To affirm the policy of the United States regarding Internet governance.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1580) to affirm the policy of the United States regarding Internet governance.

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 the bill.

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

I rise in support of H.R. 1580, sometimes called the Internet Freedom Bill.

The Internet is possibly the most important technological advancement since the printing press. Governments' hands-off approach has enabled the Internet's rapid growth and made it a powerful engine of social and economic freedom. This bipartisan bill is designed to combat recent efforts by some in the international community to regulate the Internet, which could jeopardize not only its vibrancy, but also the benefits that it brings to the entire world.

Nations from across the globe met at the December 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai. They considered changes to the international telecommunications regulations. The treaty negotiations were billed as a routine review of rules governing ordinary international telephone service. A number of countries, such as Russia, China, and Iran, sought to use the negotiations, however, to pursue regulation of the Internet through the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency. None other than Russian President Vladimir Putin has been clear in his objective of ``establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union.''

The developments in Dubai were not unanticipated. That is why leading up to the conference last year, the House

and Senate unanimously passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 50. That resolution expressed the sense of Congress that the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce should advocate ``the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today.''

Now, under that multi-stakeholder model, non-regulatory institutions seek input from the public and private sectors to develop best practices for managing the content, applications, and networks that make up the Internet. The Internet is organized from the ground up and not from the government handed down. This is not to say that government has no role in policing unlawful behavior. Illegal activity is no less illegal simply because someone has used digital tools to perpetrate the act. Child pornography, for example, is no less illegal if it is disseminated over the Internet rather than in photographs or magazines. There is a big difference, however, between punishing illegal acts committed over the Internet and government control of its management and operation. Refraining from regulating the underpinning of the Internet has allowed it to evolve quickly to meet the diverse needs of users around the world and to keep governmental or non-governmental actors from controlling the design of the network or the content it carries.

Buttressed by the unanimous passage of Senate Concurrent Resolution 50, the United States and 54 other countries left Dubai without signing the treaty. Unfortunately, 89 nations did sign. The revised ITRs will be implemented by those nations, and that begins in January of 2015. Now, a number of upcoming conferences will present additional opportunities for countries to pursue international regulation of the Internet, including the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum in Geneva, which starts today, and the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea, in 2014.

The growing threat of such regulation prompted the subcommittee of which I chair, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, to hold a joint hearing earlier this year with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Just as international opponents of an unregulated Internet are redoubling their efforts, so must we. That is why the hearing we held focused on draft legislation elevating the language of last year's resolution from a mere sense of Congress aimed at particular treaty negotiations to a generalized statement of U.S. law.

I want to thank Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce; Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith; and Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Ted Poe for their leadership and their help in calling attention to this important legislation and the issue broadly.

I also want to address the elephant in the room, if you will: the FCC's network neutrality regulations. As the legislation we consider today was moving through the subcommittee and then the full committee, some of my colleagues expressed concern that transforming the exact language of last year's unanimous resolution into law would somehow interfere with the FCC's network neutrality rules. In particular, they saw a conflict with the language in making it U.S. policy ``to promote a global Internet free from government control.''

Let me be clear: while I oppose the FCC's rules regulating the Internet, this legislation does not address those regulations. While statements of policy can help delineate the contours of statutory authority, they don't create statutorily mandated responsibilities. Nonetheless, in the interest of reaching bipartisan consensus and moving this important legislation forward, I agreed to drop the ``government control'' language. The result is the language you see today in H.R. 1580, which I introduced with Ranking Member Eshoo. This bill would make it U.S. policy ``to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet.''

Passing H.R. 1580 will show we are united against efforts by authoritarian nations to exert their grip on the Internet. For the sake of the Internet and the social and economic freedoms that it brings, I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, freedom of the Internet is as essential as America's long held constitutional belief in freedom of the press, and we don't need governments--ours or others--infringing on how the Internet is managed and governed, nor in terms of maintaining the freedom of the press.

So, with that, I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation, 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.

To my colleague and my chair on the subcommittee, thank you for your fine leadership and for your leadership on this legislation as well.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H.R. 1580. As my colleague mentioned, it is a bill to affirm the policy of the United States to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet. It has worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Internet has been a unique and powerful driver of social and economic progress, and it is changing nearly every part of the American economy and society, everything from education to health care delivery to agriculture.

This is especially true for rural communities, where communications technology can have an even greater impact in areas where populations are small and distances are vast. The Internet enables connections from even the most far-flung corners of our country to people, goods, and services around the globe, allowing rural America to compete just as effectively in the 21st century digital economy.

A critical element of the Internet's success story has been the open manner in which the Internet is governed. Rather than relying on centralized control by governments, the Internet instead adopts a multi-stakeholder model in which all who have an interest can have a voice in the Internet's operation. Lately, however, the multi- stakeholder model towards Internet governance has been under assault on the global stage.

At the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai last December, as my colleague mentioned, the International Telecommunication Union adopted several proposals that could fundamentally alter the way the Internet operates. These proposals undermine the successful decentralized approach to Internet governance and impose a government-controlled management regime, thereby threatening citizens' access to content and information via the Internet as well as the global free flow of information online.

I am pleased that Congress unanimously passed a resolution last year urging the administration to preserve and advance the successful multi- stakeholder model. That's what governs the Internet today. That's what we want to govern the Internet tomorrow. I applaud the decision by the U.S. delegation not to sign that final treaty, but efforts to bring the Internet under the control of international regulatory bodies continues. This week, member-states of the International Telecommunication Union will meet again in Geneva to debate issues surrounding global Internet governance. The passage of H.R. 1580 will be timely in, once again, demonstrating the unwavering support of our Congress of the multi-stakeholder Internet governance model.

I want to thank Chairman Upton, and I want to thank Chairman Walden, and their staff, for working with us on the Democratic side to address the concerns. Ranking Member Waxman and Ranking Member Eshoo raised these concerns during the bill's markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee. We worked it out.

Mr. Walden, thank you.

I appreciate the modifications made to the bill, which make it clear that this policy statement will not implicate the legitimate activities of the U.S. Government online or the authorities of Federal agencies. Because of these changes, Democrats and Republicans in Congress once again stand united with the administration in its efforts to resist proposals that would undermine the existing multi-stakeholder approach.

I join my colleague Mr. Walden in urging my colleagues on the Democratic side to vote for this bill so we can once again demonstrate that there is support across the entire political spectrum for continuing the multi-stakeholder model that allows the Internet to thrive, which is for the benefit of every American and citizens around the world.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition to the Shimkus amendment and efforts to undermine the continued success of the Internet.

The Internet has always been driven by consensus decision-making, or multistakeholder governance. This model brings together industry, civil society, government, technical and academic experts, as well the general public, to tackle issues around the design and operation of the Internet.

Three time in the past two years, this body has voted to reaffirm our commitment to the multistakeholder model, including last May when Democrats and Republicans joined together to unanimously pass H.R. 1580, a bill stating that ``it is the policy of the United States to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet.''

So what exactly is the problem with the amendment before us today? It's a U-turn. The Shimkus amendment would restrict NTIA's authority to continue what has been U.S. policy since 1998--transitioning the government's role in administering the domain name system to the multistakeholder global community. Although supporters of the amendment characterize it as a stand against anti-democratic nations seeking a greater government role in Internet management, the amendment could have the opposite effect of emboldening efforts by authoritarian regimes to seize control of the global Internet. Specifically, authoritarian regimes point to the U.S. government's continued oversight of technical Internet functions as evidence that global Internet governance and management should be under the control of a governmental or intergovernmental entity such as the United Nations.

The Shimkus Amendment lacks a fundamental understanding of the U.S. government's role in the management of the global Internet domain name system. Contrary to assertions that the United States ``controls'' the Internet through an ongoing contract that the Administration is now proposing to terminate, NTIA's role has always been ministerial and largely symbolic. Simply put, the U.S. government has never had any legal or statutory responsibility to manage the domain name system.

The world is watching and now is not the time to turn our backs on a governance model that has the enabled the Internet to flourish. I urge my colleagues to take a stand for a global Internet free from government control and vote ``no'' on the Shimkus amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1580, which reaffirms current policy to preserve and advance the successful multi- stakeholder model that governs the Internet, which is so very critical to our economic and social well-being.

In June 2011, the thirty-four member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, business representatives, and technical experts agreed on principles that included a commitment to promote the open, distributed and interconnected nature of the Internet. The 34 OECD members range from the United States to France to South Korea to Mexico.

This landmark OECD communique recognized the importance of the multi- stakeholder approach, stating that ``The Internet's openness to new devices, applications and services has played an important role in its success in fostering innovation, creativity and economic growth.'' That's right.

Yet somehow the United Nations missed the memo. In December 2012, the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union--a government-only membership body--took a vote on a binding global treaty that would establish the ITU as the forum for Internet standard setting. Despite U.S. opposition, 89 of 144 countries voted for the revised International Telecommunications Regulations. They included China, Cuba, Russia and other countries hostile to political freedom.

In a UN system where each country has one vote--no matter how undemocratic--this UN overreach could shift the idea of Internet governance from what is best for netizens to what is best for a group of governments. There is no need for a UN Internet treaty. The Internet is flourishing in the current multi-stakeholder framework just fine.

In addition, there are serious concerns around the lack of transparency and inclusivity of the UN's ITU process. The Internet has transformed our ability to access and share information--surely Internet policy should not be developed behind the closed doors of the

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to support H.R. 1580, a bill to affirm the policy of the United States to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the Administration have been united in our support for a global open Internet governed from the bottom up. We worked together last Congress on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to express our support for that successful approach to Internet governance.

On some domestic issues, I have strong differences with the majority over Internet policy. One example is my support for a domestic Internet policy that prevents Internet service providers from acting as ``gatekeepers'' that control what American citizens can do online. But those differences appropriately stop at the water's edge.

I want to thank Chairman Upton and Chairman Walden for listening to the concerns we had about the initial draft of this bill. They worked with me and other Committee Democrats to address those issues by removing certain language from the draft and assuring us that the legislation is in no way intended to direct domestic Internet policy. With these changes and the assurances of my colleagues, I am pleased that we stand together on a bipartisan basis in support of our diplomats and the multistakeholder model for global Internet governance.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure so we can send a strong, united signal to the global community.