[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16915-16916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       NET NEUTRALITY REGULATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, later today the Senate will take up 
S.J. Res. 6, Senator Hutchison's resolution of disapproval of the FCC's 
net neutrality regulations. I would like to start by thanking Senator 
Hutchison for her leadership on this important issue.
  While we all understand the importance of an open Internet, I think 
we can also agree that the growth of the Internet in the last 15 years 
is an American success story that occurred absent any--any--heavyhanded 
regulation here in Washington. We should think long and hard before we 
allow unelected bureaucrats to tinker with it now.
  Everywhere I go in Kentucky, I hear from businesses large and small 
that they are struggling to comply with the mountains of rules and 
regulations coming out of Washington. At a time when the private sector 
would like to create jobs and grow the economy, it seems as if too many 
here in Washington want to create regulations and grow government. So, 
like many Americans, I was heartened 2 months ago when the President 
came to the Capitol and laid out a very specific test for judging the 
merits of Federal regulation. Like most of my colleagues, I applauded 
when the President told us that ``we should have no more regulation 
than the health, safety and security of the American people require. 
Every rule should meet that common-sense test.''
  As it turns out, the FCC didn't get the memo. The net neutrality 
regulations we are debating today clearly fail that commonsense test. 
They are a solution in search of a problem. It is an overreaching 
attempt to fix the Internet when the Internet is not broken. According 
to the FCC's own data, 93 percent of broadband subscribers are happy 
with their service. If Americans weren't happy with their provider or 
felt the provider was favoring some form of content over others, they 
could switch providers. But now the FCC says its regulations are 
necessary because of what might happen in the future--what might happen 
in the future--if broadband providers have incentives to favor one type 
of content over another, despite the fact that after 15 years, there is 
no evidence of this occurring in any significant way. If Internet 
providers were so interested in doing this, wouldn't they have done it 
by now? Instead, the FCC has exceeded its authority to grow the reach 
of government under the guise of fixing a problem that doesn't even 
exist.
  So why should this matter to anyone? Simply, the growth of the 
Internet is one of the great success stories of our lifetime. Just 15 
years ago, the thought that you could read a book, watch a ball game, 
and video conference with your kids all on a device the size of a 
magazine would have been something from science fiction. Today, it is 
reality. The Internet has transformed society precisely because people 
have been able to create and innovate largely free from government 
intrusion.
  Businesses are free to invest and grow on the Internet, safe in the 
knowledge that consumers and technology will determine their fate, not 
the whims of Washington regulators. This investment in broadband 
infrastructure is the cornerstone of our high-tech economy, which 
employs nearly 3.5 million Americans. But the FCC's regulations could 
jeopardize its future growth by dictating what sort of return 
businesses can earn on their investment. As my colleague Senator 
Hutchison and I recently noted, ``Lower returns mean less investment, 
which in turn means fewer jobs.'' Some estimates suggest we could lose 
300,000 jobs as a result of these rules.
  Thankfully, it is not too late to act. A bipartisan majority in the 
House voted to overturn these rules earlier

[[Page 16916]]

this year. The Senate should take the opportunity to do the same. In 
order to protect the growth of the Internet and its ability to create 
the jobs of the future, I would encourage my colleagues to support the 
Hutchison resolution.


                        Bipartisan Jobs Creation

  Madam President, I wish to speak now on another issue.
  When something good happens here in the Senate, I think it is 
important that we all acknowledge it. So I would like to start this 
morning by thanking our friends on the other side for finally agreeing 
to join us in making some progress on the nearly two dozen bipartisan 
jobs bills the House has already passed, and I want to urge them to 
keep at it, to keep pressing ahead with jobs bills both parties will 
actually support. That way, we will show the American people we are 
capable of accomplishing something together up here when it comes to 
jobs.
  For months, House Republicans have been executing on a plan to 
identify ideas which would not only help spur private sector job 
creation but which would also attract strong bipartisan support. For 
weeks, I have been urging the Democratic majority in the Senate to take 
up these bills so they can become law.
  This week, Senate Democrats finally agreed to move ahead with two of 
these bipartisan proposals--a repeal of the 3-percent withholding rule 
that would ease the burden on government contractors and a veterans 
bill which not only helps returning service men and women find jobs but 
which also helps those who hire them. Neither of these bills is going 
to solve the jobs crisis, but they will help a lot of Americans who 
deserve it, and they will go a long way in showing the American people 
there is plenty we can agree on up here.
  My suggestion now is that we don't stop there. Let's just keep it up. 
Let's take up and pass the rest of the bipartisan jobs bills House 
Republicans have already passed with bipartisan support right across 
the dome. I have highlighted one of those bills already this week, one 
that makes it easier for businesses to raise the capital they need to 
expand and create jobs. This morning, I would like to highlight 
another--the Shareholder Registration Thresholds Act, H.R. 1965. This 
is a bill that increases the number of shareholders who are allowed to 
invest in a community bank before that bank is required to shoulder 
costly new burdens from the SEC.
  For 3 years now we have been talking about the urgent need for 
growing businesses to have access to capital so they can expand and 
hire. Yet, because of an outdated law, the smaller community banks that 
want to make loans to help these growing businesses are subject to 
burdensome regulations that shouldn't even apply to them. H.R. 1965 
will increase the threshold of shareholders that triggers the 
requirement from 500 to 2,000. A companion bill in the Senate that 
would do the same thing is cosponsored on the Republican side by 
Senator Hutchison, among others, and on the Democratic side by Senator 
Pryor, among others. And Senator Toomey has a bill--S. 1825--to expand 
this legislation by applying it to businesses other than banks.
  Now, we should take up these bills in the Senate and pass them as 
soon as possible with the same show of bipartisan support the two 
parties mustered on behalf of H.R. 1965 last week. Just like the 
bipartisan House-passed jobs bill I highlighted yesterday, H.R. 1965 
passed the House last week with nearly unanimous support. The vote was 
420 to 2, with 184 Democrats voting in support. Only 2 people out of 
the entire 435-Member House voted against the bill.
  The President's jobs council has endorsed the idea, and top Democrats 
have been vocal proponents of this legislation proposed by House 
Republicans.
  Here is House minority leader Congressman Hoyer on H.R. 1965 just 
last week:

       We need to see lending to small businesses and homeowners, 
     but they're hamstrung in their attempt to raise capital by 
     outdated SEC registration requirements.

  I completely agree with Steny Hoyer.
  Here is Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee:

       Small businesses need access to loans and other lines of 
     credit in order to build their businesses and to create jobs. 
     Before us is a measure that would allow small businesses to 
     get the support they need.

  I completely agree with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Look, it is 
not every day that Congresswoman Jackson Lee and I agree on 
legislation. So I think we should lock this down. Let's pocket another 
bipartisan accomplishment right here and help the job creators who need 
it.
  This is precisely the kind of approach we should be taking here in 
the Senate--putting aside these giant partisan bills that Democrats 
know Republicans won't support and focusing on smaller proposals that 
can actually garner support from nearly everyone and make it onto the 
President's for a signature.
  These are small steps but they are progress. Let's keep at it.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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