Washington, D.C. – The Council of Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today applauded yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee’s negative voice vote reporting out H.R. 1542, the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act, also known as Tauzin-Dingell.  

CCAGW President Thomas A. Schatz congratulated the committee on its principled decision.  He also urged the House leadership to keep the bill off the floor of the House and suggested that members vote against the bill should it reach the floor.

“The House Judiciary Committee today slowed down progress of a bad piece of legislation,” Schatz said.  “By reporting the bill with a negative recommendation, the committee has spoken for thousands of individuals and businesses that would benefit from the defeat of this legislation.”

While the issues surrounding the bill have received much attention, there were a few simple facts that helped persuade the Judiciary Committee to vote against the bill.  First, the regional bell operating companies, or RBOCs, can already provide broadband service to rural areas but have chosen not to.  Second, it would be more difficult for competitive local exchange carriers to provide broadband services, as the RBOCs’ control over wires and lines would be strengthened by Tauzin-Dingell.  Third, current law requires local companies to open their lines to long distance companies, and for long distance carriers to reciprocate for local companies only after the local carriers opened their markets to others.  Due to RBOCs’ intransigence, this form of greater competition envisioned under the 1996 Telecommunications Act has not occurred.  A detailed discussion of these issues is available as a “Reality Check” on H.R. 1542, at http://www.cagw.org.

“CCAGW will be rating any vote on H.R. 1542 that occurs on the House floor,” Schatz added.  “We urge the leadership to carefully consider whether this bill is necessary in light of the decision by the Judiciary Committee to issue its negative recommendation.”

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest taxpayer advocacy group with over a million members and supporters nationwide.  It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.