House Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte: Tweaking Antitrust Beats Title II

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) took aim at the Federal Communications Commission, offering up various legislative options for blocking the FCC's reclassification of broadband under Title II, including adjusting antitrust laws.

"You can protect the openness of the Internet a better way by having competition protected by antitrust laws," he said. Chairman Goodlatte was not definitive about any of those legislative options, saying "there could very well be." But in addition to pointing to bills already introduced under the Congressional Review Act -- in both the House and Senate -- to invalidate the FCC's Feb. 26 rulemaking, he talked about "limiting the agency through the power of the purse" by defunding implementation of the rules, and even added a new antitrust wrinkle. "I believe that our antitrust laws are good, but if they need to be tweaked, so that a small business, for example, can feel the [protection] of our antitrust laws, we should look at that." He did not even mention a fourth approach, the bill already proposed that would legislate no blocking, throttling and no paid prioritization rules, while precluding the use of Title II and limiting the use of Sec. 706 as broad authority to regulate broadband.