BRIAN SULLIVAN, GUEST HOST: Republican lawmakers vowing to fight what they are calling a job killer today. In a partisan vote, right along party lines, the Federal Communications Commission approving new Internet regulations. My next guest one of the two commissioners who voted against the move, fearing what it might bring next.
Robert McDowell with the FCC joining us now.
Mr. McDowell, thank you very much for joining us.
There is a concern that this new rule will allow service providers, Comcast, Verizon, whoever it might be, to charge what they want. Do you believe that Internet bills are going to go up?
ROBERT MCDOWELL, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION: nbsp; Well, what this does, actually, for the first time ever, it injects the government into these types of decision. It injects the government into Internet regulation.
And the perverse effect could be higher rates for consumers. It could be less investment. It could be less innovation in the Internet space.
There is nothing broken in the Internet space. The government doesn’t need to be doing this.
And the unintended consequences and costs are really at risk here.
SULLIVAN: So, why is the FCC getting involved at all? And you clearly view it as an overstepping of FCC authority. Tell us more on why.
MCDOWELL: Right. Commissioner Baker and I both dissented.
First of all, the FCC is defying a court and defying a large bipartisan majority of Congress. When was the last time you heard those words strung together, where there was a large bipartisan majority of Congress agreeing on something?
And the FCC is also defying a court order from April, this past April 6, at the D.C. Court of Appeals here, the federal court in Washington, D.C.
So, this is going to put the FCC on a collision course with Congress and the courts. And it’s going to cause years of litigation
and create a lot of uncertainty in the broadband market and the Internet market in general, where there was no uncertainty before.
SULLIVAN: Some say, though, there are positives, right, that you cannot now block access, that there is equal Web access, and that it is basically an extension of free speech even more on the Internet. Are their upsides to this rule?
MCDOWELL:
Actually, there really aren’t.
First of all, the Internet is open and freedom-enhancing, has been since it was privatized in 1994. And it’s become that way under current law, under the current bipartisan and international consensus that governments should keep their hands off of the Internet -- current until today, that is. So, that’s number one.
Number two; there are ample laws on the books that protect consumers, antitrust laws, consumer protection laws, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice. Both are really quite well-equipped to protect consumers, should a broadband provider act in an anti-competitive way.
So, there’s nothing to broken to be fixed. This is unnecessary. Laws already are on the books that protect consumers. And there are going to be really some adverse unintended consequences here.
FCC Approves Plan to Regulate Internet - FoxNews.com