Sen. Marsha Blackburn Attempts to Block Net Neutrality

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2024 – A Senate Republican last week took a step to nullify federal internet competition regulations, but the effort is unlikely to advance because of stiff Democratic opposition.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., last Tuesday introduced a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's Net Neutrality rules adopted in April and scheduled to take effect next Monday. Blackburn has been a longtime opponent of FCC-imposed Net Neutrality rules.

The move was the latest effort by Republican lawmakers to block FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposed rules aimed at restoring the agency's authority over broadband internet access providers like AT&T and Comcast.

Blackburn's resolution followed the introduction of a similar resolution on May 23 by Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Latta’s panel oversees the FCC.

The CRA, passed in 1996, allows Congress to void federal rules. In 2017, Congress used the CRA to abolish Internet privacy regulation adopted the year before by a Democratic-controlled FCC.

While Blackburn's resolution is unlikely to become law with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House, she was likely using the CRA approach to draw attention to her concerns with the FCC's management under Rosenworcel.

Also last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other progressive Senate Democrats introduced a complex regulatory bill that would gut the CRA.

Although primarily aimed at legislatively restoring the recently overruled Chevron Doctrine, Warren’s bill – titled the Stop Corporate Capture Act - would allow the FCC to revive regulations that had been voided by Congress under the CRA.

One of Warren’s co-sponsors, Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., used the CRA himself in 2018 in an effort to prevent the then-Republican-controlled FCC from axing Net Neutrality.

After his CRA resolution passed the Senate on May 16, Markey said in a press release, “Today, the Senate took the most important vote on the Internet in its history, and the American people won.”