House Passes Internet Governance Bill
The House approved by a 413-0 vote an Internet governance bill (HR-1580) late Tuesday aimed at codifying the U.S. policy “to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet.” A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not say when or if Reid would bring the legislation to a floor vote in the Senate. The House passed the bill in the same week that world leaders convene for the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum.
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The lead sponsor of HR-1580, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a column on the Heritage Foundation’s website Wednesday (http://herit.ag/104Gsvv) the goal of the legislation is to fortify Congress’s “resolve to oppose efforts by authoritarian nations to exert their grip on the Internet.” The bill would codify the resolutions (H.Con. Res. 127 and S.Con. Res. 50) passed last year opposing the revised International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) adopted at the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications. Though the U.S. and 54 other countries didn’t sign the treaty, 89 nations did sign and the revised ITRs will be implemented beginning in 2015, Walden said. “I believe this is likely the start, not the end, of efforts to drag the Internet within the purview of international regulatory bodies.” He urged senators to quickly pass the bill.
The bill doesn’t reverse the FCC’s net neutrality rules, Walden said in a floor speech prior to the vote. “Let me be clear. I oppose the FCC’s rules regulating the Internet,” he said. “This legislation, however, does not require the FCC to reverse those regulations.” House Commerce Committee Democrats, led by ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., had objected to a provision in an earlier draft that he said could be used as a “backdoor attempt to undermine the FCC’s open Internet rules” (CD April 11 p4). The previous text of the bill would have made it U.S. policy to “promote a global Internet free from government control” (http://1.usa.gov/10FeUsK).
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., commended the bill’s passage. “It is essential that the Internet remains stable and secure, and I want to thank the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Walden for leading the effort to ensure the Internet is free from government control,” he said in a news release. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a news release that in passing the bill, “the House has clearly stated its broad and bipartisan support of an open Internet free of the United Nations regulation sought by freedom-repressing nations that seek to control the Internet’s content and access to it by their citizens.”
The adoption of the bill “sends a strong message to policymakers around the world that a free and open Internet is vital to democracy, commerce, education and our overall well-being,” said NCTA President Michael Powell in a news release. Telecommunications Industry Association President Grant Seiffert said: “Passage of this legislation confirms that the United States can speak with an even stronger voice against any efforts to place Internet governance under the control of a multi-national body.”