Cliff Stearns: “A recent announcement by FCC Chairman Genachowski to impose new, burdensome regulation on the Internet and on Internet…”

“A recent announcement by FCC Chairman Genachowski to impose new, burdensome regulation on the Internet and on Internet transmission appears to me to be a political maneuver to regulate the Internet. Several weeks ago, he indicated he was not going to push for net regulation. Now he is. There is no economic or legal justification for this move and the result will be a freeze in the investment and innovation we have seen over the past 20 years. The Internet is the most powerful platform for innovation ever created and, by his actions, Chairman Genachowski is endangering the Internet's deployment and ultimately its innovation. Our current free-market, pro-investment policies have served us well. In fact, according to the FCC's own National Broadband Plan, 95 percent of all Americans have access to broadband and approximately 200 million subscribers have broadband at home today, up from 8 million just 10 years ago. By comparison, it took 90 years to go from 8 million voice subscribers to 200 million under the old Title II Common Carrier Regulations. Ironically, the chairman's laudable goal of maximizing broadband deployment and adoption will be most harmed by his announcement. Will Rogers once said that, 'Things in our country run in spite of the government, not by the aid of it.' He was not, of course, talking about the Internet, but his words still ring true today. The rise of the Internet itself is a truly great deregulatory story.”