Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States giving Congress power to regulate campaign contributions for Federal elections.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 200, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 37) disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the joint resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, in a representative democracy, Federal agencies may impose regulations only to the extent authorized by the United States Congress, the

elected representatives of the American people. I introduced H.J. Res. 37, which enjoys bipartisan support, because Congress has not authorized the Federal Communications Commission to regulate the Internet.

H.J. Res. 37 is a resolution of disapproval filed pursuant to the Congressional Review Act. It would prevent the agency from imposing the same or substantially similar rules through reclassification of broadband under title II of the Communications Act or through any other claimed source of direct or ancillary authority. If not challenged, the FCC's power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communication service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress.

The FCC's claim that it can regulate the Internet under section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act is not credible. The FCC has previously held that section 706 is not an independent grant of authority and the language of the section tells the FCC to remove barriers to investment, not create them. The FCC's reliance on section 706 could open the Internet to regulation by all 50 States.

Also flawed is the FCC's claim it can regulate the Internet under titles II, III and VI of the Communications Act because broadband has indirect impact on traditional services. Section 230 of the Communications Act makes clear that it is the policy of the United States to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services unfettered by Federal or State regulation. This regulation by ``bank shot'' is nothing more than a weak attempt to do an end-run around the D.C. Circuit Court's April 2010 ruling in the Comcast case that the FCC failed to show it had authority to regulate Internet network management.

The Internet is open and innovative thanks to the government's hands- off approach, as Democrat FCC Chairman William Kennard has explained, and I quote: ``The fertile fields of innovation across the communications sector and around the country are blooming because from the get-go we have taken a deregulatory, competitive approach to our communications structure, especially the Internet.'' There is no crisis warranting government intervention. The FCC even admits in its own order that it did not conduct a market power analysis.

Dr. David J. Farber, the grandfather of the Internet, says the FCC's ``order will sweep broadband ISPs, and potentially the entire Internet, into the big tent of regulation. What does this mean? Consumer needs take second place, and a previously innovative and vibrant industry becomes a creature of government rulemaking.'' From the grandfather of the Internet.

The order picks winners and losers and will threaten small providers that do not have the resources to send teams of lawyers to camp out at the FCC. How carriers manage their networks should be determined by engineers and entrepreneurs and consumers in the marketplace, not by as few as three unelected commissioners at the FCC.

My colleagues claim large broadband providers support the order--you will hear that today--but they only did so under the threat of being regulated like an old-fashioned telephone company under title II of the Communications Act. They are still concerned, and they say network neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.

AT&T's CEO has said, ``Regulation creates uncertainty.'' ``I would be lying if I said I was totally pleased with it,'' and, ``I'd like to have had no regulation, to be candid, but that wasn't going to happen.''

The CEO of a large cable association has said that ``there could certainly be an adverse economic impact by chilling the willingness to deploy these new services.'' The CEO of a large wireless association has said that some uncertainty over FCC implementation remains and ``increased regulation tends to depress rather than accelerate investment.''

Now opponents of H.J. Res. 37 will also criticize the Congressional Review Act process, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the authors of the CRA, has said the disapproval process is--and I quote the Majority Leader of the Senate--``a reasonable, sensible approach to regulatory reform.''

You see, the CRA was dually enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. And despite their recent criticism, even my colleagues themselves have co-sponsored disapproval resolutions in the past, including Mr. Waxman, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Markey, Ms. Schakowsky, and Mr. Dingell. They cosponsored H.J. Res. 72 in 2003. And Mr. Waxman, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Doyle, Ms. Schakowsky, and Ms. Baldwin co-sponsored H.J. Res. 79 in 2008. Both, by the way, were resolutions disapproving of FCC rules.

So my colleagues complain that amendments are not in order, but that is because the language of the Congressional Review Act itself dictates the specific language of the disapproval resolutions, and to allow amendments would frustrate Congress' very intent in providing a straight up-or-down vote on whether to disapprove just these types of overreaching agency rules.

My colleagues say that instead of considering this resolution we should be debating comprehensive legislation to authorize the FCC to regulate the Internet. Then why did they refuse our repeated requests last Congress to hold hearings on whether such intervention is warranted? Why did they wait until November before proposing their own legislation--so close to the end of the last Congress there was no time for reasoned debate? And why did they single out only certain segments of industry for regulation and refuse to require a market power analysis? It is all too convenient that they wait until after the rules have been adopted and are vulnerable to legislative and judicial reversal before engaging.

A vote against this resolution is simply a vote that will allow the FCC to adopt substantially similar rules under title II when the FCC loses in court, something even network neutrality advocates like Free Press say is likely. Indeed, the FCC still has a proceeding open to do just that.

So for all of these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support H.J. Res. 37.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one point. This is not partisan legislation. We have two Democrats as co-sponsors of the legislation, and I anticipate it will actually have a bipartisan vote, as it has had in the past.

I now yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Obviously, my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, walked in a little late because we just heard that all those big companies he railed against are opposed to this resolution we have before us. So if anybody is doing the bidding of those companies, it must be the Democrats, who have rattled off as part of their argument all those very companies that he just railed against who are opposed to us.

I now yield 2 minutes to the vice chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Madam Speaker, the last time I checked, it's like the Government of Iran controls their Internet. That's what we are trying to avoid here is government control of the Internet.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

(Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, could I just get a time check for each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Is the gentlewoman addressing the bill before us? Is this germane to the bill before us? I question the relevance to the issue before us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. Speaker, I think this points up two things. When you have government-run microphones on the Internet, you're going to have a problem. And, second, we are for open and free microphones; so they are welcome to use our podium as well.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

What is the relevance?

Will the gentleman yield?

I would be happy to answer.

I am not part of that negotiating team. And I don't think you are, and I don't think Ms. Eshoo is or Mr. Waxman. And so those who are negotiating are negotiating, and we're taking care of this business.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

(Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, it is evident that there's confusion on their side of the aisle, because at one end they have a Speaker that says we're doing the bidding of the big oligarchies, these big companies, and on the other hand that all those companies oppose what we're doing. I'm trying to figure out just which side they're on. We're for an open Internet that is vibrant as it is today because it's not regulated by the government.

I would now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz- Balart).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

First of all, I think it's very interesting that the last speaker pointed out that in Iran and in China they can shut down the Internet. That's because the government controls the Internet. That's what Republicans are trying to stop from happening here, in part because we think

it's wrong, in part because we know that the FCC does not have the legal authority to take this action. That's why we're doing that.

But beyond that, it's a bad economic decision, because we had a Harvard MBA testify before our committee, ``Over time, the order represents a direct transfer of wealth from broadband access providers to those whose content rides over the network. That means that it provides those who ride the network with a strategically vital financial weapon to use against broadband providers who in many cases are their competitors.''

You see, this is picking winners and losers. The Democrats do not want to extend the net neutrality rules to the search engines and others who ride on the network. They don't want to do that. They want to pick a winner and a loser. They're the ones who are siding with the big companies in this case. We're the ones on the Republican side who are siding with keeping the Internet open and free as it is today, that has allowed it to flourish and grow, that has allowed incredible technology and innovation to take place. We want it open and unfettered from government regulation in terms of the management of the Internet.

Further, we do not believe that the FCC has the legal authority to regulate in this area. When they have attempted this before, the D.C. Circuit Court has said, you did not prove, FCC, that you had legal authority and struck them down. And if they are able to get authority using section 706, they may well have opened the door to every State regulator in the country regulating the Internet. That's bad for innovation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my point of order.

To my dear friend and colleague from Maryland, I'm actually surprised he has the time to come to the floor given the status of negotiations, I'm sure they're taking place as we speak, but we appreciate him coming to the floor.

Let me make a couple of points. First of all, the continuing resolution they put forward in this context is more of the status quo spending that just keeps government growing. We're saying no; we are to do better than that for the American people. We need to reduce wasteful Washington spending. We need to create jobs in the private sector.

We came here to cut back on the deficit and not put an ever- increasing, intolerable, unsustainable--frankly, immoral--budget deficit and debt on the next generation, our kids and our grandkids. We did not come here to do that. We came here to cut spending.

I have not yielded.

I appreciate that.

The point here, though, is this: We would not be here today if the Democrats in the last Congress had bothered to take up a budget and pass it or even vote on it. That is the first time since the 1974 Budget Act was put into law that I believe the House didn't consider a budget. It's not that the House and Senate have always agreed on a budget, but at least they've always voted on a budget. And the Democrats, under Speaker Pelosi and my friend from Maryland, could not bring or did not bring a budget to the House floor for even consideration in the House.

Now I was in small business for 22 years, I've served on various boards, and if you failed to bring a budget and pass a budget at a city council, a county commission, a corporation, you would be tossed out. But in the Congress--well, I guess they did get tossed out in November, but they didn't do a budget. And then, you didn't fund the government through the fiscal year we're in today. You only funded it into March, and then it was left on our doorstep when we took the majority. That's not the first time that's happened, and it has happened over time, but we came in and said, okay, we won, we assume the responsibility to govern. And we passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year--it would have funded our troops and everything else--and cut $61 billion in spending. And that still resides in that august body across the Capitol where they can't seem to act.

When that didn't work, we came back with another continuing resolution, cut $2 billion a week. That resolution was passed in this House--I think with bipartisan support--went to the Senate, was passed there, signed by the President. We continue to negotiate because we're not here to shut down the government. We're here to cut the government spending and get back toward a balanced budget and create jobs in the private sector.

When they couldn't get a deal, we passed another continuing resolution. We cut more--another $2 billion a week, we're up to 10 now. That passed this House, it went over to the Senate, it became law.

And then when we could get nothing else back from the Senate, yesterday we brought forward a resolution to make sure our men and women in uniform, who are fighting for our freedom across this globe, and their families here at home, would get paid through the end of this fiscal year. And we also cut spending. We cut the spending we cut in the first resolution--that's still residing in the Senate where they can't act--and we sent that over to the Senate where it sits. Now the first thing we hear from the President is, I'm going to veto it. And the Senate says, oh, we can't take that up. Well, why not? We passed it here, and we did so in a bipartisan way. And it's over there.

Republicans have acted responsibly to the will of the American people. We have said time and again we will govern, and we will govern responsibly. There is no blank check here anymore. And we're going to follow the rules.

point of order

That is why I am insisting on my reservation of a point of order because we are not going to violate the House rules. The motion is not in order because it violates clause 7--as I'm sure the gentleman from Maryland knows--of rule XVI of the Rules of the House. It is not germane to the resolution before us.

Mr. Speaker, I insist on my point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution 37 which, if enacted, would overturn the FCC's open Internet rules, not closed Internet rules.

The first thing that I want to say today is that at 2 p.m. today, which is the time right now, we are moving ever closer to the shutdown of our government. I think that this is a very sad day, a day when the rest of the world that always looks to the United States of America to be the best example for what we do, how we do it, what we say, and how we comport ourselves, that there is failure within a few hours, a total collapse of leadership.

So while this is taking place, that is the toxic cloud that really hangs over the House.

I'm going to use 4 minutes, Mr. Speaker.

This resolution isn't about acting in the interest of American innovation, American jobs, American competition or American consumers. Quite simply, this is an ideological assault on a government agency and their ability to provide basic consumer protections.

If this were about innovation, jobs, competition for consumers, the majority wouldn't really be offering it, because it disables a free and open Internet, which has brought about greater consumer choice and has ushered in some of the most successful businesses of the past two decades in America, from Google and Facebook to Amazon and EBay. I know because so many of them--and I'm so proud of this--are constituent companies of my distinguished congressional district. These companies and thousands of others like them offer access to news, shopping, video, music, and social networking, and have resulted in more than 3 million new American jobs over the past 15 years. If the majority understood this, they wouldn't be standing in the way of it.

In fact, consumers have lined up against what the majority has brought to the floor today. Some of the largest broadband providers in the Nation--AT&T, Comcast and others--have lined up against it. Small businesses have lined up against it. Medium-sized businesses that are in the Internet business

have lined up against it. More than 150 organizations, including public interest organizations, civil rights groups, unions, and education advocates have lined up against it. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has lined up against it. The United Church of Christ and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have lined up against it. The Computer and Communications Industry Association has lined up against it. TechNet is against it. These groups overwhelmingly agree that the CRA is not the answer.

The chairman said earlier that there are many Members on this side who have enacted--used--the CRA on other pieces of legislation. Yes, we have. We thought it was appropriate to. We're not opposed to the CRA, but we are in terms of using it on this.

I really think, at the end of the day, this is ideological. I think, in the Republican DNA, there is total opposition to any Federal agency that is charged with carrying out the protection of consumers and those things that the Congress believes are the best for the American people. So, with all of these businesses and all of these organizations, I think, with all due respect, that you have a very, very weak case.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

I yield 4 minutes to a highly valued member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle).

I would just like to add to the debate that the number of Democrats that signed the letter that Mr. Stearns just referenced, that was in opposition to operating under Title II. The FCC listened, and they went and placed this set of rules under Title I.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), another very distinguished member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Speaker, first I'd like to say that this charge about the FCC failing to conduct an adequate market power and cost-benefit analysis has been stated and restated ad nauseam. The FCC fully reviewed the competitiveness of broadband Internet access markets and analyzed the cost benefit of adopting open Internet rules.

Secondly, the Republican witness that came before the committee very comfortably spoke about blocking Netflix. So if anyone questions whether consumers are at stake here and what could happen, they should just look to that record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I now would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to just in a calm voice respond to my good friend, Mr. Goodlatte. And he is a good friend.

This is not necessary. If there were a case to be made, other than those that have come to the floor today, it would have been made in testimony by the people that are the very stakeholders in all of these businesses. And that's why I started out today by saying I don't believe the Republicans have a case, a leg to stand on, because all of the companies--small, medium, and large--even the largest broadband providers in the country, consumer advocates, religious organizations, it is the broadest and deepest coalition I have seen in recent history of the committee, they are all opposed to what you are doing.

So you are having a wonderful conversation with yourselves, but, most frankly, it is not doing anything for anyone else. This is about protecting consumers, and there have been cases, case after case at the FCC where abuses were committed in terms of blocking, and many other things. So this side is for protecting and understands what an open and free Internet is.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the full committee.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

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

I am in its present form.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon for the time. I understand that he could have precluded that, and I appreciate the fact that he gave me the time.

Mr. Speaker, we've heard on the floor about all the Americans who would suffer the very real effects of a government shutdown. Those effects might include slowed economic growth, which means, of course, fewer jobs; a weakened housing market; delayed pay for our military families; delayed benefits for our veterans; unanswered Social Security applications; proceedings and more. Republicans are holding these government services hostage. Let me repeat that. The Republicans are holding those services hostage. And it turns out that their ransom demand is the passage of divisive social policy, because Mr. and Mrs. America know, my colleagues and Mr. Speaker, that we have got an agreement on numbers. We've got an agreement on how much to cut, a compromise. Henry Clay said, ``To compromise is to govern.'' We cannot govern if we do not come to agreement. But we haven't come to agreement now.

Democrats have proven more than willing to compromise. We've met Republicans more than halfway, only to find out that Republicans cannot stand up to the most extreme in their party who demand that we have an agreement on a social policy totally unrelated to the deficit. But we're still hopeful that Members of both of our parties can put their responsibility to the American people first, come to a compromise, and keep the government open for the people it serves.

To give that work the time it needs, I urge my colleagues for a clean, 1-week spending bill, a bridge to keep the government functioning into next week. That is what this motion will do. It's very simple. It will keep our defense structure intact, make sure that our people on the front line, in harm's way, get paid; make sure that every other government official that is serving the American people stays on the job to do just that.

It is free of divisive social policy. It contains no partisan measures. It will ensure that our troops are taken care of and paid on time. And unlike the partisan, divisive, 1-week extension passed by the Republicans, it can and will become law. Those Members who understand that we must compromise in order to govern I think will support this 1- week bridge and support this motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to you that I had the privilege of being on television with your whip, the majority whip, a friend of mine. His assertion was that, well, we had voted for some of these policies when George Bush was President. I didn't agree with those policies, but I allowed them to stay in the bill. Why? Because I knew that I had to compromise. I knew that the American public had elected a Republican President who disagreed with me. And I knew as well that I needed to keep the government running because I had a responsibility to the American public to do so. I had a responsibility to the servicemembers to do so. And so, yes, I compromised. That is all this resolution is asking of all of you.

You have a President of our country. Is he a Democrat? He is. But he is elected by the people of the United States, and he disagrees with your provision, just as George Bush agreed with it. But when we were in charge, we did not shut down the government because of that disagreement; we understood that the American public expected us to compromise and come to an agreement. This motion to recommit, if passed, will allow you to do that and keep government open.

We have now been debating for almost 2 hours, under the rule and during the course of this debate, an amendment that will make no difference to the American public tomorrow. This motion to recommit will make all the difference to America tomorrow. It is the difference between keeping the government open and shutting it down in just a little less than 9 hours from now.

I ask each of our colleagues, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, east, west, north, and south: Support this motion to recommit. It is the responsible, effective way to do what so many of you have said you want to do, and that is to keep this government functioning for the American people, continue to give it stability.

And I might add that you criticized us for creating uncertainty. I think

that was an apt criticism, my colleagues on the Republican side, that certainty is important in our economy. Nothing will create more uncertainty than defeating this motion to recommit.

I urge its adoption.

Could my friend yield just so I can correct, because I will tell my dear friend----

Could you yield just so I can correct the statement? Because it does cut the $51 billion we've already agreed to. And I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak on the point of order.

Mr. Speaker, Congressman Allen West, a newly elected Republican from Florida, said, ``I'm disgusted at the perception that leaders in my own party are now using the men and women in uniform to pass a short-term budget bill.'' That was a newly elected Republican, a former member of the Armed Forces of the United States. My point being this, Mr. Speaker: This resolution speaks directly to keeping the government of the United States operating for the next 7 days, keeping our men and women in the Armed Forces paid for that week, making sure that every other necessary service for government is available to the American people for the next 7 days. And it is the only vehicle that now appears to be viable to accomplish that objective. And as a result, Mr. Speaker, I believe this is not only in order; it is imperative that we pass this motion to recommit. And I would urge the Speaker to find it in order.

Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Today, we are considering H.J. Res. 37, a resolution to invalidate the FCC's open Internet rules. We are debating this bill under the shadow of a shutdown of the Federal Government. The Republicans are holding the economic recovery and millions of jobs hostage to their extreme demands on the budget and their ideological demands on social and regulatory issues. And at such a moment of grave threat to our economic health, what are we doing on the floor today? The Republican leadership insists on bringing to the floor a bill that will end the Internet as we know it and threaten the jobs, investment, and prosperity the Internet has brought to America. This is an outrageous sense of priorities and policies.

This legislation is a bad bill. This bill would give big phone and cable companies control over what Web sites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use.

The Internet may be the greatest engine in our economy today. American Internet companies lead the world in innovation. They have created over a million jobs.

There is one overriding reason the Internet has fostered such innovation and economic growth: It is open. A kid with a brilliant idea can launch his or her own company out of their family garage.

The FCC order protects the openness and vitality of the Internet. The resolution we are debating today would end it. The Republican proponents of the resolution will say the exact opposite. They will say they are trying to protect freedom of the Internet by stopping government regulation.

How are the American people to know who is right? Well, the answer is easy. Just ask Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, eBay, and the other companies in the Open Internet Coalition that depend on the openness and vitality of the Internet.

They ask the FCC to act because ``baseline rules are critical to ensuring the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth.'' And they oppose this resolution because it would hurt consumers and innovation.

They understand that in most parts of the country companies like Verizon,

AT&T, and Comcast have a virtual monopoly over access to the Internet. The phone and cable companies are the gatekeepers to the information highway. Without regulations, they could choke off innovation by charging for the right to communicate with their customers.

Consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, religious groups, and labor unions have exactly the same view. The committee has heard from 150 organizations urging Congress to keep the Internet open and defeat this bill. Even the companies that might benefit the most from this legislation do not support the resolution. In fact, AT&T and the cable industry support the FCC's orders because it provides greater certainty for investment.

This bill is partisan. It is anti-innovation. And it threatens to transform the open Internet into a series of walled gardens controlled by the phone and cable companies. This is a bill that is not going anywhere. We shouldn't be wasting our time on this legislation when there's a threat that our whole government is going to be closed down because of the partisan and extreme views of the Republican majority.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), and I ask unanimous consent that she be allowed to control that time.

I was astounded by the comment of our friend on the Republican side of the aisle who is not on our committee. He said that the antitrust laws will protect us. Well, if you have a cable company or a phone company to choose, you are going to choose one or the other. Let's say the cable company has its own list of special programs that they want people to purchase. Well, they could easily stop Netflix. They could easily stop competitive programming. That is not an antitrust violation; that is a business opportunity. And what these rules propose to do is to not give anybody a business opportunity to deny the consumer the ability to access anything on the Web, which is the case today.

These rules that we see the FCC doing are being put into place to make sure that somebody does not take advantage of the power they have in the market. We do that all the time. We regulate the securities agencies with the SEC because we don't want them to run amuck. I wish the SEC had acted to stop the economy from going over the cliff practically.

We need to defeat this Republican proposal because it is not based on anything but an ideological point of view that government can do nothing right and business can do nothing wrong; and they, therefore, favor the big businesses.

I say do not vote for this Republican proposal. It is not something that any constituency wants. It would confuse the situation. It would make life uncertain for all of the players, stakeholders and others, and it would deny consumers the freedom they now have.

I thank the gentlelady.

In 2 days, the Republicans have proven that they always side with the biggest behemoth companies. Yesterday, they said it was okay for the biggest oil and coal and chemical companies to pollute the atmosphere. Today, they are saying that it's okay for the biggest communications companies to totally control the entire blogosphere. They want to spoil Mother Earth and Google Earth all in a 24-hour period. They want to allow the domination of the World Wide Web and the pollution of the whole wide world all in 24 hours.

Let me give you a little history here, ladies and gentlemen. We had no competition in the Internet, in the wireless world.

In 1993, there were two companies--analog, 50 cents a minute. No one had cell phones in their companies. ``We'' had to move over the 200 megahertz. ``We'' had to say there was a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth company so that there would be competition and then block the first two companies that were not innovating. Why were they not innovating? Because there was no Darwinian paranoia inducing competition to force them to move. Then in 1996, when the whole country was analog, we had to pass another bill to move them to digital, to move them to broadband, because the behemoths had yet to deploy broadband to one home in the United States.

No competition. No innovation. No benefits to consumers. The biggest companies that the Republicans support were happy with the way things were going because they could charge whatever they wanted to, provide whatever services they wanted to, ignore competition, and ignore consumers simultaneously.

That's what this debate is all about. We had to ensure that those behemoths--the oligopolies, the monopolies--were taken from the clutches of the Republicans and put out into the world where they had to compete.

So what do we have here today? Another Republican congressional resolution, which says let's go back to that era where the biggest companies, the monopolies, defy the one lesson that Adam Smith taught us, which is that monopolies and oligopolies are incapable of enjoying anything but the respect of those who are already in the wealthy class while ignoring those who are in the consumer class. That's their history. That's the number one lesson of Adam Smith, that we must beware of oligopolies.

Here, what we have on our hands is an effort to shut down the one job-creating engine that has driven our economy over the last 15 years, since we opened up the competition, and they want to shut it down. Ladies and gentlemen, 50 percent of the growth of our economy in the 1990s was in this sector. It's because we had competition. They want to shut it down here today.

Vote ``no'' on the Republican resolution, which ends this era of the open Internet and which allows every innovator in their garages and at home to dream big--that they could create new jobs in our economy.

I thank the gentlelady.

The microphone in the well on the Democratic side is shut down; so I will use the microphone on the Republican side.

And I will say to the Republicans that we already have rules that govern the Internet that have passed through this Congress. They deal with education; they deal with privacy; they deal with intellectual property; they deal with global Internet governance; they deal with network security; they deal with pornography; they deal with taxation of items on the Internet; they deal with protections to the deaf and blind on the Internet. We do have rules on the Internet, so don't pretend for a second that we don't.

Let me give you, though, another lesson from Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Here is what he said:

``The Member of Parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening the monopoly is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance.

``If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has the authority to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity nor the greatest rank nor the greatest public services can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.''

Adam Smith warned us of monopolies, of oligopolies as the greatest threat to capitalism. That is what we are debating today, to ensure that the Internet is open, not just to the monopolists but to every entrepreneur, the tens of thousands of them out there who have been creating the wealth, creating the opportunities, creating the jobs, creating the open communication that has revolutionized our world.

In Iran it is legal to shut down the Internet. In China it is legal to shut down the Internet. Let us make sure in the United States it is not legal to shut down the Internet.