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Senate Bill to Block Net Neutrality Repeal Now Has 40 Co-Sponsors (thehill.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fast-tracked dept.

New submitter Rick Schumann writes: The senate bill to block the FCC repeal of Obama-era internet net neutrality rules now has 40 co-sponsors, up from the 30 co-sponsors it had yesterday. The bill, being driven by Senate minority Democrats, requires only a simple majority vote in order to be passed, although Washington insiders are currently predicting the bill will fail. "The bill would use authority under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to block the FCC's repeal from going into effect," reports The Hill. "And with more than 30 senators on board, the legislation will be able to bypass the committee approval process and Democrats will be able to force a vote on the floor."

23 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. OK... by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, they are actually making a law about it, as they should have in the first place, rather than a proclamation from an unelected regulatory body? Seems like that is exactly what *should* happen.

    1. Re:OK... by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So, they are actually making a law about it,

      No, this is not a law about NN, it is a law ordering the FCC to continue an Obama policy, which was a proclamation from an unelected regulatory body. Kicking the can, so to speak, instead of doing what they should.

    2. Re:OK... by ArhcAngel · · Score: 2

      NOPE. They aren't making a law. They are voting to prevent new FCC rules from going into effect. The FCC can turn right around and resubmit the rules.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    3. Re:OK... by RedK · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You know, instead of passing a law to order the FCC to enforce arbitrary policies set by a commission, they could use the opportunity to pass actual consumer protection type Net Neutrality rules.

      Leave it to Congress to not do anything right.

      --
      "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
      Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
    4. Re:OK... by naubol · · Score: 2

      Your point is regulatory bodies shouldn't regulate?

      --
      Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
    5. Re:OK... by bobbied · · Score: 2

      Actually no.. If they manage to get Congressional Review passed though both the house and Senate (unlikely to be sure) and Trump actually signs it (a snowballs chance of that) it reverses the FCC's decision. Further the FCC cannot re-issue the rule making and Net Neutrality would remain in force unless congress acted. Lucky it won't get out of the Senate... It would be a huge mess if this actually happened. The CR process is supposed to stop rules from being made, not deleted, and the unintended side effects are nasty if used to stop a rule from being deleted.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    6. Re:OK... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

      Sometimes it's worth it to get a vote on record. By being able to force a floor vote, during a mid-term election year, they can force these Senators to either side with the 80% of the public that disagrees with the FCC, or side with the monopolistic corporate asshat ISPs that are jamming this down everyone's throats through lobbyists and schmoozing 5 unelected guys who apparently set the rules with their sole oversight being a Congressional rubber stamp session.

      Let them vote no, and then hammer them with it relentlessly for the next 10 months, showing that Senator Porkbelly votes against not only your interests, but 4 out of 5 voters' interests. Make it the biggest issue of the campaign, and make Senator Porkbelly explain themselves and their vote at every single public event of their campaign.

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    7. Re:OK... by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2

      Actually, my point is that lawmakers shouldn't ever in any circumstance be permitted to create regulatory bodies in the first place. Every single law should be voted on by Congress. It would then be *impossible* to have a spew of regulations emitted at the whim of the participants, but that the representatives would be personally responsible for the effects at the polls.

    8. Re:OK... by spitzak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      nobody but the left really cares

      This is because some are being lied to, capitalizing on their inability to distinguish the word "neutrality" from "communist plot".

      When the right sees the internet turned into a giant Safe Space where nonconforming opinions are not allowed because they hurt business, and there is no more free porn, they might realize they were misled.

  2. Allow right of way to the polls and conduits by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... literally the whole problem is the result of government created monopolies where in a few companies are allowed to run cable and no one else is...

    https://www.wired.com/2013/07/...

    A little competition and the entire argument becomes moot.

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    1. Re:Allow right of way to the polls and conduits by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem with 'competition' in this case is this: who owns the cables on the poles? Lots of smaller ISPs have to lease lines from, say, AT&T for instance. There's nothing preventing AT&T, in this example, from either saying "nah, we don't want to lease them to you" or "okay, but we're going to charge you up the ying-yang for them". Even making everything wireless won't solve this problem, there's only so much bandwidth.

    2. Re:Allow right of way to the polls and conduits by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 2

      You nailed the real problem. Let's not forget that a number of telecoms also actively lobby for (and win) legislation against any form of community broadband, condemning vast areas of the country outside of urban centers to outrageously expensive wireless or dial-up.

  3. Pass or Fail, it'll have an impact by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this passes a vote, then Net Neutrality lives to see another day.
    If it doesn't pass, then those who voted against it will have declared themselves on the issue.
    Either way it's time for them all to get off the fence.

    1. Re:Pass or Fail, it'll have an impact by quantaman · · Score: 2

      If this passes a vote, then Net Neutrality lives to see another day.

      If it doesn't pass, then those who voted against it will have declared themselves on the issue.

      Either way it's time for them all to get off the fence.

      If this passes a vote in the Senate then Paul Ryan can simply ignore it and it will never come up for a vote in the house (and congressional GOP members won't be on record as voting against it).

      If Paul Ryan does schedule a vote, and it does pass congress, then Trump still has the option of vetoing it.

      In fact, if they were being really devious, the Senate could pass the bill unanimously and the House could never schedule a vote. So NN is still dead and no one is on record as opposing it.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  4. The Internet is a necessary public utility. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "... who owns the cables on the poles?"

    Cities and counties should own and lease dark fiber. The Internet is a necessary public utility, like water, electricity, natural gas, sewage, and trash pickup.

    1. Re:The Internet is a necessary public utility. by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I get charged a pretty reasonable rate for my utilities. I see no reason why a fiber optic network should be significantly harder or more expensive to maintain than a bunch of water or sewer pipes, or electric lines.

      I see a reasonable case for eminent domain here. I think municipalities should be allowed to pay market price to the ISPs for the fiber they've laid and set up last mile connections in local communities if they want to do so.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  5. The value: by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2

    There is value in what they are doing. They are making the issue more public. They are causing government leaders to have to declare their positions.

  6. Re:Mindless virtue signalling flapping by Dems by Ichijo · · Score: 2

    "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one." --Mal Reynolds

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
  7. Re:19 Senate Democrats... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    They are:

    Cory Booker (D-N.J.)
    Tom Carper (D-Del.)
    Bob Casey (D-Pa.)
    Chris Coons (D-Del.)
    Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.)
    Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.)
    Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.)
    Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.)
    Doug Jones (D-Ala.)
    Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
    Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
    Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
    Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
    Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
    Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
    Tina Smith (D-Minn.)
    Jon Tester (D-Mont.)
    Tom Udall (D-N.M.)
    Mark Warner (D-Va.)

    No surprise for Patty Murray since she's always worked to prevent people in the Seattle area from having faster than dial-up access to the Internet.

  8. FUCK AJIT PAI by Nick · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fuck Ajit Pai

    --
    Fuck Ajit Pai
    1. Re:FUCK AJIT PAI by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Funny

      My company had an Ugly Christmas Sweater contest this year. One guy wore a typical Christmas sweater...with an unlabeled picture of Pai pinned to it. He handily won the contest with the most votes by far.

  9. Re:19 Senate Democrats... by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    Feinstein won't ever get kicked to the curb, because the Republicans can't seem to find anybody to run who isn't either racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or some combination of the above. All they would have to do is find one single fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican to run, and she'd be gone, because I don't know any Democrats (at least in the Bay Area) who wouldn't vote against her in a heartbeat if the alternative weren't just to the right of Breitbart.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  10. Re:19 Senate Democrats... by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the Republicans can't seem to find anybody to run who isn't either racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or some combination of the above. All they would have to do is find one single fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican to run,

    and the next day the Democrats would be running ads accusing him of being racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or some other similar thing, and your initial statement would still be true.