House Votes Against ‘Net Neutrality’
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives approved a measure on Friday that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating how Internet service providers manage their broadband networks, potentially overturning a central initiative of the F.C.C. chairman Julius Genachowski.
Context & Ripple Effects
When Julius Genachowski launched his net neutrality push in September 2009, the framing was that he was taking the issue where Congress had already failed three times — legislators would not write open-Internet rules themselves, so the F.C.C. would. Friday's House vote is Congress answering that move head-on: rather than passing its own neutrality rules, the House approved a measure prohibiting the agency from regulating how ISPs manage their broadband networks at all.
The vote fits a broader pattern on the Hill this week. Even as it strips the F.C.C.'s authority over network management, the same House is drafting 'rogue sites' legislation that would likely support domain-level website blocking — lawmakers claiming the internet-rulemaking role for themselves while denying it to the commission.
First-order effects
- The measure now heads to the Senate, where the fate of Genachowski's central initiative — the F.C.C.'s authority to police how ISPs manage their networks — will be decided.
- If enacted, broadband providers would manage their networks outside F.C.C. jurisdiction, removing the enforcement mechanism behind the open-Internet framework the chairman has pursued since 2009.
Second-order effects
- Content and application companies lose the regulatory backstop they were counting on when Congress declined to legislate neutrality itself; disputes over traffic management shift to Capitol Hill or the courts instead of the commission.
- The vote signals to every regulated communications player that F.C.C. rulemakings can be overturned by appropriations riders, raising the political cost of any future commission initiative in this space.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Congress unwilling to legislate neutrality yet willing to block the agency that tried — broadband conduct defaults to whatever ISPs choose, with each future F.C.C. attempt inviting another legislative reversal.
- The episode advances a structural precedent: communications policy settled by congressional vote rather than independent-agency rulemaking, weakening the commission's standing as the arbiter of network practice.
The trend: Broadband governance is shifting from independent-agency rulemaking toward congressional control, with each F.C.C. attempt at network-neutrality rules met by a legislative block.