Two Telecom Bills Form a United Front Against Discrimination

[Commentary] House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Internet stalwart Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) have introduced the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (HR 5994). This bill provides a nice complement to the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353), introduced by House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS). As so often happens in Congress, legislation tends to track jurisdiction. In real terms, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, looking at a telecom issue, will introduce a bill over which that committee has jurisdiction. The Conyers-Lofgren bill would subject Net Neutrality violations to the possibility of an antitrust suit – a subject area over which the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction. The Markey bill, by contrast, takes its authority from the Communications Act, which happens to be under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Markey’s bill add to the catch-all Title I of the Communications Act the principles of the Federal Communications Commission’s policy statement on the Internet, and non-discrimination language of the Act designed to apply to the telephone network as it was before the Commission decided that high-speed Internet services didn't have the “burden” of carrying everyone’s traffic without interference, that is, as “common carriers.” These two bills are not mutually exclusive. The Communications Act has existed since 1934 governing how the telecom markets in this country would function, for better or worse. For years, the FCC regulated the telephone industry, overseeing rates and subsidies, equipment and related issues. It was under the antitrust laws that the old Bell System was broken up into what were in 1984 seven Regional Bell companies and the long-distance AT&T. It was also under the auspices of the antitrust laws, thanks to Clinton Administration appointee Joel Klein, that the Bell System began to put itself back together when the Justice Department allowed Bell Atlantic to merge with Nynex in 1997.
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