Washington D.C. – Congressman Adam Smith issued the following video statement in support of Net Neutrality. Below is the text of the statement, and the full video statement can be viewed HERE.
Congressman Smith has taken the following actions to protect access to the internet in advance of, and following, the Federal Communication Commission decision to end Net Neutrality in late 2017:
- Original co-sponsor of H.J.Res. 129 – Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution of disapproval. H.J.Res 129 allows Congress to use a less cumbersome procedure to negate the FCC’s rule change than passing a bill through the regular legislative process; if enacted, would reverse the FCC’s decision to discard the 2015 Open Internet Rules, thereby maintaining net neutrality.
- Signed Discharge Petition for H.J.Res. 129, the CRA joint resolution of disapproval – to bring the resolution to the House Floor for a vote.
- Co-sponsor of H.R. 4585, the Save Net Neutrality Act of 2017 – legislation that would have prohibited the FCC from adopting the so-called “Restoring Internet Freedom” order that overturned Net Neutrality.
- Joined a letter with Rep. Mike Doyle and over one hundred other Members of Congress in calling on FCC Chairman Pai to delay implementation of the repeal of net neutrality.
- Independently weighed in with (by letter) the FCC Chairman to convey the sentiments of the thousands of constituents who wrote in asking the FCC to reject the order to eliminate net neutrality regulations.
Transcript of Video Statement
Net neutrality is an incredibly important issue. It sounds complicated at first glance, in terms of how do you regulate the internet, what’s involved. But what’s really involved is the freedom of the internet, and that’s incredibly important. Net neutrality needs to be protected. And what it means is very simple. It means that everybody has equal access to the internet. What the FCC has done under President Trump, is they have allowed companies to give out special access, so that companies may be more easily to get their content to the user on the internet. This undermines innovation and undermines freedom. Say you’ve developed a brand new application that you think could compete with, Google, Yahoo, anybody. But now your website gets to the consumers slower because some other content provider has paid more to the people that provide access to the internet; to get faster access.
Well that undermines innovation, that undermines freedom, and it stifles the best parts of the internet, which are creativity and innovation. We need to restore net neutrality in any way that we can. We need to keep putting pressure on the FCC to change their ruling, and if we can do stuff on the state level to at least give us net neutrality locally, we should do that as well. I cannot possibly be in more strongly in support of net neutrality. I urge people to speak out as loudly as they can to get us back to the place where we have net neutrality and a free and open internet for all.