(Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today once again reiterated its strong opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) intention to embark on a regulatory goose chase.  Starting tomorrow, the FCC begins its ill-conceived venture into drafting new rules and regulations to dictate how broadband companies must manage access to the internet. 

In an October 20, 2009 Broadcasting & Cable article, John Eggerton reported that “[T]he key will be how the FCC ends up defining network management and what practices that definition allows or appears to foreclose.  Some conservative Democrats have expressed their own concerns that the FCC not produce rules that discourage private investment and boost the price of broadband, thus widening the economic divide between Internet haves and have-nots.”

“Contrary to the lingo, ‘net neutrality’ is anything but neutral,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Before the FCC has even gaveled the meeting to order, special, politically-driven carve-outs are reportedly being negotiated behind closed doors.”  Today’s CongressDailyAM reported that “Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been pushing to exempt online companies such as Google and Skype from the network neutrality regulations he wants in place to preserve the Internet's openness…Instead, a set of proposed rules -- which the agency's five commissioners plan to vote on Thursday -- would subject only broadband providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, to tighter regulation.”

“The Internet has flourished with a minimum of political intervention.  There is no pressing need for government involvement and no good will come from the government’s creating a phony role for itself.  The Internet has been a wide-open playing field for a whole host of fierce competitors and has flourished because of government’s benign indifference.  However, the new culture in Washington dictates that there is nothing anymore that is off-limits to the long arm of the feds and the FCC now wishes to meddle by setting up new rules dictating how private sector companies handle web content.  Taxpayers will rue the day that government regulation choked off innovation on the Internet.  Among other things, these new rules would prevent broadband providers from offering expedited delivery speeds at higher prices, creating onerous barriers to innovation, which is the life’s blood of the Internet,” continued Schatz.

“Net neutrality rules will not be neutral when it comes to taxpayers.  Any new federal regulatory role will necessitate a giant and expensive bureaucracy, whose employees will serve as the Internet police,” concluded Schatz.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.