‘Phase One’ of Communications Law Rewrite Weighed Down by Net Neutrality

A House Republican effort to rewrite portions of the nation’s telecommunications policy is off to a rocky start. Blame it on network neutrality. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), said the Federal Communications Commission’s decision in February to classify the Internet as a public utility effectively derailed plans to review and update the Communications Act. “It kind of put a full nuclear discharge in the middle of our whole plan to do a rewrite of the Comms Act,” Chairman Walden said before a markup in his Communications and Technology subcommittee. He referred to the slate of bills approved at a markup as “phase one of the Communications Act update.” But a series of party-line votes underscored how net neutrality could be a sticking point for Chairman Walden’s efforts to revise the law. Before the markup, Chairman Walden said that the push for FCC transparency constitutes the first step in a “title by title” review of the Communications Act. “You’ve got to start somewhere and this is where we’re starting,” he said.