Network neutrality to dominate DC’s tech agenda

For the White House, a major win on network neutrality might come at a cost -- scuttling everything else on Washington’s tech and telecom agenda in 2015.

Some GOP members are planning to use their soon-to-be majority status to knock down the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality actions, perhaps even before any rules are announced in early 2015. And the growing tensions threaten to spill over into larger policy debates, as Congress takes on the complex process of updating the nation’s central communications laws. “I don’t doubt there’s going to be a major confrontation if [the president] and the chairman of the FCC press ahead with rules as they have been described,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Sen John Thune (R-SD), who’s set to take the helm of his chamber’s powerful Commerce Committee, has floated the idea of a bill that would pre-empt an FCC move to adopt the Title II approach. The senator is “very interested in finding a legislative solution to protect the open Internet, especially if it means keeping the FCC from imposing public utility regulations,” a spokeswoman said.

The GOP’s onslaught faces clear hurdles: President Obama surely could veto any legislative effort to weaken or overturn net neutrality rules. But the congressional hearings and political sniping on the horizon could delay deeper legislative work on other telecom reforms -- namely, a planned overhaul of the core laws that govern the FCC and its regulation of cable, wireless and phone companies.