GOP Senator Tells Ajit Pai It’s Time For New Net Neutrality Law

In April, the United States House of Representatives passed the “Save the Internet Act,” a new bill that would reinstate the net neutrality rules repealed last year by the Federal Communications Commission.  But the bill passed on a largely party-line vote, and in the Republican-controlled Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the net neutrality legislation “dead on arrival,” despite the fact that polls show that among the public, net neutrality garners broad support to the tune of about 80 percent, with support high among Democrats, Republicans, and independent voters. So on Tuesday, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate Appropriations General Government Subcommittee, created something of a landmark moment when he told FCC Chair Ajit Pai that he believed net neutrality to be “hugely important,” and that Congress must now act to put legislation in place to clarify the rules for maintaining an open internet, as The Daily Dot reported.  Pai, a Donald Trump appointee and former general in-house counsel for the telecommunications industry giant Verizon, is the principal architect of the FCC’s move to eliminate Obama-era net neutrality regulations. He appeared to testify before the Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday. While Kennedy expressed support for developing net neutrality legislation, he did not mention the House bill that passed last month, nor did he lay out any specific course for the legislation to take. "We need to stop passing the buck and pass a net neutrality bill," Kennedy told Pai. “So-called net neutrality is hugely important to the American people, and many reasonable people have different points of view on what we ought to do. ... We need to pick a course and stick to it because it’s very, very hard for people and consumers who rely upon net neutrality and have to comply with our rules. It’s very hard when we have the policy bouncing around like a ping-pong ball.” Democratic Senator Chris Coons said that he “could not agree more” with Kennedy’s statement on net neutrality.   “I think we've had a several-year-long fight back and forth. It's time for us to sort it out and legislate responsibly,” the Delaware Senator said. In May of last year, the Senate voted on a largely symbolic resolution to reinstate net neutrality rules. The resolution passed with support from all Senate Democrats and four Republicans, including Kennedy.  Photo By C-Span Screen Capture