Kerry urges colleagues not to scrap net-neutrality rules

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wrote to his Senate colleagues on Friday, urging them to oppose a resolution to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's net-neutrality rules.

The House passed a resolution to repeal the rules in April, and the Senate resolution, sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, is expected to come up for a vote next week.

The FCC's net-neutrality rules prevent Internet service providers from slowing down or speeding up access to websites. Wireless carriers are banned from blocking lawful websites or applications that compete with their services.

 Supporters of the rules says they preserve competition and protect consumer choice, but opponents argue the rules impose unnecessary burdens on businesses.

Kerry argued that if the resolution passes, it "will stifle innovation and discourage investment in the next Google or Amazon." 

He also said it would endanger other health and environmental regulations.

"It will set the precedent that this Congress is prepared to deny independent regulators their ability to execute the law," he wrote. "That would put at risk health rules, environmental protections, worker rights and every other public protection that our agencies enforce that some in Congress do not like."

Kerry told his colleagues the net-neutrality order has "brought certainty and predictability to the broadband economy and insures that anyone can create a website and deliver a service with the certainty that it will be made available to everyone else on the Internet."

He argued that the rules do not regulate the Internet but rather regulate "the behavior of firms owning and operating the gateways to the Internet."

To nullify the rules, the measure would have to pass both chambers of Congress and receive President Obama's signature; the latter is considered particularly unlikely because net neutrality was part of Obama's campaign platform.

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