Obama Administration knocks net neutrality riders in funding bill

The Obama Administration poked holes in a House appropriations bill that includes language to temporarily prevent the Federal Communications Commission from implementing new network neutrality rules. Ahead of a scheduled markup, the Office of Management and Budget expressed “serious concerns” that the House’s Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill contains “highly problematic ideological riders.” “The inclusion of these provisions threatens to undermine an orderly appropriations process,” OMB Director Shaun Donovan wrote in a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY).

The Federal Communications Commission’s funding and the net neutrality riders were only a sliver of the concerns outlined in the six-page letter, which also dealt with IRS funding, restrictions on some Cuba travel and provisions related to DC’s budget. The Administration stopped short of threatening a veto this early in the process but called for a number of improvements. OMB Director Donovan described cuts to the FCC’s funding as unnecessary since it is funded by regulatory fees and auction funds. In addition to a blanket delay of the net neutrality order, the appropriations bill would prohibit “certain direct or indirect regulations that could independently prevent the order from being implemented,” according to the letter.