Republican FCC Commissioner Slams ‘Obama’s 332-Page Plan To Regulate and Tax The Internet’
Republican FCC Commissioner Slams ‘Obama’s 332-Page Plan
To Regulate The Internet’
1:57 PM 02/06/2015
By Giuseppe Macri
Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday raised the
first of many criticisms to come about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aggressive
net neutrality plan distributed to commissioners Thursday, which Pai described
as “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet.”
In a statement released Friday, Pai lamented the fact
that the 332-page plan, which he tweeted a picture of himself holding next to a
picture of Obama, won’t be released to the public until after the commission
votes on its implementation later this month.
“President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward
government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage
virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” Pai said. “The plan
explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband…
These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that
they have to pay.”
In his initial cursory overview of the plan, the
commissioner said it would hinder broadband investment, slow network speed and
expansion, limit outgrowth to rural areas of the country and reduce Internet
service provider (ISP) competition.
“The plan saddles small, independent businesses and
entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the
market,” Pai said. “As a result, Americans will have fewer broadband choices.
This is no accident. Title II was designed to regulate a monopoly. If we impose
that model on a vibrant broadband marketplace, a highly regulated monopoly is
what we’ll get.”
In an op-ed detailing the core aspects of his net
neutrality plan published earlier this week, Wheeler described lumping ISPs
under Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act — which based its authority
on that used to regulate telephone monopolies at the dawn of the communication
age — as the cornerstone.
“Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the
strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC,” Wheeler wrote
Wednesday. “These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization,
and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.”
The plan described by Wheeler would ban wired and
wireless ISPs like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable from
establishing tiered lanes of service speeds with varying prices for content
creators like Netflix, Google, YouTube, Facebook and others based on speed and
bandwidth use. It would also prevent ISPs from throttling, segregating or
blocking traffic.
“Courts have twice thrown out the FCC’s attempts at Internet
regulation,” Pai said recalling the lawsuit that struck down the FCC’s Internet
authority last year, setting off the year-long debate. “There’s no reason to
think that the third time will be the charm. Even a cursory look at the plan
reveals glaring legal flaws that are sure to mire the agency in the muck of
litigation for a long, long time.”
Industry lobbyists, lawmakers and regulators aligned with
Pai have accused the FCC — an independent government agency — of bending to the
White House’s will with the plan, which includes virtually all of the proposals
advocated by President Obama late last year.
Pai said that his comments on the plan Friday would be
the first of many as he reviews the plan himself in the weeks prior to the Feb.
26 vote.
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