Markey: FCC Network Neutrality Proposal Needs Legislative Teeth

Rep Ed Markey (D-MA) reiterated this week that the Federal Communications Commission's Network Neutrality efforts likely won't be a sufficient deterrent to Internet service providers and remains determined to pass open Internet legislation. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Reps Markey and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) expressed their support for the chairman's network neutrality proposal. But Rep Markey also said that he still expected that to be a "complement" to the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (H.R. 3458) that he and Rep Eshoo introduced to codify network neutrality rules. While praising Genachowski's proposal to add two new principles of nondiscrimination and transparency as "precisely the kind of regulatory predictability that markets require" and praising the FCC's own promised transparency and inclusiveness in the rulemaking process, Rep Markey suggested that would not be sufficient.