Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1644) to restore the open internet order of the Federal Communications Commission; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2021) to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and to establish a congressional budget for fiscal year 2020; and for other purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment itself.

Mr. Chair, I support the goal of this amendment in assessing the broadband marketplace and how the government can increase competition, lower prices, and improve the quality of service. This is a worthy subject for GAO to look into, and I think we can gain valuable insights.

This is something we could have approved in the Energy and Commerce Committee had it been brought to us, but we accept it here on the floor.

But if we were really looking for ways to increase competition, Mr. Chairman, in the wireless broadband marketplace, then I am baffled why Democrats did not find the need to examine how 5G networks will be severely threatened by their bill.

Numerous reports from entities not even in the tech space indicate that title II, this overreaching government takeover and the incredible power being given to the FCC to take charge of the internet, presents serious challenges to 5G deployment and its amazing potential for technical improvements.

These reports come from Barclays, which focuses on investment and banking, Oracle, and even the IEEE, which is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, so it is not a bunch of politicians talking about this, Mr. Chairman. These are certified smart people, otherwise known as the real engineers, that we went to.

To quote their analysis, ``5G networks face the challenge of being developed in a context of high uncertainty, where most of the services that underpin 5G business models appear to be unlawful under current rules.''

One example of the efficiencies that can be realized in a 5G network is network slicing which will allow operators to provide different services with different performance characteristics to address specific use cases. Because 5G is being designed for a wider range of use cases than prior technologies, it is critical that quality of service management be employed.

Applying net neutrality to these new 5G networks would cripple the performance of this incredible new technology.

Mr. Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky, offered an amendment to address our serious concerns about the impact of the Democrats' bill on 5G, but that amendment to preserve the growth of 5G was not given an opportunity to be part of today's vote. Sadly, we can't even debate it. It is not here.

New 5G wireless networks will not only one day support apps and web pages, and texts, and chats, and video streams, but will also support a wide range of new technologies, from autonomous vehicles, augmented reality, innovations in healthcare delivery and education, to all other kinds of new advances, Mr. Chairman.

These new innovations, let alone the innovations beyond 5G to come, would be simply impossible, we now believe, and I think others believe independent of us, with these heavy-handed proposals that will result from title II power being given to bureaucrats in Washington. That is what the underlying bill would do.

It is worth remembering that until 2015, the Federal Communications Commission treated wireless networks differently when regulating net neutrality, because it did not want to impede the growth of a nascent technology. If we were to apply that same logic today, we should not burden developing 5G networks with onerous and outdated regulations, as these 5G networks are even more in their infancy than wireless was back in 2010, Mr. Chairman.

So we need to make sure that we don't handicap this next generation of technology with rules designed for rotary telephones that could cause us to delay or lose a global race to widely deploy 5G.

Mr. Chairman, those are my remarks. I support the underlying amendment, the Davids amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I don't have any other speakers, I don't believe. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

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

Mr. Chair, I would recommend that my friend from Pennsylvania read this Barclays piece on what the bill likely could do to diminish the growth in 5G build-out, which I include in the Congressional Record.

[From Barclays, U.S. Cable, Telecom & Internet, March 25, 2019]

Net Neutrality: Blunt Tool for a Fast-Changing Ecosystem

More heat than light in present Net Neutrality debate:

While Net Neutrality and related issues have evoked strong

passions since the early 2000s, very little of the discussion

has evolved despite significant technological and economic

shifts. The issue has come back into focus with House

Democrats introducing a new bill to reinstate the 2015

Internet Order which was repealed by the FCC post the

election of President Trump. The issue is also making its way

through the courts with 20+ states and tech companies

predictably suing against the FCC's repeal. Therefore, this

issue is likely to remain in the headlines especially given

elections next year.

Reinstating 2015 Open Internet Order may make it tough to

realize full potential of 5G: We believe that Net Neutrality

formulations as proposed in Congress are blunt tools to deal

with a fast-changing technological landscape. The entire

premise of 5G is the ability to enable different network

capabilities for different applications. The 5G standards

development body, 3GPP, has outlined three major use cases

for the technology: enhanced Mobile Broadband, Massive IoT,

and ultra-reliable low latency. While all three are likely to

be used for consumer-facing applications, two of the three

major use cases are also being targeted at industrial users.

Dimensions of data use will also be more varied than just

speed or volume. Some applications will need to transmit

small amounts of data at constant periods (e.g. smart meters)

while others will need bursts of high bandwidth consuming

traffic (e.g. fixed wireless). Therefore, if implemented, the

2015 Open Internet Order framework (ban on paid

prioritization and throttling) without accounting for

emerging technological capabilities and applications is

likely to become a roadblock to 5G monetization.

Title II could have a bigger operational impact than Net

Neutrality: While the Open Internet Order has implications

for future business models, if adopted as law, a more

immediate concern for Internet service providers will be the

push to redefine broadband as a Title II service.

Operationally, this could constrain the degrees of freedom

around variables such as pricing a lot more than the Open

Internet Order itself.

Overall, while the need for some framework on Net

Neutrality is agreed to by both sides of the political

divide, the current set of proposals are, in our view,

inadequate with material limitations on future business

models. The issue requires a comprehensive look at the entire

value chain including the edge, but divided regulatory

jurisdictions and a split Congress make this difficult to

achieve. Therefore, for now, we believe the issue will be

resolved by courts and is likely be a headline risk for

telecom and cable companies.

While Net Neutrality evokes strong passions politically,

very little of the discussion has evolved despite significant

technological and economic shifts. We believe that Net

Neutrality formulations as they exist today are blunt tools

to deal with a fast-changing technological landscape.

For instance, the entire premise of 5G is the ability to

enable different network capabilities for different

applications. The 5G standard development body has outlined

three major use cases for the technology. enhanced Mobile

Broadband (eMBB), Massive IoT (mIoT) and ultra-reliable low

latency (URLLC). While all three are likely to be used for

consumer facing applications, two of the three major use

cases are also being targeted at industrial users (mIoT and

URLLC). Data use across these applications is likely to be

quite varied. For instance, smart meters will need to

transmit small amounts of data at constant periods while

consumer broadband works on bursts of high bandwidth

consuming traffic such as video. Applications such as

autonomous cars and remote surgery may value lower latency

and higher edge computing capacity compared to, for example,

checking email or watching video.

This is quite different from previous generations of

wireless standards which thus far have been largely focused

on consumer applications. The way Congress appears to be

looking at Net Neutrality today or the way the FCC has looked

at this in the past would effectively result in operators

being forced to provide the same level of service to every

application which will not only result in waste but also

limit the impact of 5G. In fact, if the promise of 5G is

realized the way it has been outlined by operators globally,

the whole meaning of what a telecom `service' means (is it

latency? is it speed? it is edge compute?) and how it is

measured is likely to change meaningfully.

Some conditions included in the 2015 Order such as paid

prioritization and throttling could in theory make it

impossible to deploy and monetize some of the features that

make 5G a bigger shift than prior generations. In a 5G world,

this would make it impossible in theory to prioritize latency

for, as an example, a driverless car versus somebody watching

Netflix. Of course regulators can fine-tune these definitions

but that is not what the House bill seeks to do. It

effectively passes this judgment to an administrative body--

the FCC. Given that FCC decisions on this issue have been

split along political affiliations of the Commissioners,

every regime at the FCC could make opposing decisions making

the implementation of any policy next to impossible. This

opens up the entire issue to a lot of uncertainty which is

likely to limit the ability of service providers to formulate

go-to-market plans for 5G.

We also believe that the Net Neutrality framework as of

today (no prioritization, no blocking and no throttling) is

without any nuance to deal with what might be legitimate and

consumer-friendly use cases. For instance, Netflix alone

consumes cents19% of downstream bandwidth

(wireless and wired) in the US today. In the early days of

cable, when bandwidth in the cable pipe was limited due to

analog signals, content networks had to pay cable companies

for carriage. This allowed a market-based mechanism for

viable networks to effectively `buy' bandwidth and scale

their services based on how widely they were distributed.

Netflix however doesn't have to worry about this dynamic. It

can make its technology decisions independent of the

investment needs of the network. In theory, Netflix can

decide to stream all its videos in 4K and suck up even more

bandwidth, which will be to the detriment of other

applications on the Internet and force cable and wireless

companies to increase their network investment. At the same

time, cable companies will have to deal with broadband price

monitoring by the FCC (which the 2015 Open Internet Order

enables), limiting their ability to pass through price to the

consumer or to Netflix (due to a ban on paid prioritization).

Overall, while the need for some framework on Net

Neutrality is unquestionable, the move by the House to just

pass the buck back to the FCC to deal with the details is not

the right answer in our opinion. This needs a legislative

solution on the scale of the 1996 Telecommunications Act but

this is almost impossible in the current environment. As a

result, we believe this issue is likely to remain unresolved

for a long time to come. Near-term, however, if this

legislation were to pass, it could have a bigger impact on

wireless 5G plans than on wireline operators.

Mr. Chair, I would also point out, actually, that the bill would regulate 5G. We had a vote in committee to prevent that from happening, and every Democrat on the committee voted to regulate 5G through this legislation and give the FCC that authority, and every Republican voted the other way, because we actually vote for open and free internet and markets.

I know that the gentleman, my friend, was pretty busy when the President's people made their statement. I commented that day that I didn't think that was a good approach. So I have been on record, and I think most of my colleagues have as well. That is kind of an argument that, Mr. Chairman, I don't think holds much water.

What we do know is, we are legislating today, and the Democrats' legislation will regulate 5G, and the people who evaluate the effect of that say that is going to harm development, rollout, and probably investment as well.

Mr. Chair, the underlying amendment is good, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I share similar concerns to Mr. Stanton about promoting broadband deployment on Tribal lands. I have visited a number of reservations around the country, including in Arizona, as well as, of course, in my own State of Oregon and elsewhere.

This is a big issue, and the data are not complete. I agree with you that we need to do better. In fact, that is true, and I think we would all agree that the data the FCC gets, has, and uses has been a problem for a very long time. We have to get better so that when we allocate these funds to do the build-out and everything else, we are getting funds to the people who really need them. That is especially a problem with our Native American friends.

In fact, while I was presiding over the Energy and Commerce Committee last Congress, we accomplished landmark legislation with the enactment of RAY BAUM'S Act. That reauthorized the FCC, and it included language to improve services on Tribal lands, Mr. Chairman.

We need to make sure that the policies we impose on the internet support broadband deployment, especially deployment in Tribal, rural, and very rural areas. Oftentimes, the Tribal areas consist of rural areas where we have very small internet service providers providing access to the internet, and they are desperately trying to find funding to expand their service footprint.

I was a small business owner with my wife for more than 20 years. I will tell you, you are trying to grow your small business, and then the government comes in and says: Oh, we want more information. We want more requirements. And we are going to regulate you more.

Mr. Chairman, all that does is take your money and your plan to invest and diverts it. You don't get to do as much as you had planned to do. That is why I supported an amendment to the underlying bill that would have specifically protected a small business from the heavy hand of overreporting.

That amendment would have included the language of my bill on small businesses that was passed unanimously by the House in each of the last two Congresses--unanimously, right here on this floor. It would have extended the exemption for small ISPs from President Obama's FCC's enhanced transparency rules for 5 years and expanded the exemption to include businesses with 250,000 subscribers or less.

This was based on a bipartisan compromise that the FCC's original exemption was not enough to protect small ISPs. We all agreed to that. We negotiated that and twice passed that unanimously in the House.

I agree that all consumers should be protected, but the enhanced transparency rules could deter broadband from being deployed further on Tribal lands and reaching consumers in the first place. That is because these enhanced disclosures place an unnecessary regulatory burden on small businesses and distract them from working to bring broadband internet access to customers across the country, especially on Tribal lands.

As a reminder, my amendment would not have let ISPs skirt transparency. It did not do that. We are just talking about really costly reporting requirements. Instead, they would follow the less onerous transparency rules adopted by the FCC back in 2010 so consumers would still have access to information needed to make informed decisions about their internet service, and ISPs could focus on providing service rather than cumbersome regulatory requirements.

There is bipartisan consensus in improving broadband deployment to Tribal lands and, I think, our rural areas and our urban areas that are underserved. But it seems my colleagues across the aisle don't support this as much as we claim and they claim. Otherwise, I would have expected the amendment I had, which reflected exactly what we twice agreed to, to be part of the underlying bill. It is not, and that is unfortunate. But Mr. Stanton's work is valuable, and I support it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will be brief here. The only effort to nationalize 5G and to fully regulate 5G is contained in the Democrats' bill. That is where it is happening.

We had an amendment in the Rules Committee to prevent that, and the Democrats who control the Rules Committee by a 2-to-1 margin refused to even allow us to debate that amendment here on the floor.

Finally, the President never said he was going to nationalize 5G. Somebody leaked a memo out of the White House that said that is a good idea. I oppose that. Right that same day, within hours, they had been clear on that.

Let's be clear here. The facts of the matter are that this legislation nationalizes and regulates 5G like it has never been done before and threatens innovation and development of this exciting new opportunity for American consumers.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the great State of California (Mr. McCarthy), who is the Republican leader.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, but I am not opposed to the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's concern about the accuracy of the FCC's reports on deployment. I share those. And with his broader concern about broadband generally, I agree with that.

In fact, many Members on both sides of the aisle share these concerns, especially when it comes to the unserved Americans in our most rural areas, like my district that would stretch from the Atlantic to Ohio. It is a big district.

So, I will support this amendment. However, I would ask my colleagues to seriously consider, Mr. Chairman, the negative impacts of giving the FCC power to regulate rates on rural broadband deployment.

Mr. Kinzinger's amendment to block any sort of rate regulation was actually blocked by the majority from being considered today, and that is unfortunate.

At the full committee markup, Mr. Kinzinger highlighted a memo from the Congressional Research Service that noted there is nothing permanent to the forbearance that the majority claims to be doing when it comes to controlling the prices providers charge consumers.

So, we could get into rate regulation through the FCC, and every ISP would have to come back here and beg and explain their rate structure and everything else. And we have got thousands of them.

The majority attempted to remedy this flaw with some additional language purporting to lock in the FCC's forbearance on this matter, but the actual effect of that language is still unclear.

Most importantly, they left open the broad authority of sections 201 and 202 of the Communications Act and other authority that gives the Federal Communications Commission, all five unelected officials, plenty of leeway to regulate rates under title II.

The legislation we have before us clearly leaves the door open to rate regulation. If this were not the case, then the Kinzinger amendment, I would think, would be before the House today or would have been approved in committee when we had a chance to do that.

This is no way to conduct business in the internet age. These title II regulations were originally implemented for railroad monopolies in the 19th century. So, if you really believe in a competitive, open marketplace and a competitive, open internet, you don't turn it over to unelected bureaucrats in Washington to micromanage.

As they were applied in their original incarnation, the requirements of just and reasonable practices under section 201(b) and no unreasonable discrimination under 202(a)--which, by the way, sound perfect--provided sufficient authority to impose price controls on railroads.

So, by opening the door with title II and these other sections of law, you are now giving this vast power to basically three unelected officials at the FCC. You just need a majority to decide how the whole internet runs. I think that is a problem.

Mr. Chair, I support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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

Again, I appreciate the gentleman's amendment. As I said, I intend to support it. We need the facts here, and I support getting the facts.

We know the reporting data we often get is not accurate. And, if people are lying about their data, then we should hold them accountable, and I'll join you in that effort. That is not acceptable.

On the issue of rate regulation, that is what title II is all about. That is what this bill gives the FCC the authority to do.

While you can argue that adopting the forbearances that the FCC did under title II when they had that authority may preclude rate regulation there, by giving them this enormous authority, your own counsel testified in answer to our question, that they could go through a standard rulemaking process and use sections 201 and 202 to do their own rate regulation.

You see, you may close the front door, but you left the back door open. Actually, you created a back door.

That is where I am concerned, and my side is concerned that you are empowering the FCC with these incredible authorities designed for monopoly railroads and designed for monopoly communications systems that could really hamper future investment in things like 5G and provide all this micromanagement of the internet and harm consumers. That is why so many of us oppose this particular provision.

I keep seeing Republicans on this floor, Mr. Chairman, accept the Democrats' amendments in almost every case. They blocked some of ours from being able to be considered.

But, when it comes to this fundamental issue of turning the internet over to the Federal Government and three unelected people to do incredible things that aren't good for the long-term benefit of consumers and new technologies, we have to remain opposed.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, again, I support this amendment to require the GAO to look into ways to promote deployment of broadband to our most rural and underserved areas. It is a very worthy subject and one on which I think we can find some really broad bipartisan agreement. It is a top priority of mine and has been, so I won't oppose the amendment.

We are obviously delegating a lot of authority to the GAO, which is a wonderful organization, but we all have had hearings and know what really needs to happen, I think, going forward to get broadband built out. However, if you are really concerned about deployment to rural and underserved areas, you should be extremely concerned about the impact the underlying bill is going to have on our ability to get broadband out to these areas and close the digital divide.

Title II is a proven investment killer, period, hard stop. This is shown not only in the overall nationwide investment numbers going down during the only 2-year blip these rules were in effect. Remember, my colleague from New York, these internet rules you are about only existed for less than about 2 years. That is it.

The whole growth, the expansion of the internet and broadband occurred during the period of the 1990s to 2015. Then the internet order was put in and investment went down, and then the internet order was repealed and investment is going up.

The head of the Eastern Oregon Telecom Company, Joe Franell, came back to Washington and testified before our subcommittee and said, under title II, his investors lost interest; deals dried up; the bank wouldn't even give him a loan. It was an extremely compelling story from somebody who is on the front lines of getting broadband built out to the very areas you and I would agree need service.

And we heard from many other small rural ISPs as well with the same stories. They are the ones that take the worst hit under title II that is in this bill you support.

Now, I submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee to do something real to address the worst uncertainties that these small carriers have to deal with under title II.

Title II opens the door to government control of private networks. It opens the door to government taxation of the internet. It opens the door to government regulation of speech online.

My amendment would have closed all of those doors. Unfortunately, the Democrats, again, who control the Rules Committee, Mr. Chairman, 2 to 1, would not find a way to even allow us to bring that amendment here for a vote or debate.

I have to say, under title II, our smallest rural ISPs would have a really tough time, and we have seen a lot of evidence of this in the past. So I hope my friends will consider that, when we are voting on this underlying bill, we are actually going to cause those small ISPs more harm than good, and that will delay deployment into unserved and underserved communities.

A GAO study on deployment will have no impact whatsoever on deployment-killing excesses of title II, but it will give us some ideas about how to build out broadband, so I won't oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time remains.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate both my colleagues' comments, but the nationwide numbers of investment obscure what happens in our smallest investors, among those that are out

there, like Joe Franell in Eastern Oregon trying to build out.

What we do know is he came back and testified to the problem he encountered individually as one who is very progressive and active, trying to connect really difficult places to get to with the highest speed broadband possible.

I have met with him before; I have met with him during; I have met with him afterwards. He came back on his own dime to make the case that, when these rules were in effect, he had difficulty getting loans; he had difficulty building out; he was burdened more than he had ever been before, and that diminished his ability to build out.

His numbers probably are dust in terms of investment that the big companies have, but that is who I care about are the little operators that are so pushed down by this heavy hand of government overregulation. So that is, I think, what we have to maintain our focus on.

Again, title II gives these vast unprecedented powers to the FCC to regulate the internet like it has never been regulated before. People who have no Gs need our help, but people waiting for 5G don't need us to pass legislation that will screw it up and diminish innovation, and that is one of the reasons I am opposing this version of net neutrality.

We could agree on no throttling and no blocking and the paid prioritization issue as well.

The other thing I found interesting, Mr. Chairman, is, throughout the course of all of our hearings, there wasn't a witness panel of people who had faced all of these parade of horribles we have heard about from ISPs.

There weren't any witnesses. They didn't bring anybody. I don't know if they are out there or not. They didn't bring anybody who has been affected by the edge providers, however, and that is another subject for our conversation going forward.

Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I don't think I am opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I don't disagree with my colleague from Virginia that the maps showing broadband deployment in the United States can and must be improved. That is why, when Republicans held the majority for the Energy and Commerce Committee, we held numerous hearings on how to do that, how to improve broadband mapping at the

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the gentlewoman's amendment and the gentleman's comments. We can figure out how to work this out, I think. But clearly, we have to fix the maps.

Even the industry has told me, at least--they admit the data, the way it is collected and everything else, is not an accurate representation. They would like our help in this as well.

Hopefully, we can move forward on an NTIA reauthorization as well. We marched through a number of agency reauthorizations and programmatic reauthorizations that hadn't been done in decades in the last 2 years. We should continue that important work as well. We stand ready as Republicans to join our colleagues to get that done.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with my colleague across the aisle, Mr. McAdams, that ISPs should be able to block unlawful content, and I support his amendment.

In fact, even when the FCC imposed the heavy-handed title II regulations, it recognized in paragraph 113 of its order that the ban on blocking did not ``prevent or restrict a broadband provider from refusing to transmit unlawful material, such as child pornography or copyright-infringing materials.''

This was similar to the FCC's earlier nonblocking rule, which was also affirmed, that ISPs could block material that was unlawful.

It strikes me as interesting that you have to have this amendment to apparently clarify an ambiguity some must feel exists in the underlying bill, but we will support it if it is necessary to do that.

I firmly support net neutrality that allows Americans to enjoy the lawful content on the internet and applications of their choosing.

I would point out to my friend from Utah that the concerns about social media, and I share them, are not covered by this legislation. Those big platforms are completely exempt, as near as we can tell, so that is another area where I think we all share a common bond, that there is concern about what goes on in social media, things that aren't legal, things that are fake. I mean, you name it.

Under title II, the FCC could police internet content, as it currently does with content broadcasts over television or radio. I was a radio broadcaster for 21 years, owned and operated stations, and that concerns me a bit if we are going to get the FCC being the Nation's speech police. By making further rules on the ISPs, you might be able to end up there. That is a concern.

This is a really broad, open-ended authority that you all are giving to the Federal Communications Commission. That is because the FCC did not forebear from some content-specific provisions of title II, such as section 223. That would give the FCC authority to impose content-based restrictions if it found it to be ``just and reasonable.'' That goes well beyond just the legal content, I think.

I am not burdened with a law degree, but I have some really good lawyers that counsel me on these matters.

This is why we offered an amendment that would have put certain protections in place for consumers' freedom of speech online because that is also something we all swear to uphold, our First Amendment rights of religion and speech.

Rather than talk about how we can prevent the FCC from someday abusing the expansive authority that the majority is about to give it, we are here discussing something that has been universally agreed upon by all parties to this debate.

Mr. Chair, we appreciate the gentleman's perfecting amendment to this legislation. I intend to support it.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I again thank the gentleman from Utah for bringing this amendment. I guess my suspicions were right: It is merely restating what is already in the 2015 order, which is what this bill basically reinstates into law.

Mr. Chair, I thank my staff as well for the great job they have done. I appreciate both sides as we work together on these complicated and sometimes controversial issues.

I would point out that, under sections 223 and 201, you are again opening the door to vast new regulation of speech and content, I believe and our attorneys believe, by giving the FCC this authority.

I am a First Amendment guy. I have a degree in journalism. I believe in free speech. Sometimes, I don't like that speech. Sometimes, I find it offensive. The stuff that is illegal, you bet, we are all together on. But there are some interesting stories coming out around Europe and elsewhere where countries now, especially some of those in the more authoritarian parts of the world, are using this argument to crack down on political speech they find offensive.

I think we have to be very careful as Republicans, as Democrats, as all

Americans to try to find that balance between the obvious and the speech that really is about protecting the powerful. I think we can find common ground on that, but I do wince a bit that we are opening the door, or you all are with your bill, to giving the FCC the power to tax the internet, the power to regulate speech on the internet by going through a rulemaking.

I think that heads us in a little more dangerous direction and, meanwhile, does not address some of the issues I hear in townhalls. I have done 20 of them in every county in my district this year. When people begin to step up and have issues, it is not the ISPs they are complaining about, other than speeds and connectivity, that sort of thing. It is what is happening on some of the social media platforms, which are not addressed by this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I support the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Oh, my gosh, Mr. Speaker, in its current form, yes.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment is actually pretty simple, and Members have a clear choice today on the floor: Are you for taxing the internet or not? That is the question.

As we have discussed at the Energy and Commerce Committee and again on the House floor today, Mr. Speaker, no one fully understands the implications of the underlying legislation. In fact, we have adopted amendments that the sponsor indicates aren't really necessary but do reinforce what is already in the bill. The scope of what it entails is still unclear, however, and the impact it could have on consumers is still uncertain.

Now, Democrats claim their bill permanently forbears from many of the heavy-handed regulations that the Federal Communications Commission could impose through this government takeover of the internet. It is important to note that nothing in the underlying bill would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from imposing similar regulations in the future or through other provisions in statute.

Now, my colleagues never could produce the list of 700 forbearances they claim the FCC engaged in that they are going to lock in statute today. That is what you are voting on, among other things. We never could get that list of 700 forbearances.

We have offered amendments in the committee and in the Rules Committee to ensure that consumers are protected and to ensure that the Democrats' rhetoric about their bill actually matches the substance. These amendments were all rejected on party-line votes in committee.

What is clear is that the Democrats want a government takeover of the internet. They want to open up the floodgates to a Federal, State, and local cash grab through taxation and fees that could be put on by local governments, State governments, and even the Federal Government.

Now, they will argue: Oh, no, there is nothing in the underlying bill, no, no, no. It does not touch the Internet Tax Freedom Act.

That might be true. It doesn't have to because the underlying bill opens the floodgates to section 201 and section 202 and other provisions that would allow local, State, and Federal governments to tax the internet. They can't do that today.

So, again, your vote is pretty simple: tax the internet or don't tax the internet.

Once you classify internet services under the utility-style services, tax administrators are going to do what they do best, and that is find a way to charge fees and taxes on this category since they understand how to get milk from every cow that walks by. Guess who is getting milked. It is the consumers.

So if you have any doubt, Mr. Speaker, just check your monthly phone bill. Your internet subscription is the new target. We are seeing all kinds of things in this bill. They are doubling, potentially, use of fees for the use of some facilities and poles, even altruistic-sounding ones on telecommunications relay services and 911.

But guess what. Just ask New York residents how much of their monthly 911 charges are being diverted from their 911 call centers. According to the Federal Communications Commission's 10th annual report to Congress on how States collect and use 911 fees, a staggering 90.35 percent of the money New Yorkers pay for 911 services gets diverted. For my friends in New Jersey, 77.26 percent gets diverted.

So these tax collectors know how to tax; they just haven't had the opportunity to tax the internet, but they may well get it under this bill if it were to become law.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is pretty simple. Republicans want to close the door on taxation of the internet. Will Democrats join us or not?

If you vote for the motion to recommit, Mr. Speaker, you vote to close the tax and freedom door. A ``no'' vote leaves that door wide open for taxation of the internet.

Do you want your consumers to pay higher bills every month for their internet service or not?

Say ``no'' to higher taxes and fees and ``yes'' to this amendment to protect those who actually pay the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 294 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my friend, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 294, providing for consideration of H.R. 2021, the Investing for the People Act, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. The rule makes in order three amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The rule makes in order 12 amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes.

Additionally, the rule deems as passed House Resolution 293, which will immediately put in place an enforceable top-line discretionary spending level so that the Appropriations Committee can begin its work.

Finally, the rule provides standard recess instructions through April 26.

Mr. Speaker, the Investing for the People Act is a 2-year budget bill that will raise the defense sequestration caps for defense and nondefense discretionary spending for fiscal year 2020 and 2021.

I believe my colleagues from both sides of the aisle fully understand the devastating effects of sequestration. Across-the-board, mandatory cuts to every Federal program are not a successful path to fiscal responsibility.

Without taking action to lift the caps established by the Budget Control Act, nondefense discretionary funding will be cut by $54 billion. Such drastic cuts threaten public health, the environment, access to education, job training, and lifesaving social services like food and housing assistance.

Cuts to nondefense discretionary funding would also impact our national security. Nearly one-third of investments in this area fund veterans' programs, homeland security initiatives, diplomatic operations, foreign aid, and Justice Department activities.

If an agreement on lifting the cap is not reached, defense programs also stand to lose $71 billion. In a dangerous world, those cuts would be, in my view, harmful to national and global security.

Only a few months ago, the American people felt the harsh effects of a government shutdown. It is time to come together to take decisive action to avoid another blow to essential Federal programs that help hardworking Americans in every State. This legislation ensures working families will be able to rely on continued Federal funding for the programs that keep them safe, support their jobs, and invest in their children.

In fiscal year 2020, defense spending would be capped at $664 billion, with nondefense discretionary spending capped at $631 billion.

The Investing for the People Act would also provide up to $8 billion, annually, for nondefense overseas contingency operations, OCO, activities that do not count against the spending caps, while limiting OCO designation of defense spending in 2020 and 2021 to no more than the fiscal year 2019 level of $69 billion dollars.

In his budget, President Trump proposed continued spending on defense measures but massive cuts to domestic programs like public health research, infrastructure investment, and support for low-income families.

Even as our Nation draws down from our overseas war operations, domestic spending remains at a historic low as a percentage of our economy. H.R. 2021 provides a pathway for improving the lives of Americans in every community and renews our commitment to spending to meet the needs of our communities and invest in our economy.

In addition to protecting Americans from spending cuts, the House will be considering protections for a product all of us here today rely upon to do our jobs and live our lives, just like millions of Americans: the internet. This rule also provides for consideration of essential protections for American consumers who use the internet.

The Save the Internet Act would reinstate the Open Internet Order of 2015 that classifies broadband internet services as common carriers that are prohibited from preferentially treating or discriminating against groups of persons.

An overwhelming 86 percent of Americans opposed the FCC's rollback of net neutrality protections. All this legislation does, Mr. Speaker, is restore those protections.

Fair and reliable internet access is absolutely essential to millions of working families and small business owners. Practices like blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization harm the ability of every American to experience the internet in the same way, regardless of provider or how much money you pay.

The Save the Internet Act includes enhanced transparency protections and enacts specific rules against throttling, blocking, and other violations of net neutrality. The FCC would be empowered to investigate consumer and business complaints and impose necessary fines against internet service providers for violations of the Communications Act.

The bill also provides pathways to internet access for every American, especially those in rural communities who are being left behind by modern, high-speed internet infrastructure.

The Save the Internet Act would once again allow the FCC to fund rural broadband through the Connect America Fund.

Additionally, this legislation revives the Lifeline program, created under the Reagan administration to subsidize phone service for low- income families. Under this legislation, the FCC would again have authorization to use the Lifeline program to expand access to broadband for low-income Americans, especially seniors, students, veterans, and disabled Americans.

In response to concerns raised by our Republican colleagues, the Save the Internet Act also ensures that the FCC has the power to protect access to the internet but does not have authority to make decisions over internet content or the power to impose taxes and fees for internet access.

This legislation forbears the FCC from applying more than 700 regulations under the Communications Act that are unnecessary to protecting an open internet, such as rate setting.

Internet service providers have long claimed that they were hamstrung by net neutrality protections and that strong consumer protections were preventing them from investing in higher speeds and advanced broadband infrastructure.

In reality, ISPs actually increased speeds and invested huge amounts in improving their broadband during the time when net neutrality protections were enforced by the FCC. Moreover, many of the largest providers have failed to keep their promise of increased investing after the Trump FCC repealed those protections, with investments actually shrinking in recent years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and for both pieces of legislation underlying it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just make a few brief comments, and I always appreciate the passion that Mr. Woodall, my distinguished friend and colleague, brings to this discussion.

I do want to say what this is. First of all, the rule before the House has both a resolution, which I talked about, which is really the safety net, it establishes the $1.295 trillion for discretionary spending and, in addition, allows us to do IRS enforcement--$400 million is in the resolution--and the census 2020, which is upcoming and which will take thousands and thousands of people to conduct the census in the way that the Framers identified it to be.

It also has a budget bill. And I do want to just mention just a few points that relate to what Mr. Woodall said.

The major components of the budget are in the budget bill. It provides a top line for discretionary spending, provides allocations to the authorizing committees, provides a revenue floor, enforces all these 302 allocations, and sets new caps for discretionary spending, gives allocations to authorizing committees, all of these things which will match the CBO's baseline, I might add, and enforcement through regular Budget Act points of order.

So this does have a budget bill. What we do with the resolution, however, is critically important because it makes sure that we begin this process.

I think the thing that we all want to avoid in the greatest possible way is a shutdown. We saw that happen, and 2018 made history.

Although the House, the Senate, and the White House were all controlled by the same party, we ended Congress for the first time in U.S. history in a government shutdown, an inglorious end to the 115th Congress.

We need to do anything we can. This starts that process, creates a safety net, and jump-starts the budget process. So this is a completely appropriate and, in my view, mandatory way to start this process. And I will perhaps, if I get a moment or two, talk about the budget that the President submitted to us.

I also want to just mention for a moment, if I can, the comments raised by my colleague relative to the net neutrality bill. This, under the current rule, has enormous exposure to consumers and businesses. It does not impede innovation, what we are attempting to do. In fact, in my view, it will spur innovation, and it provides predictably for all users, consumers and businesses alike.

I do note that the rule that we reported out last night ensures that we do everything we can to reaffirm that commitment to fair access.

The rule made in order 12 amendments, both from Democrats and Republicans. It is a structured rule. Some of those amendments I agree with, some of those I disagree with, but every single one is worthy of debate on the floor. I am very proud, and I want to also congratulate the chair of our committee, Mr. McGovern, for making sure that we have amendments from both sides to discuss on this floor.

I do want to just mention a couple of them. Several amendments aim to strengthen access to broadband internet in rural and underserved communities. Mr. Brindisi, for instance, has an amendment which we will take up which requires the GAO to produce a report about the ways the U.S. government can promote the deployment of broadband to rural communities.

Representative Wexton has an amendment requiring the FCC to submit to Congress a plan on how the Commission would address problems in collecting data on deployment of broadband. By fixing these problems, we can have a better understanding of those communities that are served by broadband and ensure every community has access.

We have an amendment by Representative Waters asking the Comptroller General to submit a report on how net neutrality helps ethnic and racial minorities and how those rules will help disadvantaged groups, rural populations, individuals with disabilities, and the elderly. Without that full information, we cannot ensure that everyone is receiving the same treatment.

We have an amendment from Representative Davids directing GAO to

submit a report examining the FCC's efforts to assess competition. Colleagues are worried about how net neutrality rules will impact competition, but they have no data to back up their claims, so let's collect the data we need. Good policy is always backed by good evidence.

We also made in order an amendment by Representative McAdams which would affirm that ISPs can still block unlawful content, such as child pornography. Some content has no place on the internet, nor anywhere in our homes, and we want to make sure that ISPs block this, as they should, and that nothing in the bill will prevent them from doing so.

There are several other amendments made by Democrats that will be on the floor. I won't go into them any further. But I do want to acknowledge, also, that we have amendments in order submitted by Republican colleagues as well.

Mr. Latta submitted an amendment requiring the FCC to share the list of 700 rules that will be permanently forborne once this bill becomes law, which makes sense to me. We had this conversation in rules yesterday, to ask the question what those 700 rules are. The FCC has determined them to be unnecessary and burdensome.

Let's look at them and see what they are. Let's see the list. Let's show the American people that the government was not regulating for the sake of regulating and that, when those regulations are no longer appropriate, we will remove them.

Finally, my colleagues on the Rules Committee made Representative Burgess' amendment in order. It directs the GAO to initiate a study to examine the virtuous cycle of the internet ecosystem and the effect of net neutrality on that ecosystem--again, an amendment which was made in order to make sure that we have bipartisan discussion here on the floor.

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

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

I appreciate my good friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma's comments.

Those on the other side may say this is messy, but do you know what is messier? Another government shutdown.

We just endured, earlier this year, a 35-day government shutdown, the longest shutdown in our history. In this committee, we are committed to doing everything in our power to prevent that from happening again.

We want to make sure we can move forward with appropriations legislation, and this provision is a safety net to assure that process can begin. Whenever a budget bill comes up, whenever we begin that appropriations process, we will have a path forward.

My good friend raised the question of the President. I have to admit I am new here, haven't been here very long. I have been involved in the budget process in the State of New York for many years.

Frankly, watching the budget and looking at the budget submitted by the President, I would be embarrassed. I think it is no wonder that my friends on the other side of the aisle didn't submit, as an amendment, the President's budget.

The President's budget is devastating. I look to how it would devastate the people in my home State of New York: repeals the Affordable Care Act, eliminates health insurance for 2.2 million New Yorkers, abolishes protections for people with preexisting conditions, substantially increases premiums for older Americans.

If the budget that Donald Trump submitted became law, a 60-year-old living in New York making $25,000 a year could see their healthcare premiums increase by up to $5,000 annually, from $1,600 to $6,300 in 2020, a quarter of their income.

It cuts funding for New York's Medicaid program by $159 billion over the next 10 years. Nationally, the Trump budget proposes to cut Medicaid by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, 36 percent in 2029 alone.

College would be more expensive for 179,000 New Yorkers by completely eliminating the Direct Subsidized Loan Program and taking away grants for 108,000 students by abolishing the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant program. At a time when people need to have knowledge more than at any other time in human history to safeguard their economic future and those of their families, to cut college programs is reprehensible.

But I don't care just about New Yorkers, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Georgia, I have a brother who lives in Georgia. His children live in Georgia. I care a great deal about the people in Georgia as well.

The Trump budget:

Eliminates after-school programs for 41,000 Georgia students by zeroing out the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program;

Takes away high-quality childcare and early education for 4,200 low- income Georgia children by cutting Head

Start by 17 percent in the final year of this budget;

Eliminates nutrition assistance for up to 395,000 Georgians, 90 percent of whom live in households with at least one child, elderly person, or a person with a disability, by cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $220 billion, nationally, over 10 years;

Takes the food out of the mouths of 4,000 pregnant women, new moms, babies, and toddlers in Georgia by cutting the Women, Infants and Children program by 13 percent in the final year of this budget.

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker, but I will spare my colleagues a long dissertation on the Trump budget, other than recognize that this House is moving forward. We are beginning this process. We have established a safety net.

This is what Americans want. They don't want another shutdown. And we are going to do everything in our power--together, I hope, in a bipartisan way--to make sure that we continue to move forward in the years to come.

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

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

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

I do note for my friend, Mr. Burgess, whom I serve on the Rules Committee with, that we, in an effort to enhance bipartisanship, made his amendment in order. I believe it is the first amendment in order, and I certainly expect that it will get broad consideration on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from over 120 businesses and startups urging Congress to support net neutrality. This letter says: ``Passing H.R. 1644 will provide certainty for businesses and startups and would ensure critical consumer protections for all internet users.''

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin McCarthy,

Republican Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy: We are writing in

support of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act, to fully

restore the strong net neutrality protections for Internet

users that were adopted through the FCC's 2015 Open Internet

Order but later repealed.

Net neutrality is fundamental to guaranteeing that every

American has unencumbered access to the Internet. This access

is also essential to a competitive, free market for the

technology economy to thrive as well as entrepreneurship in

this country. The benefits of these protections are not

confined to technology companies and startups. Main Street

businesses across numerous sectors increasingly rely on

unfettered Internet access to run their operations and to

reach customers.

Net neutrality has been critical to the Internet's

explosive growth, creating an open platform on which

companies large and small can grow. We urge members of

Congress to stand on the side of consumers and Internet users

to quickly pass a clean, unamended version of H.R. 1644. This

bill would restore strong rules prohibiting blocking,

throttling, and paid-prioritization while reinstating ex-ante

enforcement and oversight by the FCC to prevent net

neutrality-related harms from happening in the first place.

Passing H.R. 1644 will provide certainty for businesses and

startups and would ensure critical consumer protections for

all Internet users.

Sincerely,

1Huddle, Ad Hoc Labs (dba Burner), Adaptive Energy,

AlleyWatch, Applemon, Attentive, Inc, BetaDefense, Binary

Formations, LLC, Bitly, Bloomers Island, Blue Ocean

Technology, Bluebell Advisors, Inc/Gilbane Advisor, BusBot

Incorporated, CapSen Robotics, Chartbeat, CitiQuants

Corporation, Cogent Communications, Cole House LLC, Concourse

Markets, Contextly.

Creative Action Network (CAN), CredSimple, D3FY.COM,

Darling, Inc., DART Technologies, Digital4Startups Inc., DLT

Education, EarnedCard, Educreations, Elucd, Etsy, Inc, Expa,

Fan Guru, Filament, FinToolbox (Screener.co), FluentStream,

Founder Academy, Foursquare, Friends, G. A. Hensley Company

Inc.

General Assembly Space, Inc., GitHub, Inc., Globig Inc.,

goTenna, Grey Horse Communications, Gust, Gusto, Haute Huab,

High Fidelity hobbyDB, HOGARU, Hoola Hoop LLC, InnovateEDU,

Inwage LLC, JOOR, JustFix.nyc, Karavan App, Karma+, Laconia

Capital Group, Launch Pad.

Loxo, LR, Makeo Company LLC, Mapbox, Market Mic LLC,

Martech, Mavatar Technology Inc., Medium, Meta, LLC,

MetaProp.vc, Minibar Delivery, Mozilla Corporation, Music to,

Neighborland, Neta Collab, Netsyms Technologies, Onfido,

Onfleet, Inc., Outdoor Project, Patreon, Inc.

Postmates, Promogogo, Rainmakers, Reddit, Inc., Rentify,

Rex Ag Labs, Routific, Sandwich.Net, LLC, Shotwell Labs,

Inc., Shutterstock, Inc, Simply Made Apps, SlidesUp, Snaps

Media Inc., Spoonful, SpotHero, Starsky Robotics, Stealth

Communications, Stripe, Stylaquin, Svaha LLC, Tampa Bay Wave.

Tenpin, textile.io, Tinybeans USA Ltd, Tostie Productions,

LLC, Troops.ai, TrueAbility, Tunesync, Twitter, Uncork

Capital, Venrock, Via, Vimeo, Inc., WayUp, Wellthy, White

Lioness Coaching, Women 2.0, WorkHound, Yapp, You

Got Listings, Inc, Zyper.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sentiments of the gentleman. We certainly agree.

The House has passed disaster relief. We await Senate conferees, so we can move that process forward. But what strikes me is how troubling it is to have this conversation.

The reality is that the President of the United States has chosen which Americans to provide aid to. The island of Puerto Rico, American citizens, has suffered disasters, calamities, as a result of Hurricane Maria, yet the President shows no indication that he understands the plight of the people on Puerto Rico. That is why it is necessary for the House and Senate to come together to provide relief, because the President, frankly, has chosen not to do it.

We welcome the comments by the gentleman. We look forward to the Senate establishing members of a conference committee, so we can work out differences that we may have and move this forward. We continue to hope for that day and hope that the President will gain some enlightenment about how we help and protect all American citizens.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just reiterate what I said earlier, which is that all Americans need help in times of disaster.

Despite the fact that some would try to ignore the fact that climate change exists and has created natural disasters that we could not have predicted years ago, the fact is that those disasters continue to happen.

All Americans--I don't care whether you live in New York or Alabama, Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands--all Americans need help.

One of the first bills we passed under a structured rule in this Congress was to provide that relief, yet it sits in the Senate because they seek to choose which Americans get benefited by the Federal Government's relief efforts and which do not.

We are going to stand firmly in the corner of all Americans getting the support from the Federal Government that they deserve. We are not going to pick and choose.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that my colleagues here across the aisle are going to march across to the other Chamber and insist to the United States Senate that it takes up that bill, that we establish a conference committee, and that we send this to the White House.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the passion that Mr. Woodall brings to conversations, both here on the floor as well as in the two committees on which we are privileged to serve. I thank him for that and thank him for his concerns about how we move forward.

I believe this is moving forward. Today, we are moving forward. We set the tone of how we move forward. We establish our discretionary amount. We end the sequestration caps. We begin to move forward, and I think that is what we want to do.

It is fascinating. I note that Mr. Woodall, in his comments, mentioned you can't get all 435 Members to agree. I certainly understand that, and I appreciate it. We couldn't get one Member to offer the President's budget as an amendment.

The truth is that there is a failure of leadership here. This is a process that is new to me, but I certainly expected that the President would provide greater leadership on how to move forward. We have seen none from the White House, which I find troubling and I find puts us at a considerable disadvantage.

We need to move forward, nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, and that is what we are doing today.

I do know that, for me, the amount of discretionary investments we make will say a great deal about where we are going as a country and what our priorities are.

I think we need to make greater investments in education and in public health, highways and transit, veterans healthcare, agricultural research, workplace safety, K-12 education support, national parks, housing assistance and mortgage insurance, small business assistance, Head Start, food safety, scientific research and space exploration--God knows, as a percentage of GDP, we need to continue to invest dramatically in those--embassy security, Pell grants for higher education students, hazardous waste cleanup, waterway maintenance for commerce and recreation, weather forecasting, hurricane-proofing communities, forest and wildlife habitat management, conservation resources, patents and trademarks, consumer protections, and aviation safety.

The list goes on and on for the kind of investments we need to make to continue to make sure that America leads in the 21st century. That is what this does today. That is what this rule will do. That is what the resolution budget process starts today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for their words of support for H.R. 2021, the Investing for the People Act. I especially thank Chairman Yarmuth and Ranking Member Womack for their work on our Nation's budget.

I also thank Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member Walden and all those who have worked on H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

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

I thank my friend from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. And, at the risk of opening this debate like I opened so many others in 2019: Mr. Speaker, we have taken an opportunity to do something very productive and very bipartisan and we have turned it into something that is going to be very partisan and wholly unproductive.

Neither of the bills we are considering in this rule today are going to be moving through the Senate. Neither of the bills we are considering today are going to be signed by the President. But the good foundation in both of those bills could have been, and we have missed yet another opportunity.

Let me start with H.R. 1644, Mr. Speaker, the so-called Save the Internet Act. I can't speak for everyone else's internet, but my internet is still thriving. I haven't seen any nefarious internet shortages or blockages in recent days.

For the millions and millions of Americans trying to livestream C- SPAN right now, they are having no problems whatsoever. It is going right through the pipes the way it always has, Mr. Speaker. And, if it is in need of saving, it is certainly not in need of saving from this institution.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, that my friends on the other side of the aisle are upset with the Trump administration's FCC.

You will recall that the Obama administration and its FCC took the regulations that had governed the internet from its inception through its explosion of productivity and innovation, all the way through 2015, and threw all those rules out entirely, replacing it with a command- and-control government structure.

In its wisdom and with my great support, the Trump administration and the FCC threw those new rules out, taking us back to those rules that provided the foundation for the internet and all of the productivity that it has provided.

It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that so many folks are afraid of internet freedom that we need to try to find a way to clamp down on internet freedom and bend the internet to the will of the government.

I would argue that the Wild West innovation style that has driven the internet and tech companies from day one shouldn't be boxed in by the government and certainly shouldn't be replaced with a 1930s-era, Ma Bell telephone regulatory scheme.

That is what we are talking about here today with this bill, Mr. Speaker, is turning over regulation of the internet to title II of the Communications Act.

If you have not looked at title II recently, Mr. Speaker, it is almost 100 years old. It was created to govern that wonderful emerging technology called the landline telephone and the monopolistic telephone companies that existed at that time.

I don't know how many of your staffers still have landline telephones, Mr. Speaker. I know your grandchildren probably don't even know how to operate one these days.

We certainly should not be relying on those regulations to bring us forward with innovation. The heavy hand of government regulation always takes us backwards.

The good news, Mr. Speaker, is that, if you see legitimate challenges out there, we do have some bipartisan solutions to help address those: Former Chairman Walden's H.R. 1101, one such bill that could have been on the floor today; Mr. Latta's H.R. 1006, another bill that could have been on the floor today; Mrs. McMorris Rodgers' H.R. 1096 could have been on the floor today, just to name a few.

But none of those bipartisan options were seriously considered. Instead, we are left with a single option, in true government, monopolistic fashion, and that option is to support the Obama administration's failed government takeover of the internet.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose that. I oppose the legislation. I hope my other colleagues will as well.

It did not have to be this way. This could have been a productive partnership discussion about how to take what is obviously a productive and innovative tool fueling, not just urban America, not just suburban America, but rural America, and we could have talked about how to grow it together. But we chose a different path, digging partisan ditches even deeper early in 2019.

If that is not disappointing enough, Mr. Speaker, there is a second bill that this rule makes in order. That is H.R. 2021. That bill comes out of another committee that Mr. Morelle and I serve on, the House Budget Committee.

I love serving on the House Budget Committee, I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker. It is a wonderful committee on which to serve. Mr. Morelle and I are both lucky to be on it, and we have two fabulous leaders on that committee: Mr. Yarmuth of Kentucky leading the Democratic side of the aisle and Mr. Womack of Arkansas leading the Republican side of the aisle.

If you were going to task two leaders in this institution with crafting the kind of budget that I talked about from the well earlier, Mr. Speaker, a budget that would protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, a budget that would lay out priorities for America, talk about where it is that we want to see our children and our grandchildren go in the 21st century, those are the two leaders who could have brought us together for the first time in a long time around a unified vision.

But, instead, the order came down from on high, Mr. Speaker. There was to be no budget. I assume that is true. We have considered absolutely no budget in the so-called Budget Committee. We have had no budget markup in the Budget Committee. We have had no discussions of budget in the Budget Committee.

Instead, what we have before us today is a bill that is sometimes referred to as a caps deal. You have heard ``caps deal'' before, Mr. Speaker.

It is those times in years past where we have taken what are those discretionary caps, those limits on how much Federal money we can spend, and we have adjusted those so that we can invest in some shared priorities on the one hand while reducing spending in some other, lower priority places.

We have done that in a bipartisan way not once, not twice, but three times. We could have been here today, Mr. Speaker, for a fourth time.

If we are not going to actually do a budget, we still could have been here on a caps deal. But this is not a caps deal. This is not a caps bill that had input from Republicans in the House. This is not a caps deal that had consultation with the Senate. This is not a caps deal that has been done in bipartisanship with the White House.

This is a caps deal that is just a deal among warring factions of a divided Democratic Caucus, and that bill has come to the floor today-- again, a bill that will not be considered in the Senate and a bill that will not be signed by the President.

We can normalize partisan failure in this institution, Mr. Speaker. We can. We can also normalize bipartisan cooperation.

I don't fault the other side for the struggles that are, inevitably, going to happen when a new majority takes over in the U.S. House of Representatives. Leading is a very difficult, difficult thing to do.

But, at the end of the day, the majority is tasked with doing exactly that--leading. The Budget Committee should produce a budget. The United States of America should have a budget.

It is not easy to do. It is not easy to pass this House floor. It is not easy to pass through a committee. But it is what the law requires us to do; it is what we have the right leaders on the Budget Committee to do; and it is what every single Member in this institution knows in their heart that we should do.

Mr. Speaker, I urge defeat of this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my friend from New York, but I just have too many speakers who have come down to the House floor today to speak about this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a member of the Rules Committee, our ranking member on the Rules Committee, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and one of the most thoughtful Members of the Republican Conference.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say that my friend's criticisms of the Trump budget are perfectly legitimate. What he failed to mention, though, is the reason he can make those criticisms is because the law required the administration to offer a budget, and it did. The law also requires this House to offer a budget, and we have not.

We are better than that. This is not an Article II responsibility. This is an Article I responsibility, and we will rue the day that we decided that we would rather talk about what Article II was doing instead of doing the work ourselves here at Article I.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), a new Member of this institution and a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Rules Committee.

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

My friend from New York is right: They did make a number of amendments in order, but not enough amendments to solve some underlying problems.

One amendment they didn't make in order was an amendment to provide disaster funding to so many of our communities that have been waiting on disaster funding--not for a day, not for a week, not for a month, but, now, into the new year.

If we defeat the previous question today, we can correct that injustice, and I will bring up an amendment to the rule to make this disaster funding possible. It is critically important.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) to talk about that, one of the greatest advocates for that language here in the House.

Mr. Speaker, as we have heard so often on the House floor, hopeful wishes are not enough for our constituents. We need to deliver results.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn), who has been working hard in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I would say to my friend from New York, we do not have any further speakers remaining, so if he would like to get this show on the road, I am prepared to close if he is.

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my friend from New York on the Rules Committee, and I really do enjoy serving with him on the Budget Committee.

It is neat to be on the Budget Committee as a freshman because you are working with the biggest issues that we have in this country. We all care about healthcare and how it gets implemented, but we can't implement it if we can't pay for it, so the Budget Committee grapples with those issues.

We all want our seniors to be protected. They have been paying into Medicare and Social Security their entire lives, but we know those programs are headed toward bankruptcy. We can't solve those problems except in the overarching look of a Federal budget process. It is what the law requires.

We get to talk about those big ideas. We get to think those big thoughts. We get to come together to make big and, yes, Mr. Speaker, difficult decisions.

President Trump, in his budget, made difficult decisions. I dare say I could go Member to Member in this Chamber and find 435 people out of 435 who would find at least one flaw in the President's budget. I bet I could.

It is hard to write a budget for the United States of America, but the law requires that we do it. More importantly, even if the law didn't require that we do it, Mr. Speaker, we know that we should. We know the Constitution lays out that responsibility, the power of the purse, for the House. We have constituted an entire committee called the Budget Committee.

I don't want to wow you, Mr. Speaker, with my eloquence, but do you know what the responsibility of the Budget Committee is? It only has one: write the budget.

For years, there was a time when the Senate was not taking up budgets in its Budget Committee. I wondered why they didn't disband the Budget Committee because the only job the Budget Committee has is to write the budget.

We know we need to do that together. We know we do, but we are not.

The second bill this rule makes in order is the government takeover of the internet bill. Again, if you think the internet is broken and the benevolent hand of government can fix it, this is the bill for you. If you think the internet is not broken and perhaps government ought to stay where government is, and the freedom of the internet should continue, this is not the bill for you.

We need to defeat both of these bills, and we need to defeat the rule.

I do want to point out, for the Rules Committee, we were working just beyond those doors last night, Mr. Speaker, and I think the Rules Committee did the best it could with the material that it had to work with. I see the staff director of the Rules Committee sitting over there. He has a tough job.

I think the chairman did the best he could. You cannot solve the problem of a flawed, partisan committee process with the inclusion of amendments in the Rules Committee. You just can't do it. But they tried as hard as they possibly could, making in order as many amendments as they could to try to satisfy as many concerns as they could.

The problem is not the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker. That is not why we need to defeat the rules today. The problem is the leadership decision that has been made to bring up these two flawed products that were created in a partisan way when we could have brought to the floor two positive products created in a collaborative way.

We have to make a decision in this Chamber. Either we are in the business of making a point or we are in the business of making a difference. So far, the first 4 months of this year, we have been great at making a point, but we have been struggling to make a difference.

Like it or not, we have a Senate that has to pass this legislation and a President who has to sign it if we are to make it the law of the land. The two products today fail that test.

Let's not waste another moment on them, Mr. Speaker, not another moment. Let's reject this rule. Let's not bring these two pieces of legislation to the floor. Let's go back to the drawing board collaboratively, as we know we can. Lock any bipartisan group of Members into a room together, Mr. Speaker, and they will craft a better solution. We have the right leaders in this Chamber for this time. We just need to free them up to lead.

Defeat this rule. Defeat the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act.

This bill comes to the floor after more than 18 hours of consideration by the Energy and Commerce Committee over the course of hearings and markups since the start of this Congress.

During that time, we have heard from consumer advocates, minority and underrepresented communities, rural broadband providers, small businesses, innovators, entrepreneurs, and millions of constituents, all calling for the restoration of net neutrality rules.

In addition, polls show that more than 86 percent of all Americans, whether they be Republicans, Independents, or Democrats, opposed the Trump FCC's repeal of the protections that this bill reinstates.

People around the country care deeply about a free and open internet because it is critical for so many communities and sectors of our economy.

This legislation will do three things:

First, it restores bipartisan, commonsense net neutrality protections and puts a cop back on the beat to protect consumers, small businesses, and competitors from unjust, unreasonable, and discriminatory practices by internet service providers.

Second, this bill gives the FCC the authority to protect consumers, now and in the future, through forward-looking regulatory authority.

Third, the bill restores the FCC's legal authority to support broadband access and deployment programs through the Universal Service Fund.

These programs pay for the deployment of broadband in rural communities through the Connect America Fund and support access for low-income families, seniors, and veterans through the Lifeline program.

The Save the Internet Act codifies the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order and permanently prohibits the FCC from applying provisions on rate setting, unbundling of ISP networks, or levying additional taxes or fees on broadband access.

This legislation that we are considering here today charts a new course for net neutrality and would put in place 21st century rules for a 21st century internet.

I look forward to advancing this legislation out of the House and, ultimately, through the Congress so that we can restore these essential protections for all Americans.

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

Mr. Chair, what my friend refers to as a takeover of the internet we call protecting consumers, and that is what we are asking the FCC to do.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

I find this pretty humorous that the Republicans want to talk about government takeover of the internet. The only person I know who has proposed publicly to take over the internet is the President of the United States when he said he wants to nationalize 5G.

Maybe you guys need to take a little trip over to the White House and prevent that little government takeover of the internet.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), a valuable member of this committee.

Mr. Chairman, my friends keep talking about the government takeover of the internet. I am glad to see that they are finally taking a stand against

the foolish 5G nationalization proposal that the Trump administration can't seem to stop talking about.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

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

Mr. Chairman, I would submit that we are listening to the public and our constituents. Eighty-six percent of all Americans--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- support what we are doing here today. It is the Republicans who are standing up for a very small number of ISPs in this country.

It gives me great pleasure to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), who is the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Chair, we keep hearing over and over again that same mantra, ``government takeover of the internet.''

What the Republicans call the heavy hand of government is what is actually protecting consumers. If they want to stop a government takeover of the internet, then they had better talk to the White House: ``Trump apparently wants to control 5G in a `state-run' socialist twist to American capitalism.'' That is where you need to take those concerns about the government takeover to.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), vice chair of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

Madam Chair, I would say to the gentlewoman that we know that net neutrality rules don't affect internet speed or internet investment.

And who says that? The CEOs of all the internet companies when they are talking to their Wall Street investors.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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

This debate can be broken down very simply. There is agreement on the three bright lines. So Democrats and Republicans agree: no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization. But that is where my friends on the Republican side stop.

Democrats understand that, already, we see behavior by ISPs that isn't covered by those three bright lines, in the areas of zero rating and interconnection. There has to be a cop on the beat to protect consumers.

This bill is very basic. It says we are going to outlaw the three bright lines. We all agree with that.

The only things we do in addition to this are two other things:

Number one, we restore the legal underpinnings for the Connect America program, which helps rural broadband, and the Lifeline program, which helps our seniors, veterans, and low-income families in the country. We make it easier for pole attachments to make rural deployment of broadband easier to do, to facilitate that. So we take care of rural America in the bill.

Then we also say there has to be someone to look out for consumers if, somewhere down the road, an ISP finds a new way to have some unjust or unreasonable or discriminatory behavior. Someone has to have the ability to say: You can't do that, and, if you continue to do that, we are going to levy a fine or we are going to take action against you.

That is called consumer protection. What my friends over here want to do is simply take the three bright lines and say, okay, we will enforce that because they have been caught red-handed doing that. Everybody knows they have pled guilty to the blocking, the throttling, and the paid prioritization. We will outlaw that. But if they find some new, novel way to game the system and disadvantage consumers, we don't want anyone to be able to stop that kind of behavior.

Madam Chair, it is sort of like locking your front door and leaving the back door wide open. That is what the Republicans would have us do, if we would agree to their so-called compromise that they are putting forward.

Let me tell you something. I didn't come to Congress to work for internet service providers. I came to Congress to protect consumers.

And you are not fooling Americans. Eighty-six percent of Americans, be they Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, did not want to see the Pai FCC, the Trump FCC, repeal these net neutrality rules. There was overwhelming testimony during the rulemaking from more than 20 million people asking the FCC not to take this action. This is an issue not only amongst millennials but all throughout our population.

You have been hearing it on your telephones, too. That is why you all want to say you are for something. You stand there and say we are for a free and open internet, but what you are for is allowing these ISPs to figure out new ways to game the system and making sure there is no cop on the beat, the FCC, to be able to regulate that. That is why we are never going to agree until we sit down and protect consumers in this kind of bill.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have left?

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate this debate. A couple of points I would like to make as we close. I think people need to understand that, 2 years ago, when the Trump FCC decided to repeal the net neutrality rules that were in place, what did they replace them with? How did they protect consumers when they decided to repeal the net neutrality rules put in place by Chairman Wheeler during the Obama administration? I will tell you what they did. They did nothing--nothing, no protections, the Wild, Wild West. The only thing a consumer could look forward to was, if one of these ISPs violated their terms and conditions, they might be able to go over to the FTC and ask for relief.

Ask the California firefighters how that worked for them when they were in the middle of trying to put out these devastating fires in California and came up on their data cap and had no recourse. Ask them if they think that was unjust or unreasonable behavior.

For Republicans to stand here and say that they care about net neutrality rules when they had 2 years when they controlled the House and the Senate and the White House to put one of these three bills they like to talk about on the floor--because they controlled the floor to pass the bills, to

pass it in their Republican-controlled Senate and give it to their Republican President to implement net neutrality rules to protect consumers. What did they do? They did nothing--nothing, crickets, silence.

Now Democrats control the House of Representatives. We said that it is important to all Americans, and all Americans regardless--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--wanted to see those net neutrality rules that were repealed restored. So what we have done is we have taken that 2015 open internet order and we said let's put this into law. Let's put this into statute so that no future FCC Commissioner can come there and change this.

We have forborne on 700 regulations that were in title II. You keep hearing this: We are putting the heavy hand of title II, Ma Bell, 1934 rules on the internet. That is not true. All of those provisions of title II were forborne. They are not part of this bill.

What did we keep in title II? We kept the consumer protections in sections 201 and 202. We saved the legal underpinnings that make it possible to do the Connect America Fund and the Lifeline Program. We put a cop on the beat so that, for future bad behavior on the part of the ISPs, there is someone there to say you can't do that, and if you try to do that, we can take action against you.

Now, I ask you, what do the ISPs have to fear from that? If they are not acting in an unjust or an unreasonable or a discriminatory fashion, they have nothing to worry about.

I would ask my friends, what unjust and unreasonable and discriminatory behavior do you think they should be allowed to engage in?

Well, I have news for you. Just the three bright lines, that doesn't cut it anymore. We have already seen behavior that is discriminatory that isn't covered by those three bright lines. If there is no cop on the beat to enforce that on behalf of consumers, then it is the consumers who are the losers.

We are not going to let that happen. The American people don't want that to happen. People of all stripes have said, loud and clear, that they want to see commonsense, bipartisan net neutrality rules put into place.

When I say bipartisan, the only place it isn't bipartisan is here in the House of Representatives, not out in the country. The Senate passed a similar bill last year in their CRA with 52 Members. It was bipartisan.

We tried to put that CRA on the floor last year, and the Republican majority wouldn't put the bill on the floor so that we could have a vote on it. We tried a discharge petition to see if we could get the bill on the floor, and not a single Republicans helped us pass the discharge petition so that we could have a vote on net neutrality.

Let's not kid ourselves here. Any chance that Republicans had to have no regulation on the internet, that is what they have been about when they have been in power in this body.

Madam Chair, it is a new day, and it is a new House of Representatives, one that listens to the will of the people, the citizens of America who have said loud and clear that they want to see these rules put back in place.

To all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, this is your chance to be on the right side of history. This is your chance to be on the side of the angels. I ask all my colleagues to vote for this bill, vote ``yes'' on H.R. 1644 and restore net neutrality rules for all Americans.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

It is interesting to hear my good friend talk about 5G. When the majority talks about government control of the internet, they should turn their eyes to the White House and the President's plan to nationalize 5G.

The only socialist plan to take over the internet is the one coming from the Trump administration and their plan to nationalize 5G. I have documents for the Record talking about numerous articles where the Trump administration proposes to nationalize 5G, and the plan coming from the administration to secure 5G.

The gentleman keeps saying that this bill is a government takeover of the internet, but the only government takeover I see is the one that the White House keeps proposing.

Now, the amendment that is before us would ask the GAO to examine how the FCC assesses competition, including making recommendations on how to improve their assessment and how to increase competition in these vital markets. This is a key question for so

many consumer protections online, not just net neutrality.

This bill is about consumers, small business, and democratic values like competition. This is a good amendment. I support this amendment, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it as well.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would say to my good friend, Mr. Walden, and he is my good friend, that if you think the President's plan to nationalize 5G is a bad idea--and I kind of recall the gentleman saying that. As recently as yesterday, the administration in its campaign is still talking about nationalizing 5G. Perhaps it is time to get on the phone or to stand up here on the House floor publicly and talk about some action that we can take as a Congress to make sure that the White House doesn't nationalize 5G.

With the amendment before us, bridging the digital divide is one of the great challenges the FCC faces today. The Save the Internet Act is going to give the FCC new tools to address that digital divide.

Although broadband technologies keep getting better, they are not reaching everyone, especially those in remote areas, like Native Americans living on Tribal lands. These populations face unique challenges in getting high-speed internet access service. That is why it is critical that the FCC focus on identifying and addressing obstacles to getting high-speed internet onto reservations and Tribal lands.

This amendment would instruct the FCC to work more closely with Native Americans to help connect Tribal lands. This amendment is particularly important because of the Trump FCC's illegal attempt to reduce support for the Lifeline program to Tribal communities. This decision was ultimately found to be illegal by the courts. However, it is critical that the Commission talk and listen to the people who understand the problems and represent the communities lacking broadband.

Mr. Chairman, I support this commonsense amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Save the Internet Act will ensure net neutrality and help bring the internet to parts of the country that don't yet have it.

I would say to my friend from Oregon, the bill is crystal clear on rate regulation. The language clearly prohibits any rate regulation, so rural folks need not worry about that.

Through the act, the FCC will have the authority to accelerate deployment of broadband by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition. And, furthering that goal, Congress requires that the FCC report on the state of broadband deployment nationwide.

The results, every year, are particularly important because they are used to figure out where to best direct funds for rural broadband deployment. And to name a few, that is important for consumers, schools, libraries, and hospitals that they get the connections they need.

And we need to know that the FCC's data is accurate. We expect the FCC to use its best efforts to ensure that the data is up to date and error free before releasing their reports.

Recently, the traditional diligence of the FCC has been called into question. According to news reports, the FCC is preparing a report that contains data that an internet service provider has told the FCC is wrong. The carrier reported that it provided high-speed broadband to everyone in 10 states when its actual service area was a fraction of that.

This serious oversight seriously alters the state of broadband deployment in this country and calls into question data used by this administration to justify other policies.

Despite that internet service provider coming forward, the FCC has not even corrected a press statement that was, in part, based on that erroneous data entitled ``America's Digital Divide Narrows Substantially.''

As the expert agency regulating broadband, it cannot knowingly put out false information that misleads the public. This amendment will help remedy that. That is why I support it, and that is why I think we should all vote for it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We keep hearing this talk about how investment plummeted after the 2015 order. Well, we all know that is not true, and the proof is in the pudding.

Investment data shows an aggregate increase in investment following the FCC's February 2015 vote to adopt the open internet rules compared to the 2 years following the repeal of the 2015 order, when investment actually decreased.

The same is true of most ISPs' individual investments. The majority of publicly traded broadband providers reported investment increases after the 2015 order was adopted. In the first year following adoption of the 2015 rules, census data showed a $3.5 billion jump in capital spending in data processing, hosting, and related services.

Moreover, the repeal of the 2015 order did not result in a use boost to infrastructure spending, as the Trump FCC asserted would happen. Instead, investment actually decreased.

This amendment before us is important. Though many of our constituents enjoy easy access to high-speed broadband, there are still many pockets of this country that aren't served by high-speed broadband. Or, as my good friend Peter Welch from the great State of Vermont says about the promises of 5G: ``Some of us have no Gs.''

The Save the Internet Act is going to restore net neutrality throughout the country, and it is going to give the FCC key authorities that buttress critical programs, such as the Connect America Fund that provides money to build high-speed broadband out to areas where it would not be economic to do so without the funding.

The Save the Internet Act also gives internet service providers nondiscriminatory access to rights of way and poles, which will facilitate build-out in rural areas.

Unless we connect our rural communities, the people in them cannot fully be active participants in the 21st century economy. They are missing out on education and workforce opportunities that are so often now delivered online. That is why much of the rural broadband deployment in this country is funded by the Connect America Fund.

This amendment would require GAO to examine these issues and to provide a report with recommendations about how the government can promote build-out to hard-to-reach or otherwise overlooked communities. This is such an important policy issue and such an important part of saving the internet.

I look forward to joining my colleagues in supporting this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I would say to my friend, I think what we are trying to do in these two amendments is, we need the FCC to get on this as soon as possible, but we need the GAO to continue to look at this. But I understand what the gentleman is saying.

Look, we know these maps are wrong. I mean, nobody is arguing about that, and it is unacceptable. What the gentlewoman's amendment would do is ask the GAO to do a report to examine the current mapping processes for both wireless and wired line services.

They would also be asked to identify what FCC programs and actions rely on maps and to make recommendations on how the FCC could produce more reliable maps.

I think this is an important amendment. I support it, and I urge all my colleagues to support it also.

Mr. Chair, I would ask the Congressman, my understanding of his amendment is that it simply restates what is already in the 2015 Open Internet Order, namely, that nothing in this bill would prohibit ISPs from blocking unlawful content and that nothing in this act adds any additional requirement or right for an ISP to decide what is lawful content?

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for clarifying that. I support the gentleman's amendment.

Since this is the last of the amendments to be offered, I wanted to take this time to thank my friend and the Republican side for a vigorous debate not only in our committee but here on the floor.

Mr. Chair, I would be remiss if I didn't thank our staffs, namely Alex Hoehn-Saric, Jerry Leverich, Jennifer Epperson, AJ Brown, Dan Miller, Kenneth Degraff, and my telecom staff, Philip Murphy. Without him, I wouldn't sound as intelligent as I do on these matters. I thank all of the Democratic staff. They worked very hard, and they deserve our thanks.

Mr. Chair, this has been a vigorous debate, as it should be, but we are coming to a close now, and I thank my friend for his participation.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, pay close attention this. This proposal is completely unnecessary. Let me tell you why.

The bill simply restores the 2015 Open Internet Order that the FCC adopted and was upheld by the courts. Nothing in that order could or did give the FCC the authority to modify, impair, or supersede Federal law. To the contrary, the order said specifically that it did not impose new taxes or impact the Internet Tax Freedom Act.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act is Federal law. Nothing in this order allows the FCC to modify, impair, or supersede Federal law.

This is a complete nonissue, nothing you need to be worried about; and, frankly, it is just a last-ditch effort to delay and confuse people on net neutrality.

Now, let's get down to what this bill really does. What this bill does, basically, is three things:

First, the three we all agree on: no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization. Republicans and Democrats say we all agree with that.

But, colleagues, that is not the end of the ball game, because we have already seen discriminatory practices by ISPs that aren't covered by blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.

What my friends over here are saying is, sure, the three things we caught them red-handed on that they have already pled guilty to, we are not going to allow that anymore, but any new discriminatory behavior, any new unjust or unreasonable behavior, we don't want a cop on the beat to police that. We don't want to be able to give consumers the right to go to the FCC and get relief from that. It is like locking the front door and leaving the backdoor wide open.

Now, let's talk about another thing, too.

Two years ago, the Trump FCC repealed the Open Internet Order. What did it replace it with? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Crickets. They did nothing. It is the Wild, Wild West. Let the ISPs do anything they want and consumers be damned. That is what they did.

For 2 years, they could have brought their so-called version of light-touch net neutrality to the body. They controlled the House. They controlled the Senate. They got a Republican President. They did nothing because they don't believe in net neutrality, and they don't believe in protecting consumers.

Well, I have got news for my friends on this side of the aisle: You are not in charge here anymore. This is a new day. We didn't come to Washington, D.C., to represent companies. We came here to represent the American people.

May I tell my colleagues, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, 86 percent of the American people say they want these rules restored.

Colleagues, this is your first and only chance to tell the American people where you stand on net neutrality and whether you believe that the FCC should protect consumers. This is your chance to be on the right side of history, on the side of the angels, and on the side of the American people.

Let's defeat this motion to recommit and pass this bill.

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