Thune Defends Specialized Services Exemption in Net Neutrality Bill
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., insisted his draft net neutrality bill’s language wasn't intended to include any loopholes to allow for paid prioritization, despite protests from committee Democrats. Democrats in both chambers worry about the draft bill’s provision…
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on specialized services, but Thune said during the final hour of his Commerce Committee hearing (see 1501210049">1501210049) Wednesday evening that the language is drawn from FCC 2010 rules, White House statements and the proposal last year from former House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif. “I put out a draft, you’re all shooting at it, that’s fine,” Thune said. Several other Democrats, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, attacked the draft. Cantwell dismissed the specialized services exemption as “big enough to drive a truck through.” The Pacific Northwest is “not going to be quiet about this issue,” Cantwell said, tying it to commerce and worrying about the chilling effects. Booker defended Communications Act Title II reclassification by the FCC as the one path forward. The draft ”eviscerates a lot of the key elements that are put in place” in Section 202 of Title II, Booker said, grilling Multicultural, Media, Telecom & Internet Council Vice President Nicol Turner-Lee for her objections to Title II. The idea that legislation will lead to flexibility seems “counterintuitive” and “counterfactual,” Blumenthal said, concerned the draft would hurt FCC authority to address disparities and to stop anticompetitive behavior. Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman told Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, that the draft could be modified to the point of acceptability -- it’s “a matter of getting past all the titles and the characterizations and getting at the functions,” Kimmelman said. “This is your one shot at the apple. I don’t see Congress coming back to this.” Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., issued a statement Thursday blasting “utility-style regulations” and saying he plans to work with Thune and their House counterparts “to put forward a proposal that ensures that consumers continue to have access to high-speed Internet services and innovation unimpeded by disproportionate government intervention.” The hearing's "proceedings yielded optimism that there are members on both sides of the aisle who see and support a role for Congress to set a workable long term policy to protect an open Internet," Thune said in a statement Thursday.