I am here today to urge that the committee develop a narrow bipartisan bill that gives statutory permanence and an assured legal foundation to network neutrality.

I remain a strong supporter today of network neutrality as I was then.

I believed then as I believe today that assuring an open Internet is essential to maintaining the Web as a vibrant medium for free expression, for commerce, for education, for healthcare delivery.

As the Honorable Rick Boucher said, the notion that Title II is going to put regulations on a sure footing is simply wrong.

I very much hope that a conversation will ensue and that you will adopt legislation that does a service for the country and keeps the Internet open and maintains the light touch regulatory treatment that it enjoys today.

I think very simply because both sides now have quite a bit of leverage, and when both sides have leverage roughly equal, and I think that is the situation today, it is the optimal circumstance for legislating.

I believed then and believe today that where the incumbent providers are not offering an adequate service... it ought to be free to do so.

Those who strongly support network neutrality should be looking for greater permanence.

The best way to preserve network neutrality, and the best way to do that is a narrowly crafted statute that gives permanence to these principles.

I think it moves in the right direction, and I think it is important to note how far the Republicans have now moved toward the historic Democratic position.

The first of these is that the Republican offer for imbedding strong network neutrality principles in the statute be accepted by Democrats.