White House: President Should Veto Net Neutrality Resolution If It Passes

[alp227]

Source: Broadcasting & Cable

The White House is advising the President to veto the network neutrality-blocking joint resolution of disapproval (S.J. Res. 6) in the unlikely event that it passes the Senate on a vote expected Thursday.

The resolution would invalidate the FCC's Dec. 2010 vote to expand and codify its network neutrality rules, which are scheduled to go into effect Nov. 20. A similar resolution passed the House, but is not expected to be approved in the Senate.

In an advisory on the bill issued Tuesday by the Office of Management and Budget, the administration said that it strongly oposes the meausre, which it says would "undermine a fundamental part of the Nation's Open Internet and innovation strategy -- an enforceable, effective but flexible policy for keeping the Internet free and open."

The President made network neutrality a campaign issue when he ran in 2008, and gave the rules a shout-out when they were approved last December, so the opposition to the resolution comes as no surprise.

Read more: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/476422-White_House_President_Should_Veto_Net_Neutrality_Resolution_If_It_Passes.php

[qanda]

1. Can I just say that the name is so confusing and I'm sure it's why so many people

Are not engaged in fighting for it.

[karynnj]

2. Why do you think Obama should NOT veto the bill?

I think you have the sides mixed up - the new FCC rules protect net neutrality - and the Kay Bailey Hutichson resolution would end it. It is Hutchison's bill that they are asking Obama to veto if it passes.

here is an article that speaks of a Kerry letter to his peers calling for its defeat. Kerry chairs the Commerce subcommittee that has oversight of the internet.

According to a copy of the letter, Senate Communications Subcommittee chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) Friday asked his colleagues to vote against the Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules, which could get a vote on the Senate floor next week.

It has already passed the Republican-controlled House, but has an uphill slog in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In the letter, Kerry says that not only would nullifying the rule signal Congress was prepared to deny independent regulators the ability to execute the law, "but it would discourage investment in the next Google or Amazon and put at risk health and safety rules, environmental protections, worker rights" and "every other public protection that our agencies enforce that some in Congress do not like." Obviously that last part was a reference to the precedent it could set for Congress overturning regulations.
<snip>
Kerry said that for those who argue the FCC exceeded its authority in adopting the regs, "a court will make that decision," then proceeded to make the case himself, concluding that the FCC "not only has the authority to protect the Open Internet, but the responsibility to do so." Kerry said if the regs were blocked, "every innovator on the Internet will be exposed to the risk that before they innovate they would have to ask ‘mother may I' to the companies that control access to the users on the other end of the line."

http://www.multichannel.com/article/476225-Kerry_To_Colleagues_Don_t_Nullify_Net_Neutrality.php

[Enrique]

3. convoluted story

it's giving me a headache trying to figure out what's what.

[DJ13]

4. The White House is advising the President to veto

Wait....what?

The President *IS* the WH, what are they talking about?

[They_Live]

5. That what I was thinking too

Like the walls and porch are talking to him.

[stockholmer]

9. they talked to Nixon

:rofl:

[KamaAina]

6. Must mean someone within the White House

Wonder who?

edit: got confused, too :dunce:

[Liberal Veteran]

8. The WH became self aware 2:14 am on August 29th.

:P

[PragmaticLiberal]

12. White House counsel etc.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. How to write in the most confusing possible way. Exhibit #1. n/t

[WilliamPitt]

10. Derp?

[stockholmer]

11. a much better article (and one without misspelling, I might add, lol)

White House pledges to veto anti-net-neutrality resolution

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/white-house-pledges-to-veto-anti-net-neutrality-resolution.ars

Some members of Congress are still bent on overturning the FCC's not-in-effect-until-Thanksgiving net neutrality rules. In a vote coming up this week, the Senate will vote on S.J. Res. 6, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112sjres6pcs/pdf/BILLS-112sjres6pcs.pdf "Disapproval of Federal Communications Commission Rule Regulating the Internet and Broadband Industry Practices."

The resolution of disapproval is a simple one. It says, in its entirety:

That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to the matter of preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practices (Report and Order FCC 10-201, adopted by the Commission on December 21, 2010), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

The White House, which has made only tiny peeps about net neutrality since President Obama's election campaign, today did release a statement http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/sapsjr6s_20111108.pdf standing up for the watered-down rules http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/its-here-fcc-adopts-net-neutrality-lite.ars passed last December by the FCC. (The rules are so weak that they almost entirely exempt wireless networks.) The statement confirms that Obama would veto the Senate resolution.

"The open Internet enables entrepreneurs to create new services without fear of undue discrimination by network providers," it says. "Federal policy has consistently promoted an Internet that is open and facilitates innovation and investment, protects consumer choice, and enables free speech… Disapproval of the rule would threaten those values and cast uncertainty over those innovative new businesses that are a critical part of the Nation’s economic recovery. It would be ill-advised to threaten the very foundations of innovation in the Internet economy and the democratic spirit that has made the Internet a force for social progress around the world."


snip