Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding Senator Hutchison’s Resolution of Disapproval that is aimed at overturning the FCC’s Net Neutrality regulations:
“Later today, the Senate will take up S.J. Res 6, Senator Hutchison’s Resolution of Disapproval of the FCC’s Net Neutrality regulations.
“I want to start by thanking Senator Hutchison for her leadership on this important issue.
“While we all understand the importance of an open Internet, I think we can also agree that the growth of the Internet in the last 15 years is an American success story that occurred absent any heavy-handed regulation by the federal regulators in Washington.
“We should think long and hard before we allow unelected bureaucrats to tinker with it now. Everywhere I go in Kentucky, I hear from businesses large and small that they’re struggling to comply with the mountains of rules and regulations coming out of Washington.
“At a time when the private sector would like to create jobs and grow the economy, it seems like too many in Washington want to create regulations and grow government. And so like many Americans, I was heartened two months ago, when the President came to the Capitol and laid out a very specific test for judging the merits of federal regulation.
“Like most of my colleagues, I applauded when the President told us that, We should have no more regulation than the health, safety and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that common-sense test.’ But as it turns out, the FCC didn’t get the memo.
“The Net Neutrality regulations we’re debating today clearly fail that common-sense test. They’re a solution in search of a problem.
“It is an over-reaching attempt to ‘fix’ the Internet, when the Internet is not broken.
“According to the FCC’s own data, 93 percent of broadband subscribers are happy with their service. And if American’s weren’t happy with their provider or felt that the provider was favoring some forms of content over others, they could switch providers.
“But now, the FCC says its regulations are necessary because of what might happen in the future, if broadband providers have incentives to favor one type of content over another — despite the fact that after 15 years, there is no evidence of this occurring in any significant way.
“If internet providers were so interested in doing this, wouldn’t they have done it by now?
“Instead, the FCC has exceeded its authority to grow the reach of government under the guise of fixing a problem that doesn’t even exist.
“So why should this matter to anyone?
“Simply, the growth of the Internet is one of the great success stories of our lifetime. Just 15 years ago, the thought that you could read a book, watch a ballgame, and video-conference with your kids all on a device the size of a magazine, I would have been something from science fiction.
“Today it’s reality.
“The Internet has transformed society — precisely because people have been able to create and innovate, largely free from government intrusion.
“Businesses are free to invest and grow on the Internet, safe in the knowledge that consumers and technology will determine their fate, not the whims of Washington regulators.
“This investment in broadband infrastructure is the cornerstone of our high tech economy, which employs nearly 3.5 million Americans.
“But the FCC’s regulations could jeopardize this future growth by dictating what sort of return businesses can earn on their investment.
“As my colleague Senator Hutchison and I recently noted ‘Lower returns mean less investment, which in turn means fewer jobs.’
“Some estimates suggest we could lose 300,000 jobs as a result of these rules.
“Thankfully, it is not too late to act.
“A bipartisan majority in the House voted to overturn these rules earlier this year.
“The Senate should take this opportunity to do the same.
“In order to protect the growth of the Internet and its ability to create the jobs of the future, I encourage my colleagues to support the Hutchison resolution.”