Republicans Lawmakers let net neutrality rules live on (for now)

A proposal by Republican lawmakers to put anti-network neutrality provisions into a government spending bill has been dropped. House leaders from both major parties struck a deal late on Dec 15 on a $1.1 trillion spending bill and tax breaks. Earlier versions of this bill would have withheld funding from the Federal Communications Commission in order to prevent implementation of net neutrality rules until Internet service providers exhaust all their appeals. Earlier versions also would have imposed new reporting requirements on the FCC and prohibited the commission from regulating Internet service rates. The compromise budget bill did not include those provisions.

Tech companies, Democratic members of Congress, and the White House had all pressured Republican members to drop the anti-net neutrality proposals. Republican lawmakers have put forth several proposals to overturn or limit the FCC's net neutrality order in 2015, so the budget compromise isn't necessarily a final victory for Democrats. But the biggest threat to the FCC's rules likely come from the lawsuit filed by broadband providers, which should be decided within the next few months.