The Net Neutrality Vote: FCC Commissioners in their Own Words

Here’s brief excerpts from the statements of the five Federal Communications Commission members during the Feb 26 vote on Open Internet rules.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: For over a decade, the Commission has endeavored to protect and promote the open Internet. FCC Chairs and Commissioners, Republican and Democrat alike, have embraced the importance of the open Internet, and the need to protect and promote that openness. Today is the culmination of that effort, as we adopt the strongest possible open Internet protections. We heard from startups and world-leading tech companies. We heard from ISPs, large and small. We heard from public-interest groups and public-policy think tanks. We heard from Members of Congress, and, yes, the President. Most important, we heard from nearly 4 million Americans who overwhelmingly spoke up in favor of preserving a free and open Internet. We listened. We learned. And we adjusted our approach based on the public record. In the process we saw a graphic example of why open and unfettered communications are essential to freedom of expression in the 21st century. I am incredibly proud of the process the Commission has run in developing today’s historic open Internet protections. I say that not just as the head of this agency, but as a U.S. citizen. Today’s Open Internet Order is a shining example of American democracy at work.

FCC Commissioner Clyburn: James Madison gave life to the First Amendment in a scant 45 words, which are fundamental to the spirit of this great nation. Almost two centuries later, Justice William Brennan would write in the historic 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision that “debate on public issues. . . [should be] . . . uninhibited, robust and wide-open.” I believe President Madison and Justice Brennan would be particularly proud of the rigorous, robust, and unfettered debate that has led us to this historic moment. … And what a moment it is. I believe the Framers would be pleased to see these principles embodied in a platform that has become such an important part of our lives. I also believe that they never envisioned a government that would include the input and leadership of women, people of color, and immigrants, or that there would be such an open process that would enable more than four million citizens to have a direct conversation with their government. They would be extremely amazed, I venture to say, because even we are amazed. So here we are, 224 years later, at a pivotal fork in the road, poised to preserve those very same virtues of a democratic society – free speech, freedom of religion, a free press, freedom of assembly and a functioning free market. As we look around the world we see foreign governments blocking access to websites including social media -- in sum, curtailing free speech. There are countries where it is routine for governments, not the consumer, to determine the type of websites and content that can be accessed by its citizens. I am proud to be able to say that we are not among them. Absent the rules we adopt today, however, any Internet Service Provider (ISP) has the liberty to do just that. They would be free to block, throttle, favor or discriminate against traffic or extract tolls from any user for any reason or for no reason at all.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: We cannot have a two-tiered Internet with fast lanes that speed the traffic of the privileged and leave the rest of us lagging behind. We cannot have gatekeepers who tell us what we can and cannot do and where we can and cannot go online. And we do not need blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization schemes that undermine the Internet as we know it. For these reasons, I support Chairman Wheeler’s efforts and rules today. They use our existing statutory tools, including Title II authority, to put back in place basic open Internet policies that we all rely on but last year our courts took away. The result honors the creative, collaborative, and open Internet envisioned by those who were there at the start, including the legendary Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web—whom we have had the privilege of hearing from today.

Commissioner Ajit Pai (from his own summary): For twenty years, there’s been a bipartisan consensus in favor of a free and open Internet—one unfettered by government regulation. So why is the FCC turning its back on Internet freedom? It is flip-flopping for one reason and one reason alone. President Obama told it to do so. The Commission’s decision to adopt President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works. It’s an overreach that will let a Washington bureaucracy, and not the American people, decide the future of the online world. One facet of that control is rate regulation. For the first time, the FCC will regulate the rates that Internet service providers may charge and will set a price of zero for certain commercial agreements. The Commission can also outlaw pro-consumer service plans. If you like your current service plan, you should be able to keep your current service plan. The FCC shouldn’t take it away from you. Consumers should expect their broadband bills to go up. The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband. One estimate puts the total at $11 billion a year. Consumers’ broadband speeds will be slower. Compare the broadband market in the US to that in Europe, where broadband is generally regulated as a public utility. Today, 82% of Americans have access to 25 Mbps broadband speeds. Only 54% of Europeans do. Moreover, in the US, average mobile speeds are 30% faster than they are in Western Europe. This plan will reduce competition and drive smaller broadband providers out of business. That’s why the plan is opposed by the country’s smallest private competitors and many municipal broadband providers. Monopoly rules from a monopoly era will move us toward a monopoly. The Internet is not broken. We do not need President Obama’s plan to “fix it.” The plan in front of us today was not formulated at the FCC through a transparent notice-and-comment rulemaking process. As The Wall Street Journal reports, it was developed through “an unusual, secretive effort inside the White House.” Indeed, White House officials, according to the Journal, functioned as a “parallel version of the FCC.” Their work led to the President’s announcement in November of his plan for Internet regulation, a plan which “blindsided” the FCC and “swept aside . . . months of work by [Chairman] Wheeler toward a compromise.” The plan has glaring legal flaws that are sure to keep the Commission mired in litigation for a
long, long time.

Commissioner Michael O’Rielly: Today a majority of the Commission attempts to usurp the authority of Congress by re-writing the Communications Act to suit its own “values” and political ends. The item claims to forbear from certain monopoly-era Title II regulations while reserving the right to impose them using other provisions or at some point in the future. The Commission abdicates its role as an expert agency by defining and classifying services based on unsupported and unreasonable findings. It fails to account for substantial differences between fixed and mobile technologies. It opens the door to apply these rules to edge providers. It delegates substantial authority to the Bureaus, including how the rules will be interpreted and enforced on a case-by-case basis. And, lest we forget how this proceeding started, it also reinstates net neutrality rules. Indeed, it seems that every bad idea ever floated in the name of net neutrality has come home to roost in this item. To read public statements over the last few weeks, one might think that this item uses Title II in some limited way solely to provide support for net neutrality rules and to protect consumers. And a casual observer might be misled to believe that the ends justify the means. Along the way, however, the means became the end. Net neutrality is now the pretext for deploying Title II to a far greater extent than anyone could have imagined just months ago. And that is the reality that the Commission tried to hide by keeping the draft from the public and releasing a carefully worded “fact” sheet in its place. While I see no need for net neutrality rules, I am far more troubled by the dangerous course that the Commission is now charting on Title II and the consequences it will have for broadband investment, edge providers, and consumers.
Statement (Chairman Wheeler)