues.
  The Save the Internet Act--the bill we are debating today--does 
exactly what the American people want. It restores the rules that 
ensure families aren't subjected to higher prices, slower internet 
speeds, and even blocked websites because the big internet providers 
want to pump up their profits. That is what today's fight is all about. 
It is a fight for innovation; for entrepreneurialism; for the American 
economy; a fight for free speech, which is the cornerstone of our 
democracy; and a fight for the most powerful platform for commerce and 
communications in the history of the planet.
  Some will argue that since the Trump FCC ripped away the net 
neutrality rules, everything has been just fine, but we are not falling 
for that. As the legal challenges over this issue have taken place over 
the last 2 years, internet providers have had every incentive to keep a 
low profile, to keep things as they were. But ultimately, the question 
before the Senate today is whether consumers trust their internet 
companies to do the right thing without being told they have to. We 
know that consumers rightfully don't trust the broadband barons.
  It is time we do the right thing for the American people. We can 
start with passing the Save the Internet Act and protecting the 
internet as we know it. The American people want action now. The 
Democrats are committed to fighting on their behalf. Net neutrality 
just stands for nondiscrimination online. You can't be biased against a 
smaller voice, a smaller company, a startup; it is not allowed. That is 
what net neutrality says to all the big broadband giants--you cannot 
discriminate. Net neutrality is something that is at the heart of what 
the 21st century should stand for in this internet age.
  I urge my colleagues to support this motion.
  I yield to the great leader of the State of Washington, Senator 
Cantwell.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from 
Massachusetts, who has been a leader on this important issue of net 
neutrality. I want to speak and back up what he said today about why it 
is so important and that we need to fight to protect a free and open 
internet, before I do, I would just like to mention that yesterday we 
filed a bill dealing with trade enforcement.
  The reason I bring that up is because today there is going to be a 
lot of discussion about trade writ large. It is very important that in 
the trade discussion, we also have trade enforcement. Much of what we 
filed yesterday is what we hope to see in an agreement that is now 
being unveiled, and this builds on capacity building, which is very 
important. We want to make sure we have the enforcement capabilities at 
USTR and now the capacity and enforcement in Mexico to make these 
agreements work in the future. I look forward to discussing that with 
my colleagues.
  I am really here to talk about how 2 years ago, the Trump 
administration, basically, with the FCC at the helm, repealed net 
neutrality and put Big Cable in charge of our internet future. Despite 
83 percent of all Americans and a majority of Independents, Democrats, 
and Republicans supporting a free and open internet--that means making 
sure they weren't charged excessive rates--the FCC chose to side with 
cable companies.
  Not long after, Verizon throttled the broadband service of Santa 
Clara firefighters in California when they were in the midst of 
fighting the massive Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018. Despite 
firefighters' urgent pleas to stop

[[Page S6917]]

the throttling, Verizon refused to do so.
  For those who don't understand what throttling is, we are always 
concerned that without rules of the road, companies would slow down 
some access to internet sites. This is so important because we don't 
want an internet that is based on how much you pay for faster broadband 
access.
  We think that to slow down important sites like public service sites 
or any sites or to base an internet on how much you pay is the wrong 
direction. More importantly, we need to make sure we are policing this. 
Even today, as we have no Federal agency with clear authority to adopt 
hard and fast rules to keep that situation from happening again, we 
need to keep fighting.
  Another example is that wireless carriers have been accused of 
potentially throttling subscribers to Netflix, YouTube, and Sprint and 
allegedly interfering with Skype services. Again, that is another 
example of why we have to keep our message about a free and open 
internet no matter where we look, where we live, or where we are 
accessing the internet.
  It is long past time for the Senate to vote on the Save the Internet 
Act--something on which our colleague from Massachusetts has been a 
leader.
  Our bill would restore the protections for a free and open internet 
that were had by the Obama FCC in 2015, which would mean no blocking, 
throttling, or paid prioritization would be allowed. The FCC would have 
the flexible legal standards by which to address concerns that would 
arise from these big cable companies' threats to a free and open 
internet.
  Again, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his leadership--
persistent both in the House and the Senate--in stressing how important 
this is.
  As my colleagues know, these issues are going to be very important in 
the future, not just with regard to privacy, which the Senator has also 
been a leader on--and I very much appreciate that the hometown 
newspaper wrote a glowing endorsement of the legislation he and I have 
just recently introduced on privacy--but in understanding that in the 
information age, you have to give consumers rights, that you have to 
give them the right to privacy, and that you have to give them the 
right to a free and open internet that is not controlled in speed and 
that is not controlled by one's saying, If you pay us more, we will 
give you access. This is going to be a key communication tool for the 
21st century, and it needs to be open.
  I thank my colleague for raising this important issue, and I will 
continue to work with him and our other colleagues to make it the law 
of the land.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, our ranking member on the Committee on 
Commerce, Science, and Transportation has always framed the issue of 
net neutrality and consumer rights appropriately.
  I am going to speak for just a few minutes. Then, on behalf of our 
side--on behalf of the Democratic caucus--Senator Markey, our friend 
from Massachusetts, will propound a unanimous consent request. I note 
that the chairman of the committee is here, and we will have a bit of 
discussion.
  Let me give a bit of history on this.
  Senator Markey introduced the first net neutrality bill as a Member 
of the other Chamber, and I introduced the first net neutrality bill in 
the U.S. Senate. Right out of the gate, I think it is important for 
people to understand what this issue is all about. Real net neutrality 
empowers consumers. After they pay their internet access fees, they get 
to go where they want, when they want, and how they want. What Ajit Pai 
and Donald Trump want is something very different. They want an 
internet policy that lets Big Cable get what it wants, when Big Cable 
wants it, and how Big Cable wants it. That is the difference here.
  Who is in the driver's seat?
  Senator Markey, Senator Cantwell, and I say that this is what the 
beauty of the internet has always been about, which is really simple. 
The consumer is in the driver's seat. We don't have an information 
aristocracy with lanes and all kinds of favoritism for the powerful and 
the influential. It is where the student, the small business, and the 
person without power and clout gets the same fair shake as everybody 
else.
  What we have said is we want to keep the consumer in the driver's 
seat, and Mr. Pai and Donald Trump want a different notion of internet 
freedom. What they really want to say is that internet freedom is Big 
Cable freedom. That is their idea about how we ought to approach the 
internet. At the end of the day, if the policy here is about letting 
Big Cable rig the internet in favor of those who can afford to pay more 
and shake down everybody else, people will have a choice to do that, 
but that is not the choice Senator Markey and I are going to make.
  Cable companies are already tricking people into buying so-called 
unlimited service plans that limit their service. People have uncovered 
the way they have throttled service for particular users, including for 
first responders in times of emergency. Megamergers that involve 
telecom and entertainment companies also limit competition and threaten 
to balkanize the internet.
  We are talking about fracturing the internet into small bundles that 
cost big money. That is the vision the cable companies have--not net 
neutrality--by which you head in a direction whereby consumers pay a 
lot more for entertainment and information and small businesses scratch 
their heads and ask: How in the world am I going to compete with the 
big guys online? Fortunately, the courts recently said the Trump 
administration can't overrule States on net neutrality.
  I look forward to being in my home State of Oregon in a couple of 
days and having town meetings. What I like the most is when people 
speak up on issues like fairness and net neutrality, and I am going to 
hear about it this weekend. Other States have policies like Oregon's as 
well.
  Here in Congress, on this side of the aisle--and you will see it when 
Senator Markey offers his proposal in a moment--we are going to keep up 
the fight to protect consumers from Ajit Pai and the Trump FCC. We 
still have that vision of the original internet that Senator Markey and 
I talked about when he offered the first proposal in the House and I 
offered the first proposal in the Senate. What could be more simple 
than putting the consumer in the driver's seat? You can say where you 
want to go, when you want, and how you want. Now we are talking today--
years later--about the cable companies being able to say they are going 
to decide those very issues.
  I am very pleased--and I think it is very appropriate--that after 
years of leadership on this issue in both the other body and in the 
U.S. Senate that Senator Markey is going to speak for our caucus on 
this issue and call for the Senate to pass his legislation so as to 
have a truly free and open internet for the entire country.
  If you don't get the Markey proposal, what you are going to see are 
big cable companies that will, bit by bit, little by little, keep 
ratcheting up the cost of internet access. By the way, their strategy 
is to do that little by little because they are hoping nobody will ever 
complain and that nobody will notice. Senator Markey and I and our 
caucus have figured out that the cable companies are trying to disguise 
price hikes and data limits in the end by flashing discounts on bundles 
of content. What the cable people are talking about is a bad deal for 
consumers, and it is a bad deal because Ajit Pai and Donald Trump want 
to put Big Cable profits over the interests of the typical American.
  With my full support, I appreciate Senator Markey's offering this 
legislation today. In going forward, we are going to be working with 
him to keep up this fight, and I look forward to the discussion.
  I notice that my colleague from the end of the alphabet and my 
friend, the chairman of the committee, is here, and we will have a 
little back-and-forth.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I agree with every word Senator Wyden has 
just spoken on the Senate floor, and I thank him for his leadership in 
going back to 2006, which was when we first introduced into the U.S. 
Congress legislation on net neutrality. We did it then because it was 
important, and we are doing it today because it is critically 
important.

[[Page S6918]]

  The question is really whether the internet is going to be free and 
open or whether it is going to have the principles of 
nondiscrimination. Smaller voices, smaller companies, startup 
companies, and individuals in our society must be protected on the 
internet in the future. That is what net neutrality is all about.
  We are on the right side of history on this issue. Every day that 
goes by further instructs us as to how central the internet is in our 
country and on the planet. Ultimately, it has to be open, and it has to 
be free. It cannot have nondiscrimination built into it because a small 
handful of huge companies decide they have a right to discriminate.
  I thank the Senator from Oregon, and I thank our leader on the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senator Cantwell of 
Washington State, for their great leadership on this issue.
  Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be 
discharged from further consideration of S. 682; further, that the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be considered 
read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, let me 
disagree fundamentally with my friends on the other side of the aisle 
about who is on the right side of history.
  I would simply offer to my distinguished colleagues and to other 
Members of the body that we need only to look at what has happened 
during the past 2 years under the Ajit Pai-Donald Trump FCC and compare 
it to what happened to the internet under the approach being advocated 
by my colleagues today.
  In 2015, President Obama's FCC ordered the imposition of title II 
regulations to the internet. They called this net neutrality. 
Basically, what it amounted to was a Big Government, Depression-era set 
of regulations that gave bureaucrats control over virtually every 
aspect of the internet. They implemented this in 2015, and investment 
decreased dramatically during the next 2 years. This was the first time 
in the history of the internet that broadband investment decreased 
outside of the time of a recession. It was bad for the internet, bad 
for the public, and bad for small businesses and startups. I wonder if 
it is from this that the Save the Internet Act would save us. If they 
want to save us from innovation and growth, then perhaps the Save the 
Internet Act would get the job done, for we had no growth during that 
time and less innovation.
  Two years ago, the new FCC came in and did away with some of these 
Big Government, Depression-era regulations that scared off investment, 
particularly the Depression-era title II regulation, as if the internet 
were going to be governed like a utility company from the 1930s and 
1940s. It did away with them.
  Since that time--in the 2 years of America's operating under what my 
friends would end with this legislation--more Americans have been 
connected to the internet than ever before. We have faster internet 
speeds than ever before. Now, in States like my home State of 
Mississippi and all across the great heartland of America, more rural 
Americans get more internet at faster speeds.
  We have two choices today--the one from 4 years ago that led to less 
growth and a recession in the growth of the internet or the one from 
the past 2 years, whereby we have been better off than ever before.
  I will agree with my colleagues in one respect. We should have no 
discrimination online, and we don't have discrimination online today. 
There are no lanes, as my friends on the other side of the aisle have 
said. There is no favoritism in what we are doing. We just have 
prosperity and huge growth in the internet.
  If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to join us in 
enacting a permanent statute so we don't go back and forth between a 
regime of Democratic-controlled FCCs and Republican-controlled FCCs, if 
they would like to help us in that regard, statutorily place 
nondiscrimination online in the law, free and open internet in the law 
outside of the regulation of something that we have imposed on another 
part of our economy half a century ago, then I hope they will join in 
the bipartisan effort that Senator Sinema and I are participating in--
the Senate Net Neutrality Bipartisan Working Group. I would hope they 
would want to join us in that regard.
  We can make the statute better, but I would certainly offer to my 
colleagues the facts, and the facts are that the past 2 years have been 
a time of great growth of the internet. The previous 2 years, under 
depression-era rules, were a time of dramatically decreased investment.
  For that reason, I do object to the unanimous consent request offered 
by the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, what we just heard from the majority is, 
in fact, a false narrative that contends that we have to choose between 
broadband deployment and net neutrality, and if we don't put net 
neutrality back on the books, there will be internet fast and slow 
lanes. That is what is about to happen if we don't act out here on the 
Senate floor. Innovation will be stifled, consumers will have to pay 
higher prices, the internet will not be as we have known it in the 
past.
  So I absolutely feel that what just happened is a disservice to 
consumers and innovators in our country; that they should be allowed to 
have net neutrality as their protection, and I think, again, that we 
are on the right side of history in propounding this legislation to be 
brought out here, and, ultimately, today history was not served well.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I would simply say in response to my good 
friend from Massachusetts: Where are the fast and slow lanes? They may 
happen sometimes. We have been warned for 2 years this is going to 
happen. It hasn't happened.
  What has happened is the greatest growth in the internet that we have 
seen, as opposed to the stifled growth we had during the 2 years of 
title II regulation under the Obama administration.
  I want to work with them on nondiscrimination online. Everyone wants 
a fair and open internet, but I think everyone also wants the great 
growth we have had over the past 2 years, and we can have it with a 
bipartisan bill like the one Senator Sinema and I are working on and 
unlike the idea of putting us under depression-era rules.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.