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Net Neutrality Loses House Vote, But Wins More Public Awareness

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com

April 27, 2006

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Supporters of "Net Neutrality," the principle that all content on the Internet should be accessed equally, were dealt another defeat this week.

As part of a vote on new telecommunications legislation, House Commerce Committee members defeated an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to protect net neutrality, 34-22.

The vote was mostly along party lines, with 29 Republicans and five Democrats voting to kill the amendment. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) broke party ranks to vote with 21 Democrats to support Markey's amendment.

Four Democrats on the committee switched their positions to favor support of Net Neutrality, crediting the huge explosion in public interest on the issue.

Matt Stoller, blogger for the progressive Web site MyDD, called the vote a "momentum shift," given that the Subcommittee on Commerce and Energy defeated Markey's last attempt to insert language protecting Net Neutrality by a vote of 23-8.

"There's a white hot firestorm on the issue on Capitol Hill," he said in a post discussing the issue. "No one wants to see the telcos make a radical change to the Internet and screw this medium up, except, well, the telcos."

The net neutrality issue is guaranteed to come up again as the Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act (COPE), the legislation sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), now moves to the full House for a vote.

Any legislation passed by the House must be reconciled with legislation passed in the Senate before the President can sign it into law.

Though Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) has said he supports the idea of Net Neutrality in principle, he has stopped short of endorsing putting the principle into codified law.

However, Senators Olympia Snowe (R-MI), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have all introduced legislation in the Senate that would ban network providers from degrading content or creating "toll lanes" where content providers can ensure better access to their sites in exchange for paying more money.

What was originally an issue mostly discussed by telecommunications analysts, bloggers, and the tech media has erupted into a serious issue of public import. A coalition of diverse groups and organizations banded together under the name "Save The Internet," and launched their campaign in support of Net Neutrality on April 25th.

The group boasts a membership ranging from public advocacy groups such as Common Cause and the Consumer Federation of America, to the Gun Owners of America, to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

Blogs and Web sites all across the political and social spectrum have taken up the cause of Net Neutrality as key to preserving their freedom of speech and access to content on the Internet.

Personalities as diverse as conservative blogger Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds and actress Alyssa Milano have come out in public support of keeping equal access to Internet content.

The harsh public scrutiny has also brought to light how well the major telecom players have lobbied Congress to get favorable legislation passed. Democrat Bobby Rush (D-IL), co-sponsor of COPE, was lambasted for accepting over $1 million in contributions from SBC (now AT&T) for a still-unfinished community center, while sitting on the committee handling the telecom legislation.

Although COPE will encompass many changes to how telecoms, cable companies, and municipalities deliver Internet services to customers, the blitz of opposition to a "tiered Internet" has brought mainstream public attention to an issue Matt Stoller says the telecoms wanted kept quiet.

"The telcos have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and many years lobbying for their position. We launched four days ago, and have closed a lot of ground," he said. "Over the next few months, as the public wakes up, we'll close the rest of it."

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