[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 12874-12876]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         OBJECTION TO PROCEEDING TO THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS BILL

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the major telecommunications legislation 
reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed. The 
bill makes a number of major changes in the country's 
telecommunications law, but there is one provision that is nothing more 
than a license to discriminate. Without a clear policy preserving the 
neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those 
who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the 
worse.
  This one provision threatens to divide the Internet into technology 
haves and have-nots. This one provision concentrates even more power in 
the hands of the special interests that own the pipelines to the 
Internet. This one provision codifies discrimination on the Internet by 
a handful of large telecommunications and cable providers. This one 
provision will allow large, special interests to saddle consumers and 
small businesses alike with new and discriminatory fees over and above 
what they already pay for Internet access. This one small provision is 
akin to hurling a giant wrecking ball at the Internet.
  The inclusion of this provision compels me to state that I will 
object to a unanimous consent request to the Senate proceeding with 
this legislation until a provision that provides true Internet 
neutrality is included.
  This bill means the American people will no longer be able to use the 
Internet free from discrimination. Sure, the time it takes you to 
access the Web might be slower with dial-up, or you might zoom around 
the Web at warp speed, but you get to choose the speed. Today, whatever 
speed you chose doesn't make any difference in which sites you can 
visit. You still get access to any site you want. This is the beauty 
and the genius of the Internet. The Net is neutral.
  The days of unfettered, unlimited, and free access to any site on the 
World Wide Web, what I call Net neutrality, are being threatened. Those 
who own the pipes, the giant cable and phone companies, want to 
discriminate in which sites you can access. If they get their way, not 
only will you have to pay more for faster speeds, you will have to pay 
more for something you get for free today: unfettered access to every 
site on the World Wide Web. To me, that is discrimination, pure and 
simple.
  The Internet has thrived precisely because it is neutral. It has 
thrived because consumers, and not some giant cable or phone company, 
get to choose what they want to see and how quickly they get to see it. 
I am not going to allow a bill to go forward that is going to end 
surfing the Web free of discrimination.
  The large interests have made it clear that if this bill moves 
forward, they will begin to discriminate. A Verizon Communications 
executive has called for an ``end to Google's `free lunch.''' A Bell 
South executive has said that he wants the Internet to be turned into a 
``pay-for-performance marketplace.'' What they and other cable and 
phone company executives are proposing is that instead of providing 
equal access for everyone to the same content at the same price, they 
will set up sweetheart arrangements to play favorites. Without net 
neutrality protections, this bill is bad news for consumers and anyone 
who today enjoys unlimited access to all of the Net's applications, 
service and content.
  There is no doubt in my mind that American consumers and small 
business will be the losers in this fight if this bill is allowed to 
move forward. Right now, a computer science major at the University of 
Oregon is working on the next big thing for the Internet. But she will 
never get the chance to get the next big thing out there if she cannot 
pay the big fees that will be charged tomorrow for the same Internet 
access she gets for free today.
  Right now in Pendleton, OR, there is a small family wheat farm where 
dad is monitoring the fertilizer on their crop via a new Web service 
program that his son bought. If the network operators have their way, 
this Web service will get so expensive that it will be out of reach for 
this family farmer.
  As a Senator who has devoted himself to keeping the Internet free 
from discrimination, from discriminatory taxes and regulations to 
assuring offline protections apply to online consumer activities as 
well, I cannot stand by and allow the bill to proceed with this 
provision. The inclusion of this provision compels me to inform my 
colleagues that I will object to any unanimous consent request for the 
Senate to move to consider S. 2686, the Communications Consumer's 
Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act.
  There are other provisions in this legislation, such as the one 
relating to my proposal for the creation of kids television tiers, that 
are problematic, but none of them rises to the same level of concern as 
the one relating to network neutrality. Therefore, I will object to any 
further action on this telecommunications bill until it includes a 
strong net neutrality provision that will truly benefit consumers and 
small business.
  Mr. President, Senator Grassley and I have spent over a decade 
fighting to ensure that when a Senator puts a hold on or blocks a major 
piece of legislation that there is accountability. We have required, 
under our proposal, that holds are publicly announced. Because I feel 
so strongly about this way of approaching holds, I have come to the 
floor tonight to announce that I intend to object to any unanimous 
consent request for the United States Senate to move to consider S. 
2686, the telecommunications reform legislation that came from the 
Senate Commerce Committee a bit ago.
  The reason I have come to the floor to make this announcement is that 
I believe this legislation is a license to discriminate on the 
Internet. Right now, we all know that when you use your browser, you 
get to go where you want, when you want, how you want. The Internet's 
special quality is that all content is treated equally. It is my fear 
that, as a result of this legislation without a clear policy preserving 
the neutrality of the Internet, and without tough sanctions against 
those who would discriminate, the Internet will be changed forever 
against the public interest.

[[Page 12875]]

  In the beginning of these remarks--and it is my intent to be brief--I 
compliment Senator Stevens, Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and 
Ranking Member Inouye, with respect to the procedure for how this 
legislation was considered.
  Late last winter I was allowed to come to the Senate Commerce 
Committee as a former member of the committee and make a presentation 
with respect to why I thought an Internet free of discrimination was so 
important. I introduced the first legislation, the Internet 
Nondiscrimination Act, back in March. Since then I have worked closely 
with colleagues, particularly Senator Snowe and Senator Dorgan, who 
have done such a great job championing an Internet free of 
discrimination. We have all worked for many months in trying to 
preserve a free and open Internet.
  Unfortunately, despite the valiant work of those two Senators, 
Senators Snowe and Dorgan, and with the help of others, particularly 
Senator Cantwell, who spoke eloquently about why a free-from-
discrimination Internet is so important, they were not successful. So 
now there is the prospect of major changes in the way the Internet 
works, changes that will affect millions of businesses and millions of 
consumers. At a minimum, I believe these changes are so important and 
mean so much to our country, it ought to be possible for the Senate to 
slow this down and take the time to consider what the implications are 
of a badly flawed piece of legislation with respect to its treatment of 
the Internet.
  The failure to include what is called ``Net neutrality'' legislation 
is failure to keep the principle of keeping the Net free from 
discrimination. In my view, we run the prospect of dividing the 
Internet into technology haves and have-nots. What will happen is even 
more power will be concentrated in the hands of special interests that 
own the pipelines to the Net. In effect, the legislation codifies 
discrimination on the Net by giving a green light to a handful of large 
telecommunications and cable providers to set up what could be a system 
that will allow for differential treatment.
  It means, for example, one small business may get service that won't 
be as good as another's. That translates, in my view, if it is done by 
deliberate design on the basis of who can pay, into discrimination.
  The failure to include the Net neutrality legislation that Senators 
Dorgan and Snowe and I and others have worked on for so long is going 
to allow the special interests to saddle the startup businesses, the 
consumers, and the innovators with a variety of new and discriminatory 
fees over and above what they already pay for Internet access.
  In my view, what has happened today, failing to include provisions 
that keep the Net free of discrimination, is like throwing a huge 
wrecking ball at this extraordinary telecommunications innovation that 
we all enjoy, known as the Net. The failure to include this provision 
compels me to state this objection to going forward on this legislation 
because I believe the days of unfettered, unlimited access to any site 
on the World Wide Web is threatened by this bill as written. Those who 
own the pipes, the cable companies and the phone companies, will be 
able to play favorites with respect to the sites that Americans can 
access.
  If they get their way, not only will Americans have to pay more for 
faster speeds, they will have to pay more for how they use the Internet 
once they choose what speed to access it by, something they get for 
free today after they pay their basic access charge. In my view, the 
Internet has been such a great success precisely because it was free of 
discrimination. It thrives because the marketplace, consumers, small 
businesses, and others were able to choose what they wanted to see and 
how quickly they wanted to see it. So I am not going to let a bill like 
this go forward because it will end surfing the Web free of 
discrimination.
  The large interests that have backed the legislation have written and 
have already made clear what their designs are. This is not some kind 
of atomic secret, Mr. President. There have been lengthy articles in 
the Wall Street Journal, for example, about pay-to-play. It outlined in 
great detail all of the ways in which the companies could play 
favorites, could give a break to a business who had a bit more money, 
and send somebody else who didn't have the funds off to the second 
tier. Instead of providing equal access for everyone to the same 
content at the same price, what we would have are sweetheart 
arrangements where certain parties would win and other parties would 
lose. This, in my view, is bad news for consumers and anyone who enjoys 
unlimited access to all of the Net's applications, services, and 
content.
  Right now, there is a computer science major at the University of 
Oregon in my home State who is working on the next big thing for the 
Internet and has great dreams. I am sure that at universities and in 
garages in Oklahoma, where the Presiding Officer is from, there are 
constituents who are also working on the next big thing. My concern is 
that those dreamers in Oklahoma and Oregon, and the innovators and the 
people with the cutting edge ideas, would not get the chance to get the 
next big idea out because they would not be able to pay the big fees 
that Internet providers will charge tomorrow for them to get priority 
access to consumers or get stuck in the slow lane. Of course, they are 
going to be up against people, as they fight to show the worth of their 
idea, who can pay those big fees and have an advantage over them in the 
marketplace.
  What is especially troubling to me, Mr. President, is it seems that 
if you have an innovative startup in Oregon or Oklahoma or elsewhere in 
our country, you are going to be up against these new barriers. But 
guess what? Our competitors around the world don't have the same kind 
of barriers with. So what I am concerned about is that if you have a 
good idea in our country, a promising kind of startup, and you run up 
against all of these hurdles--these new discriminatory hurdles placed 
on the Internet--you are going to say, what the heck, I cannot compete 
in that kind of situation, so I will just take the business overseas.
  What I want to do--and I know the Senator from Oklahoma wants to do 
it--is create high-skill, high-wage jobs in our country. We ought to 
keep the incentives here rather than making it attractive to take 
promising ideas overseas. I have been involved in a lot of technology 
issues, and the principle that I have always thought was most important 
was ensuring that there is no discrimination.
  Today, I was very pleased that the Senate Finance Committee accepted 
my amendment to make permanent the ban on discriminatory and multiple 
taxes on electronic commerce. We have been at this since 1996. We 
passed it three times in the Senate, always by large majorities, and I 
said let's get at it now and make it permanent so that we give 
predictability and certainty in the marketplace. I was very pleased 
that, with the support of Grassley and Baucus, I was able to win 
passage of that legislation that involved taxes, ensuring that there 
was no discrimination in the tax and the electronic commerce areas. I 
was pleased that it passed.
  Unfortunately, what was done today in the Commerce Committee by 
giving a green light to discriminators undoes a lot of what the Senate 
has done over the last few years in terms of ensuring nondiscrimination 
in electronic commerce.
  We made sensible decisions in the tax arena because we barred 
discrimination as it related to taxing electronic commerce. Now the 
Senate Commerce Committee comes along and says we are going to pass on 
this Net neutrality issue; we are not going to include it, so now there 
can be other forms of discrimination on the Net. That makes no sense to 
me, and it seems particularly ironic today, of all days, as the Senate 
has been trying to prevent discrimination in the taxation area of 
electronic commerce, to essentially undo that important policy by 
allowing unprecedented discrimination in the marketplace.

[[Page 12876]]

  There is another area I think is worth noting as I object to the 
consideration of S. 2686. We have heard from a number of those opposed 
to Net neutrality legislation that there has been no problem, that 
there are no instances of discrimination. No. 1, that is factually 
incorrect because there is already a major Federal Communications 
Commission case, Madison River case, and No. 2, the big telecoms and 
cable companies have already announced their plans to discriminate. I 
have described the plans in the Wall Street Journal which are not any 
kind of hidden effort to sneak something by people. The Wall Street 
Journal describes the plans for differential treatment.
  I note, as we consider this issue, the consequences of 
discrimination. If those who want to discriminate--and my sense is, by 
their own admissions, they are going to start very quickly--are able to 
set in place the discriminatory routers and other equipment that would 
allow them to treat those small businesses and individuals differently, 
once those routers and other discriminatory systems are in place, it is 
going to be very difficult to undo them. They will be embedded in that 
system of pipes and infrastructure which makes it possible for 
Americans to enjoy the Net. I am not willing to sit by and let all of 
those discriminatory routers and other kinds of complicated systems 
that make up the pipes for the Net go into effect without an 
opportunity for the Senate to really consider the consequences.
  We are talking with respect to this legislation and its absence of 
strong Net neutrality language, about changing policy that has been the 
bedrock of the telecommunications field for many years--non-
discrimination.
  This legislation contains a variety of major changes in the country's 
telecommunications law. I happen to support many of them. But I will 
tell the Senate tonight that a communications bill that does not embed, 
and do it clearly, that the Internet will be free of discrimination is 
legislation that I believe is badly flawed.
  This is a complicated subject. There are differing views on Net 
neutrality and I am the first to admit it. But I think all sides would 
agree that this is a complicated issue. It ought to be one the Senate 
takes the time to really think through. And I will make it clear to the 
Senate that I, for one, feel so strongly about ensuring 
telecommunications policy continues to be based on principles that bar 
discrimination that I am taking this action tonight for purposes of 
carrying out that objective.
  Let me state again, it is my intent to object to any further action 
on this legislation, S. 2686, until it includes a strong Net neutrality 
provision that will ensure there is a vibrant, healthy Internet for 
decades to come.
  My colleagues, Senator Snowe and Senator Dorgan, did a superb job 
this afternoon in making the case for our point of view. I am very 
proud to have been able to work with them. The legislation they 
introduced is very similar to mine. Unfortunately, the Snowe-Dorgan 
legislation went down on a tie vote in the Commerce Committee today. 
However, this discussion needs to continue. I hope the Senate will 
insist that the way the Internet works today, and particularly its 
egalitarian nature where everybody uses their browser and gets to where 
they want, when they want, how they want, is continued for generations 
to come.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________