Expressing the sense of Congress regarding actions to preserve and advance the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 127) expressing the sense of Congress regarding actions to preserve and advance the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on H. Con. Res. 127.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 127, a resolution that opposes international regulation of the Internet.

The resolution was introduced by Mrs. Bono Mack in May and passed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce with bipartisan support from more than 60 Members, including Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman, and my colleague on the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, Ranking Member Eshoo. I, too, am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this important resolution.

Nations from across the globe will meet in December for the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai. There, the 193 member countries of the United Nations will consider whether to apply to the Internet a regulatory regime that the International Telecommunications Union created for old-fashioned telephone service, as well as whether to swallow the Internet's nongovernmental organization's structure whole and make it part of the United Nations. Neither of these are acceptable outcomes.

Now, among those that are supportive of such regulation is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spoke positively about the idea of ``establishing international control over the Internet.'' Some countries have even proposed regulations that would allow them to read citizens' email in the name of security. H. Con. Res. 127 rejects these proposals by taking the radical position that if the most revolutionary advance in technology, commerce, and social discourse of the last century isn't broken, well, we shouldn't be trying to fix it.

The Internet is the greatest vehicle for global progress and improvement since the printing press; and despite the current economic climate, the Internet continues to grow at an astonishing pace. Cisco estimates that by 2016 roughly 45 percent of the world's population will be Internet users, there will be more than 18.9 billion network connections, and the average speed of mobile broadband will be four times faster than it is today.

The ability of the Internet to grow at this staggering pace is due largely to the flexibility of the multi-stakeholder approach that governs the Internet today. Nongovernmental institutions now manage the Internet's core functions, with input from private and public sector participants. This structure prevents governmental or nongovernmental actors from controlling the design of the network or the content that it carries.

Without one entity in control, the Internet has become a driver of jobs and information, business expansion, investment and, indeed, innovation. Now, moving away from that multistakeholder model, Mr. Speaker, would harm these abilities and would prevent the Internet from spreading prosperity and freedom.

In May, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology invited a panel of witnesses, including Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell, to discuss the effects an international regulatory regime would have on the Internet. All agreed that such a regime would not only endanger the Internet, but would endanger global development on a much larger scale. House Concurrent Resolution 127 expresses the commitment of Congress to do all that it can to keep the Internet free from an international regulatory regime.

I'm pleased to report that earlier today, Ambassador Kramer, the leader of the U.S. delegation to the WCIT, gave a speech outlining the position of the United States that seems to be embracing the very principles contained in this resolution. Now, my hope is that the administration stays on this very course.

As the U.S. delegation continues to work in advance of the WCIT, House Concurrent Resolution 127 is an excellent bipartisan demonstration of our Nation's commitment to preserve the multistakeholder governance model and to keep the Internet free from international regulation. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce strongly supports House Concurrent Resolution 127, and I urge the rest of my colleagues in the House to join us.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I'm now honored to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono Mack), the sponsor of this legislation, the chairman of the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a very active and effective member of the subcommittee I chair, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, who has put a lot of time into making sure the Internet remains free and open. This is her resolution. We thank her for her work.

I now yield 3 minutes to a member of the Judiciary Committee who chairs the Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee and who has been one of our terrific leaders on the Republican side on the Internet with regard to keeping it free and open, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Tonight, the U.S. House of Representatives will send a clear and distinct message not only to our negotiators but to the world that we stand for liberty and we stand for freedom. When it comes to the Internet, both of those are incredibly important.

The Internet has brought us economic prosperity not here alone but all over the globe. The Internet has allowed for political discourse as never imagined by the great scholars of Greece and Rome. It's brought us intellectual capabilities. If you think about what you can do on the Internet today to research something, to evaluate something, there are an unlimited number of sources of data. It's improved our lives. It's improved our lives through our political systems. It's allowed people who thought they had no opportunity to effect change to have an overwhelming effect by communicating together. This really is a vote for liberty. It's a vote for freedom. It's a vote for free speech. It's a vote for the things that our Founders believed in when they gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's our version of that.

We know that there are forces out there in the world that are opposed to all of those things, because they want command and control of their people, and that's not right. We have an opportunity tonight to send a clear and convincing message that we stand in America for freedom of the Internet, for no government anywhere in the globe taking charge of it and shutting it down and denying that great human spirit that we believe in so much here in America.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join us in a unanimous show of support. I thank my staff and the staff of Representative Eshoo and Ranking Member Waxman for their good work on this, and especially to my colleague from California, Mary Bono Mack, who raised this with us early on and worked closely to write a piece of legislation, that, as you can see in a sometimes otherwise controversial House, has brought us all together. That's a real tribute to Congresswoman Bono Mack's work.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I call on my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I'm very pleased to join with all of my colleagues. This is an unusual happening on the floor, and I hope there are lots of people tuned in from C-SPAN listening and watching, because it is one of the few times that we've come together in a true bipartisan, 100 percent bipartisan way.

I want to pay tribute to the gentlewoman from California, Representative Bono Mack, for her leadership on this. And I'm very, very pleased to join her and all of the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee on H. Con. Res. 127.

As I said, this is bipartisan and it's bicameral, and it demonstrates the bipartisan commitment of the Congress to preserve the open structure and multistakeholder approach that has guided the Internet over the past two decades.

The distinguished chairman of our subcommittee said that he hopes the administration will remain on this. The administration was there before the Congress took action. There is no light between the administration, the executive branch, the Senate or the House, and that's the way it should be.

Through this open and transparent structure, Mr. Speaker, the Internet has literally transformed into a platform supporting thousands of innovative companies, applications, and services, not just in the United States, but in communities around the world.

I'm very, very proud, because my congressional district is very much a part of Silicon Valley, and many of these companies helped to launch these innovations. In fact, since 1995--this is really stunning-- venture capital funds have invested approximately $250 billion--with a B, dollars--in industries reliant on an open Internet, including $91.8 billion on software alone.

But later this year, the World Conference on International Telecommunications--at the committee, we call it WCIT, that's a lot easier--will take up proposals that represent a really fundamental departure from the International Telecommunications Regulations adopted in 1988. Nearly 25 years ago, this treaty provided a framework for how telecommunications traffic is handled among countries, but much has changed since that time.

In addition to proposing new regulations on broadband services, several nations, including Russia, are set on asserting intergovernmental control over the Internet, leading to a balkanized Internet where censorship could become the new norm. While there's no question that nations have to work together to address challenges to the Internet's growth and stability, such as cybersecurity, online privacy, and intellectual property protection, these issues can best be addressed under the existing model.

It's absolutely essential that the United States defend the current model of Internet governance at the upcoming Dubai conference this December because the very fabric of the free and open Internet is at stake.

So I urge all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan resolution which reflects, as I said a few months ago, a viewpoint already shared by the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the U.S. delegation to the WCIT, and unite in opposition to proposals that threaten the innovation, openness, and transparency enjoyed by Internet users around the world.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle), a highly regarded member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), who has been a recognized intellectual leader on telecommunications and the Internet for a long time in the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from California, Representative Zoe Lofgren, who is respected in the House for her knowledge, not only of technology, but of all the wraparound issues that are a part of it.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have?

I'll just make some closing comments because I don't have anyone else who is here to speak to this.

Mr. Speaker, I think that everyone who has spoken has really spoken beautifully about this issue, about what the Internet represents not only to individuals, businesses, students, how it has changed how we live, how we work, how we learn, and the jobs that it has produced, what it has done for our national economy, but also what it has done relative to exporting democracy. Of course, the United States is front and center in this.

It's a very interesting thing to me to examine those countries that are thinking another way and want to impose that thinking on the Internet. There are far more closed societies where freedom of thought, freedom of expression is not valued the way we do and other democracies do. So we need to form partnerships with other countries around the world to make sure that the democratizing effect that the Internet actually holds will continue.

I'm proud to join again with my colleagues, with Mr. Walden, the distinguished chairman of our subcommittee, and Representative Bono Mack, who led the effort with this resolution. I'm proud that we're all together. And I always want to thank our staff, both on the majority and the minority side of the aisle, for the work that they do on the committee. I thank you all, and I salute you. I look forward to a unanimous vote of the United States House of Representatives in support of a free and open Internet.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 50) expressing the sense of Congress regarding actions to preserve and advance the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record for S. Con. Res. 50.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This week, representatives from 193 countries are meeting in Dubai to reexamine an international treaty dealing with telecommunications. Several hostile countries are seeking to use this opportunity to impose new international regulations on the Internet.

We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multistakeholder governance model. That is why I stand in strong support of Senator Rubio's Senate Concurrent Resolution 50. The U.S. is united in its opposition to international control over Internet governance, and we've seen leadership pushing back against ceding more power to the International Telecommunication Union. It is referred to as the ``ITU.'' It's a branch of the United Nations.

Some want to give it new powers. Several countries see the Internet as a tool for political and/or economic control that they want to exploit. For example, Russia's Vladimir Putin has openly stated his intention to seek ``international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the ITU.'' Just last week, the Syrian Government shut off Internet access as the regime sought to suppress the free exchange of information among its private citizens. But it's because the Internet is the ultimate tool of political and economic liberation that we should foster and protect it, not give those who fear its impact on politics and the economy the power to repress its continued innovation and untapped potential.

I also want to make an important point about our legitimacy in the fight to keep the Internet thriving, democratic, and decentralized. Unfortunately, we did undermine our credibility when the Federal Communications Commission imposed net neutrality regulations without the proper statutory authority to do so. Even Ambassador Verveer at the State Department had made the point. He said in 2010 that the net neutrality proceeding ``is one that could be employed by regimes that don't agree with our perspectives about essentially avoiding regulation of the Internet and trying to be sure not to do anything to damage its dynamism and its organic development. It could be employed as a pretext or as an excuse for undertaking public policy activities that we would disagree with pretty profoundly.''

We need to pass S. Con. Res. 50 and rebuild our credibility in support of Internet freedom. Regulating beyond our authority at home sets a very bad example when we want to oppose truly devastating regulations at the international level. Despite our domestic disagreements on telecom policy, one thing both sides of the aisle can agree on is that we should uphold the Internet governance model that's working. Let's not try to fix what's not broken.

In Dubai, we want our country promoting private markets and U.S. interests. Let's encourage the decentralized governance model that's been successful in the past, and let's show leadership instead of giving away broad regulatory powers to those who don't deserve and who should not have it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), who is a member of the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers, and as I close, I want to thank Ms. Eshoo for the leadership that she has given. She's

the ranking member of the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee.

I also want to draw attention to the outstanding work that Representative Mary Bono Mack did as she led the debate and the discussion and pushed for the resolution, authored the resolution that the House passed earlier on this very issue. I also want to thank her for her work with Senator Rubio and having a resolution that would be agreed to by both Chambers.

As Ms. Eshoo indicated earlier, the Senate resolution makes a technical change, a small technical change, in the resolution that was passed by the House. This is where the U.S. needs to stand firm. It's a way that we, in a bipartisan manner, can stand firm for freedom. I encourage the passage of this resolution; and I encourage that we, as a body, will continue to stand for a free and open Internet.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed to this legislation in its current form.

This is the final amendment to the bill. It will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. I repeat--it will not kill the bill nor will it send it back to committee. If adopted, however, the bill will immediately be amended and proceed under final passage.

In the Republicans' rush to legislate, they have missed some important pieces that the motion to recommit would address.

First, the bill, H.R. 6233, the Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act of 2012, allows disaster payments to go to corporations incorporated under State law, but there is nothing in the bill to prevent these corporations from being wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign corporations.

Under current law, for much of the farm safety net, foreign corporations--defined under current law as to where more than 10 percent of the beneficial ownership is held by a non-U.S. citizen-- cannot receive farm payments. This bill fails to do that.

The farm bill we passed in committee addressed the current law. It passed by a bipartisan vote of 35-11. It includes the same provisions that are in this disaster package. It also ensures that payments do not go to foreign corporations.

This motion to recommit fixes that.

Additionally, under current law, there is a provision to prevent duplicative payments from being made to producers under disaster programs, in other words, double-dipping. This provision was included to prevent producers from collecting payments from multiple programs for the same disaster. We want to treat those people fairly under this disaster, but we don't want people receiving double-dipping payments.

Again, in the Republicans' rush to legislate, the provision that ensures against duplicative payments and double-dipping somehow missed the boat.

This motion to recommit fixes that oversight as well.

Finally and more importantly, the motion to recommit also gives every Member here an opportunity to take a position on what ironically, I think, could be called the elephant in the room, and that is whether or not the House is going to consider a 5-year farm bill to provide certainty and security to rural America and its agriculture economy.

The motion to recommit expresses the sense of the House that a 5-year farm safety net is far better for certainty and security for farmers and farm families than this bill or even a short-term extension is. After all, the farm bill is traditionally one of the most bipartisan things we do around here.

In a statement regarding the underlying bill, a broad-based coalition of farm organizations said that they would:

support finding a path forward to reaching an agreement on a

new 5-year farm bill before current program authorities

expire on September 30.

They go on to say:

We are disappointed that the House Republican leadership

has decided to not move forward with the House Agriculture

Committee's bill before adjourning for the August recess. The

bill would provide the disaster relief for our farm and ranch

families needed at this time.

Those organizations among them are the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Farmers Union, the National Milk Producers Federation, the United Fresh Produce Association, and Western Growers, to mention but a few.

Members, we have a chance to take a stand. Are you for regular order, or for political messaging? Are you for doing our work, or kicking the can down the road? Should we take up a comprehensive farm bill before September 30, or add this to the growing list of unfinished business to be considered in a lame duck session? I hope not.

All in all, the motion to recommit makes important fixes in the underlying bill, making it consistent with current law regarding the treatment of foreign corporations and protections against duplicative payments, otherwise known as double-dipping. It puts the House on record that we need to consider a 5-year farm bill before the current one expires on September 30. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to recommit.

Traditionally, the farm bill is one of the most bipartisan pieces of legislation that we act on. The bipartisan support was in the Senate and the bipartisan support was in the House Agriculture Committee by a vote of 35-11. We have a crisis, and we ought to properly respond.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my colleague and friend for the time.

I rise today in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 50, which, as you've heard, opposes international regulation of the Internet. It is virtually identical to the language that our friend and colleague Representative Mary Bono Mack put forward in H. Con. Res. 127, which was introduced earlier this year and passed by my subcommittee and in the full Energy and Commerce Committee and went on to pass this House without opposition. With this vote, we unify that language and we send a strong bipartisan, bicameral signal about America's commitment to an unregulated Internet.

I want to thank Representative Bono Mack for championing this important legislation to keep the Internet free from government regulation. I also wish to thank FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who has tirelessly sounded the call, not only about the peril we face if we stand idly by as countries like Russia and China seek to exert control over the Internet, but also about how FCC's own actions adopting network neutrality rules regulating the Internet undermine America's case abroad.

I also fear that recent talks of cybersecurity executive orders here at home may be cited back to us by some foreign nations with them accusing us of telling them to do as we say but not as we do.

The historical hands-off regulatory policy has allowed the Internet to become the greatest vehicle for global, social, and economic liberty since the printing press. And despite the current economic climate, it continues to grow at an astonishing pace.

FCC Commissioner McDowell and Chairman Genachowski are in Dubai this week as U.S. delegates to the World Conference on International Telecommunications. Our committee has also sent representatives from both parties to keep an eye on the proceedings. There, the 193 member countries of the United Nations are considering whether to apply to the Internet a regulatory regime that the International Telecommunications Union created in the 1980s for old-fashioned telephone service, as well as whether to swallow the Internet's nongovernmental organizational structure whole and make it part of the United Nations. Neither of these are acceptable outcomes and must be strongly opposed by our delegation.

Among those supportive of such regulation is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spoke positively about the idea of ``establishing international control over the Internet,'' to use his own words. Some countries have even proposed regulations that would allow them to read citizens' email in the name of security, require citizens to register their email addresses for tracking purposes, and to charge for Internet access to their countries on a per-click basis.

This resolution rejects these proposals by taking the radical position that if the most revolutionary advance in technology, commerce, and social discourse of the last century is not broken, as you've heard others say, there's no reason to ``fix'' it.

The ability of the Internet to grow at this staggering pace is due largely to the flexibility of the multistakeholder model that governs the Internet so successfully today. Nongovernmental institutions now manage the Internet's core functions with input from private and public sector participants, and this structure prevents governmental or nongovernmental actors from controlling the design of the network or the content that it carries. Without one entity in control, the Internet has become a driver of jobs, information, business expansion, investment, and innovation. Moving away from the multistakeholder model would harm these abilities, preventing the Internet from spreading prosperity and the cause of freedom.

As the United States delegation continues its work at the WCIT, this resolution is an excellent bipartisan demonstration of our Nation's commitment to preserve the multistakeholder governance model and keep the Internet free from international regulation. I encourage my colleagues to support passage of this measure.