Cable lobby eyes opening to rewrite telecommunications law

Cable and telecommunications industry lobbyists are launching an effort to convince lawmakers to support new legislation that replaces the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality regulations.

Republican lawmakers will have to find Democrats willing to undermine President Barack Obama by supporting weaker protections than the ones he called for four months ago. Without those Democrats, any GOP-led effort would be dead in the water, unable to withstand a near-certain veto from the President. Republicans will also need a bipartisan bill to make up for the losses they are likely to suffer on their own side, from conservatives who oppose any notion of federal oversight of the Internet. “I think [lawmakers’] staffs have to go through the process of reading the order and doing their own analysis,” said Alan Roth, the senior executive vice president for the US Telecom Association. “I think it’ll be up to us, in part, to have our lawyers do that analysis and go up and talk to them about what the legal weaknesses are and what the arguments are going to be that we’re going to be making in court,” he added. Roth’s organization has previously said it would go to court over the FCC’s new rules. The path is very much uphill.