Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Welcome back for another episode of Civic Tech Chat. Come join us by the fire here, and let's do a quick dive back into the world of net neutrality. If you crave some context about where that stands right now, head on over to episode 17, which I'll link in the episode description. As you folks might be aware, House Democrats unveiled a piece of legislation on Wednesday, March 6, focused on net neutrality. The bill named the Save the Internet Act of 2019 comes in at three pages and is cosigned by 45 house members. The drama and dynamics of bill naming aside, this measure seeks to roll back a decision made by the Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, in 2017. On a three to two vote, the FCC repealed Obama era rules that had been put into place in 2015. Proponents of this bill see this bill as a response to that that channels popular will. There's some polling that might back up that suggestion. That said, the political science major in me really likes reading about polls, so let's indulge me for a moment, and dig into one. The University of Maryland's public policy school published such a poll in April. They found that 86% of Americans oppose the repeal of net neutrality rules. And this was bipartisan with 82% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats falling into the same camp. The poll itself was made up of 997 registered voters. Folks are brought in by Nielsen Scarborough via a mail and telephone recruiting process, allowing then for the creation of a random sample. They report a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%. Something else that's interesting about this poll is that it asks folks about how convincing a pro or anti repeal argument is. The pro repeal argument they presented was, concerns that advocates have about net neutrality are overblown, and fail to recognize a key fact. That is, once the FCC repeals the recent rules for FCC regulation of the Internet, it will revert to the Federal Trade Commission, FTC, To take responsibility for ensuring that ISPs do not engage in anti competitive and unfair practices, the FTC will require that any changes in the service they provide will be fully disclosed. With these protections, we will be able to count on the competition of the market to ensure that ISPs provide the service that consumers want. This position was seen as convincing by 52% of those participants. The anti repeal argument, on the other hand, was presented as giving the FTC jurisdiction over ISPs would not prevent them from setting up fast and slow lanes on the Internet by offering different download speeds at different prices, or charging for access to certain websites. It would only require that they disclose they are doing so. Further, the FTC cannot police the long standing carriers like Verizon and AT and T. Last, we cannot count on market competition to ensure that customers get what they want. A full 58% of American households have only access to one high speed broadband ISP, and thus, there is no competition. And even if there is another ISP, it is unlikely it would voluntarily forego the right to charge for access to certain websites. 72% of participants found that one convincing. These folks were also given some background information about the topic before going through this exercise. This involved describing the current rules, well, as they were in April. To that end, they were told that ISPs must provide access to all websites on the Internet. They must provide equal access regarding speeds to those sites, and that they cannot charge consumers extra to access certain sites. To describe the repeal, they're informed that, well, those rules would be gone. But going back to the bill, what does it say? As I mentioned a ways back, it's short, a three pager. I could probably summarize its content really in one sentence. Undo, or control z, that 2017 FCC decision. The crux of this undo, as it were, is surfaced by the following section of of the law. The following are restored in effect on January 1937. One, the report and order remand declaratory ruling, and order in matter of protecting and promoting the open Internet that was adopted by the commission on 02/26/2015. Two, part eight of title 47, code of fry federal regulations. Any other rule of the commission that was amended or repealed by the declaratory ruling report order, and order described in section subsection one a one. So basically, that ends up being legalese for undo this. And alright. So we have a short bill that's been introduced. You might be wondering if this has any chance at all of going anywhere within Congress. And the answer is, well, sort of. Democrats in the house will likely be successful in guarding support to pass it within that chamber. In the senate though, it would face an uphill battle. Historically, Republican legislators haven't exactly been supportive of the twenty fifteen FCC rules, which they've described as being an overstep of federal authority. But even if enough of them flip and the majority leader allows it through, it would still need to make it past the president. Given that the current FCC chair, the one who pushed the twenty seventeen action through as an appointee of that same president, it would seem reasonable to to me to assume that they will veto this measure if it comes across their desk. After that, the odds of having enough votes for an override, I would say, are basically zilch. And if by some miracle, all those things had lined up, and the bill was passed, and even signed into law, we're still left with a bit of a problem. It doesn't give us a permanent solution to the net neutrality question. We're back to square twenty fifteen in the best case scenario, with an FCC that can make significant and impactful changes to the direction of the policy at the whims of the executive branch. And so the pendulum could swing as new administrations get control of who gets to be on the commission. Now before you start to think me a pessimist, I do think that measures like this are important. The way we figure out whether or not our legislators are out to protect our interests is through votes like these. So when these votes happen, and they hopefully will, make sure you check to see where your congresspeople end up. And, you know, vote accordingly. You can follow us on Twitter using the handle at civic tech chat. Visit us on the web at civictech.chat, or subscribe to us for content updates wherever it is you download your podcasts.