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Democracy & Technology Blog Net neutrality dead?

Hance Haney
September 29, 2010

Amy Schatz of the Wall Street Journal reports that Republicans on Chairman Henry A. Waxman’s Energy & Commerce Committee declined to support his net neutrality proposal. Which is not a big surprise. And that the proposal was opposed for different reasons by members of his own party.
Waxman apparently acted completely honorably in search of middle ground.
Yet, it is now more clear than ever that net neutrality is nothing more than a left-wing fantasy. Moderate Democrats don’t really care. Republicans oppose it, of course. We now know it cannot pass in a House of Representatives with a significant Democratic majority.
Chairman Waxman says, “If Congress can’t act, the FCC must,” according to Schatz. That’s very amusing.
If the FCC votes it out along partisan lines, will the courts uphold it? Broadband is not a “natural monopoly.” It would be very surprising if the courts upheld public utility regulation of broadband services.

Hance Haney

Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project
Hance Haney served as Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project at the Discovery Institute, in Washington, D.C. Haney spent ten years as an aide to former Senator Bob Packwood (OR), and advised him in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee during the deliberations leading to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He subsequently held various positions with the United States Telecom Association and Qwest Communications. He earned a B.A. in history from Willamette University and a J.D. from Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.