Verizon's Tauke: Enough Senators to Force Vote on Blocking Net Neutrality Rules

Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive VP for policy, said that he thought there were enough senators supporting network neutrality rule-blocking legislation to force a vote in the Senate, and said he expected that vote would happen, perhaps as early as the next few weeks.

The measure is highly unlikely to pass given that Democrats control the Senate and the rules were backed by a Democratic majority at the Federal Communications Commission and praised by a Democratic President who made network neutrality a campaign issue. The House has already passed an infrequently used legislative Congressional Review Act motion that would invalidate the agencies network neutrality rules, a move which gained new attention after an effective date of Nov. 21 was finally established for those rules. There has yet to be a Senate vote. And there were several unsuccessful legislative efforts to defund implementation of the rules. Tauke says the FCC is relying on a telecom statue to extend its authority to impose rules over the Internet that it can extend to price and interconnection regulation. "We think that is wrong, and from a policy perspective very dangerous." He said Verizon was more concerned about the assertion of jurisdiction than the rules themselves. "This is really about whether the FCC has the authority to regulate the Internet space," he said.