The Open Internet Preservation Act, introduced by House Energy and Commerce Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would give the FCC authority to enforce the rules.
If passed, it would end a contentious process that has seen at least half a dozen policy reversals over the last ten years, as the Commission and the courts fought over whether the agency ever had authority from Congress to regulate the Internet in the first place.
Democrats in Congress will now have to choose between securing their stated goal of open Internet protections enforceable by the FCC or continuing to lobby for what has long been the openly-stated actual goal of advocacy groups—the nationalization of broadband as a government network or a quasi-governmental public utility.
In a tweeted video introducing the legislation, Blackburn said "[FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] has done his job, now it's up to Congress to do theirs.”
There's been a lot of confusion around the term "net neutrality." People have been led to believe the Obama-era rules mean a free and open internet for users. This is simply not true. pic.twitter.com/D1RKpAE1DS— Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) December 18, 2017
The White House had argued that in the absence of legislation from Congress, so-called “reclassification” of broadband services was the only avenue open to the agency to pass Internet-based regulations, including net neutrality rules.
That reclassification, however, was left largely to the discretion of the FCC, including future expansion of its public utility powers.
Democrats, expecting to win the 2016 election and maintain control of the Commission, had refused to negotiate with Republicans on net neutrality, either before the FCC’s public utility decision or since, assuming that the next FCC chairman would choose not to reverse the public utility decision.
That gamble proved fatal to the 2015 net neutrality order, which a majority of the Commission, as expected, voted last week largely to undo.
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