Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. WICKER. Thank you, Mr. President.
I have been recognized to close the debate on this motion. In a few moments, we will be voting on the motion to proceed to this resolution. I will be voting no and urge my colleagues to do so.
This debate is about a free and open internet, and it is also about a thriving and innovative internet. We can have both. For decades, we have had both, and we can continue to do so if we are smart about this.
Does every Senator in this Chamber believe in a free and open internet? Yes.
Does every Member of this body want to prevent blocking and the throttling of the internet? The answer is a resounding yes.
Does any Member of the Senate advocate, as my friend from Massachusetts just suggested, that a company or two gets to set the rules for the entire internet? Absolutely not.
Do all Senators and all Congressmen want the internet to be a source of innovation and job creation and prosperity as it has been for a quarter century? I hope so.
I hope we all want this information superhighway, this technology superhighway to continue its success. I hope we all want the internet to continue being that phenomenal platform for market competition, health advancements, investment, technological progress, efficiency, and safety. I hope we all want this.
If we all want this great engine to keep going, it is important to ask how all this happened in the first place. How did we get here? How did we arrive at this point in our Nation's history, with a dynamic internet economy that is truly the envy of the world?
The answer lies in the creativity and ingenuity of the American spirit. This has allowed the internet to thrive under the light-touch regulatory framework that has governed the internet for most of its history.
Let's revisit a little of that history. It was in 1996. I was a freshman Member of the House of Representatives at this time under a Democratic President, under a Democratic administration. Our country was at a crossroads on how to govern this new thing called the worldwide web, the internet. No one could have imagined the success of the internet we have today, but policymakers had the foresight not to regulate these new emerging information services like the services of a bygone era.
Instead, in 1996, during the Clinton administration, a very deliberative, thoughtful decision was made not to impose title II rules--the same rules from the 1930s that were modeled for the Bell monopolies, that were modeled for a time during the Great Depression. That was the pivotal decision that allowed this great internet economy to thrive and to be the success it is today.
Now let's fast-forward to recently, to 2015. That was the year the FCC made an ill-advised decision to change all that. Despite explosive growth, new applications, services, and consumer choice that the internet was delivering to Americans, the FCC imposed these title II rules, and that is what we are debating today. Almost immediately we saw a chilling effect on investment and innovation. U.S. companies were right to be uncertain about the archaic title II regulations and how they would apply to modern technology.
Fortunately, this misguided action was reversed last year. The FCC lifted the 2015 regulations and restored the light-touch regulatory framework that has benefited consumers for almost two decades and has resulted in this great success. Today, some in Congress are trying to give the government more control again, applying utility-style regulations that would threaten the internet as we know it. We should reject these efforts.
Let me say this: Many of my colleagues correctly, on both sides of the aisle, have been calling for bipartisan legislation to enshrine the net neutrality principles into law--legislation which I support, legislation which Members of the minority party have supported. If this resolution passes today, it will amount to merely a statement, nothing more.
Senator Thune will give Senators an opportunity to pass bipartisan legislation today. I hope we will do that. I hope, once this statement is made, we will move on to enshrining net neutrality principles into a law that protects consumers and promotes innovation.
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