Boucher Still Working Toward Network Neutrality Legislation

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) said Thursday that he continues to work toward network neutrality legislation and remains solidly behind a free and open Internet, but does not think network neutrality should be part of the national broadband plan.

The Federal Communications Commission did not make network neutrality proposals part of the plan. But as a practical matter it didn't have to. The FCC is already proposing to expand and codify its network openness principles in a separate proceeding and a majority of commissioners have backed it. Commissioner Robert McDowell used part of his statement on the plan this week to reiterate his serious concerns about the proposal. But if it is adopted, it becomes part of the FCC's oversight of the Internet, and thus by default part and parcel of the plan, which will include numerous similar notices of proposed rulemakings on elements of a national broadband strategy.

On the legislative proposal, Chairman Boucher said he was "talking to the broadband providers, we're talking to the companies that rely on the Internet as a means of transporting their product to their customers, and we're working toward a set of understandings that hopefully we can embody in statute in the not-to-distant future."