WASHINGTON – Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4596, the Small Business
Broadband Deployment Act, to protect small businesses from burdensome
regulations included in the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet
Order.
Republican Main Street Partnership member
and Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications and
Telecommunications Subcommittee Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the
legislation.
“This legislation is a common sense approach that blocks unelected bureaucrats
from complicating how internet service providers (ISPs) build their networks,
deploy broadband, and improve connectivity,” said Sarah Chamberlain, President of the Republican Main Street
Partnership. “Without this legislation, small businesses on Main Street
would be forced to comply with regulations that would do nothing but increase
the cost of doing business and stifle job creation.”
Despite a long bipartisan consensus that the
Internet should be free from government regulation, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) earlier this year adopted a proposal that would give itself
broad control to regulate the Internet, with unilateral authority to decide
what services providers can and can’t offer to customers.
H.R. 4596 would exempt ISPs from the Open
Internet Order if they have less than 250,000 subscribers, while still making
sure that information required to be disclosed to consumers is transparent.
H.R. 4596 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 411-0.
Source: Republican Main Street Partnership
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