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Internet/Telecom · Politics · Regulation

Heartland Institute Statement on Effort to De-Fund Net Neutrality Rules

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment hat would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from using any federal funds to enforce the net neutrality rules it approved in December. (It is attached to the “continuing resolution” Congress needs to pass by March 4 because the former Democratic Congress failed to pass a budget for the second consecutive year.)

The Heartland Institute has been covering the net neutrality issue for years. Here are the statements on this issue by Bruce Edward Walker and me.

Bruce Edward Walker, managing editor of InfoTech & Telecom News, research fellow for technology policy at The Heartland Institute:

“The FCC’s authority to regulate the Internet was cut from whole cloth to begin with. Only Congress may grant such power over the Internet. Yesterday’s vote to block funding for the FCC’s net neutrality rules adopted in December is a stern congressional rebuke directed at Chairman Julius Genachowski and commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, reminding the FCC it cannot create rules, it can only enforce them.”

For more comments, contact Bruce Edward Walker atbwalker@heartland.org.

Jim Lakely, co-director of the Center on the Digital Economy at The Heartland Institute:

“There has been a bipartisan consensus in Congress for years to stop the FCC from micromanaging the Internet via a strict net neutrality regime, so it’s good to see our elected representatives finally take a stand. Of course, the FCC forced Congress’s hand after it ignored the landmark Comcast v. FCC ruling in April 2010 and plowed ahead with regulations anyway.

“Keeping government bureaucrats from playing ‘Mother, May I?’ with the digital economy is vital if America is going to pull out of its current state of stagnation. Only when the technology sector feels confident about a lack of future regulation will investment and innovation regain its former brisk pace.”

For more comments, contact Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org.

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— Jim Lakely

Jim is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media." Jim covered Congress and The White House during the George W. Bush administration for The Washington Times, and worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. He has appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, and many local and national talk radio shows to talk politics and policy.