Read Patty Murray + Maria Cantwell’s Senate floor speeches in support of Net Neutrality

Edi­tor’s Note: In an impor­tant vic­to­ry for our dig­i­tal lib­er­ties, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate today vot­ed 52–47 in favor of restor­ing net neu­tral­i­ty as the law of the land in this coun­try. The action now shifts to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which would also need to vote in favor of net neu­tral­i­ty to over­turn the action tak­en by Ajit Pai’s FCC. The fol­low­ing are the speech­es giv­en by Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell in sup­port of a free and open Inter­net pri­or to the vote.

Pat­ty Mur­ray’s pre­pared remarks in sup­port of net neutrality:

Thank you, M. President.

I’m here to lift up the voic­es of the fam­i­lies I rep­re­sent in Wash­ing­ton state…

…who, like so many oth­er Amer­i­cans, agree that the inter­net should be free and open…

…who agree that our coun­try should sup­port small busi­ness own­ers, entre­pre­neurs, stu­dents and mid­dle class families—NOT big cor­po­ra­tions and spe­cial interests…

…who agree that con­sumers — not broad­band providers—should get to pick the web­sites they vis­it or appli­ca­tions they use…

…who agree the inter­net should be a lev­el play­ing field that ben­e­fits end users, and not slant­ed by broad­band providers block­ing con­tent or charg­ing for pri­or­i­tized access.

That is why so many of us are on the floor today: to give a voice to the vast major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans who want the inter­net to remain a place that fos­ters inno­va­tion, eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, robust con­sumer choice, and the free flow of knowledge.

M. Pres­i­dent, these things aren’t a luxury.

They are what makes Amer­i­can inge­nu­ity possible…

…and as a for­mer preschool teacher, I sup­port net neu­tral­i­ty because it helps the next gen­er­a­tion of inno­va­tors — our stu­dents, espe­cial­ly those in rur­al and low-income areas.

Schools have worked hard to improve access to high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty for all stu­dents because they know—from ear­ly edu­ca­tion, through high­er edu­ca­tion, and work­force training—students need high-speed inter­net in order to learn and get the skills they need.

Their teach­ers need the inter­net to col­lab­o­rate with col­leagues, access edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als, help stu­dents learn valu­able research and inter­net safe­ty skills, and expand access to a high qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and Eng­lish learners.

Rolling back net neu­tral­i­ty threat­ens that edu­ca­tion­al equi­ty and wors­ens the dig­i­tal divide.

So let’s pro­tect the free and open inter­net. Not just for today’s con­sumers, but for students—the next gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can innovators.

The choice couldn’t be easier.

Either stand with every­day Amer­i­cans — or with the mas­sive cor­po­ra­tions that have found a new way to make more mon­ey off of them.

Thank you, I yield the floor.

Watch this speech on demand.

Tran­script of Maria Cantwell’s speech in sup­port of net neutrality:

Mr. Pres­i­dent, I thank my col­league from Hawaii and our empathies are with the state of Hawaii as they respond to this vol­cano erup­tion. I noticed this morn­ing on the news, they’re ref­er­enc­ing it could be as bad as Mount St. Helens, and trust me, that was a dev­as­tat­ing impact to our state. So I hope that all fed­er­al agen­cies are help­ing in any ways we can for Hawaii’s nat­ur­al disaster.

And thank her for also talk­ing about the impor­tance of net neu­tral­i­ty. I, too, come to the floor to defend the open inter­net because it is a pro-con­sumer, pro-inno­va­tion rule that we have to build on because it’s worth the 7% of our GDP and 6.9 mil­lion jobs. That is what the inter­net econ­o­my is.

Net neu­tral­i­ty that we are fight­ing for today has four bright lines, four lines that help busi­ness­es, helps con­sumers, and helps our inter­net econ­o­my grow.

They are, don’t block con­tent, don’t throt­tle content—that is, don’t slow it downs—don’t cre­ate paid prioritization.

That’s like say­ing, in the Burg­er King ad, if you want the next whop­per avail­able, pay $15. I think they did a pret­ty good job of show­ing what would hap­pen if you had every busi­ness oper­at­ing that way. And the fourth rule is trans­paren­cy. Make sure that you know exact­ly what you’re get­ting charged for.

The Oba­ma-era fed­er­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem adopt­ed rules that basi­cal­ly pro­tect­ed con­sumers and busi­ness­es on those four things.

Why did they do that?

Because there were some that were try­ing to eek their way into mak­ing more mon­ey off of con­sumers and busi­ness­es on what is basic ser­vice. Title 2 was the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work that the Oba­ma-era FCC used to make sure that con­sumers were pro­tect­ed, and they were the strongest tools avail­able and helped in mak­ing sure there was non-monop­o­lis­tic behav­ior that would harm businesses.

So togeth­er, the rule that was estab­lished by the then-Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion sys­tem was an open inter­net with the FCC being the cop on the beat. That is to say, if you have these rules, you also have to have some­one who is going to enforce them. Some­one who is going to look at the monop­o­lis­tic behav­iors of cable com­pa­nies or providers and say, that is unfair to con­sumers and businesses.

But under the Trump-era FCC, all of those things were thrown out.

And so that is why we’re here today.

Our col­leagues are try­ing to say we want to go back to the pro­tec­tions of the inter­net that are called net neu­tral­i­ty to make sure that the FCC becomes, instead of a pas­sive enti­ty that just okays every charge that cable com­pa­nies want to do, instead says, these rules about not slow­ing down con­tent, not doing monop­o­lis­tic behav­ior, these things are wrong and we are going to be the police­men on the beat.

The FCC can pro­tect con­sumers and inno­va­tors and they can make sure that inter­net traf­fic does not vio­late an open internet.

But as I said, the Trump-era FCC is try­ing to throw out these strong rules and cable com­pa­nies are already—already—starting to raise prices for high­er speed.

In Van­cou­ver, Wash­ing­ton, Com­cast recent­ly announced that high­er-speed tiers will be avail­able but only to con­sumers who pur­chase expen­sive paid TV bundles.

That’s why we’re here. Because while it sounds like, why do we want to give cable com­pa­nies the oppor­tu­ni­ty to throt­tle or block or cre­ate paid pri­or­i­ti­za­tion, we also have to real­ize that today the inter­net econ­o­my is so much big­ger than it has ever been, that it is a job cre­ator and an innovator.

In my state, it’s 13% of our econ­o­my and thou­sands of jobs that con­tin­ue to grow every day as new appli­ca­tions for the inter­net are created.

It’s so impor­tant that busi­ness­es who are even using these apps to help run their busi­ness­es more effi­cient­ly con­tin­ue to get access to those tools.

But what about an inter­net that a cable provider decid­ed to arti­fi­cial­ly slow down that web­site and there­by cre­at­ing a dis­in­cen­tive for the very things that are help­ing to make our busi­ness­es more efficient?

So we want to make sure that the FCC does its orig­i­nal job.

What is that?

Well, they are there to pro­mote devel­op­ment and adap­ta­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works in the pub­lic inter­est. That is, they are serv­ing consumers.

And that is the cen­ter of their mission.

The cen­ter of their mis­sion should not be serv­ing cable com­pa­nies, and that is why courts have said to the FCC, if you want to have author­i­ty to pro­tect an open inter­net, you have to do that under Title 2.

Basi­cal­ly, the court explained that enforc­ing the open inter­net prin­ci­ples and being a watch­dog against abuse is impor­tant to the FCC’s mis­sion of pro­mot­ing and devel­op­ing and an adop­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions that’s in the pub­lic inter­est. But that those pow­ers have to flow from Title 2 of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act.

So that is why the Oba­ma-era FCC adopt­ed those rules.

So today we know that inter­net is a basic necessity.

It’s the access that helps our health care deliv­ery sys­tem work, our edu­ca­tion sys­tem work, our bank­ing sys­tem work, shop­ping, all sorts of things that make it just a nec­es­sary tool in life today. When a ser­vice is that essen­tial and crit­i­cal to indi­vid­u­als and a com­mu­ni­ty and crit­i­cal to their eco­nom­ic suc­cess, we need to make sure that con­sumers have pro­tec­tions, to make sure that it is not abused.

In the Unit­ed States, we have just three — well, in the Unit­ed States, just three providers of inter­net access have about 70% of the consumers.

In any mar­ket with only a few play­ers, it is essen­tial that we pro­tect busi­ness­es and con­sumers, and that is exact­ly what Title 2 does. It helps pro­tect us from cable com­pa­ny goug­ing and its close cousin, paid prioritization.

It makes sure that the bar­ri­ers to entry are not erect­ed so that entre­pre­neurs or start-ups who want to bring new prod­ucts to mar­ket aren’t arti­fi­cial­ly slowed down and a larg­er com­peti­tor who can pay more for it can con­tin­ue the access.

Just recent­ly we had an event with Redfin, some­one who is chang­ing the real estate mar­ket, a com­pa­ny in the Pacif­ic North­west, and help­ing dri­ve down the cost to con­sumers for real estate pur­chas­es. They made it very clear that Redfin was able to devel­op today because it had an open inter­net, and its con­sumers and busi­ness part­ners could con­nect to it. But under a world where they were just start­ing over and start­ing out new and they had to pay for a kind of pri­or­i­ti­za­tion to get good broad­band ser­vice, they may not have been as successful.

So these rules, Title 2, gives expert agen­cies the tools to look behind the cur­tain and make sure that cable com­pa­nies are pro­vid­ing the ser­vices that do not vio­late an open inter­net. And there is a rea­son that cable com­pa­nies don’t want to fol­low these rules, because they want to make more money.

I get it. They want to make more money.

But I would say that, with 40% of Amer­i­cans hav­ing no choice in who they buy inter­net ser­vices from, we have to be much more vigilant.

These com­pa­nies have sev­er­al ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed com­pa­nies at the top, and they are seek­ing to amass more and more con­tent. And that could give them the tools again to block con­tent, to slow it down, or to “X” out a com­peti­tor if they so choose.

I don’t want to see the FCC sit­ting on the side­lines and not polic­ing this kind of envi­ron­ment. I know that AT&T now is try­ing to merge with Time Warn­er, and these large com­pa­nies, they want to con­tin­ue to amass con­tent and to dri­ve the mar­ket­place. But the Amer­i­can con­sumer’s sat­is­fac­tion with these big com­pa­nies is at an all-time low. Do they think that they’re going to do the right thing on their own? Do they think cable com­pa­nies will do that?

Well, the cable indus­try ranks at the very bot­tom of 43 indus­tries in con­sumer sat­is­fac­tion. In fact, it has been in the dead-last posi­tion for five years. So does the pub­lic think that they’re doing the right things when it comes to them or their busi­ness­es? I think that that sur­vey says it all. They have great concern.

And what are the rea­sons that cable com­pa­nies give for why they don’t want to fol­low net neu­tral­i­ty rules? [T]hey say, it will hurt their invest­ment in networks.

Well, I guess I’d ask a ques­tion — did the Oba­ma-era FCC rules slow down invest­ment? No, it did­n’t. Big cable com­pa­nies con­tin­ued to make invest­ment in their net­works. And the year fol­low­ing the rule that went into place, the entire indus­try shows that the total cap­i­tal expen­di­tures increased by more than $550 mil­lion above the pre­vi­ous year’s investment.

For exam­ple, in the 2017 earn­ings report, Com­cast, the nation’s largest broad­band provider, not­ed that it’s cap­i­tal expen­di­tures increased 7.5%, $9 bil­lion, and that it con­tin­ued to make deploy­ment in plat­forms like the X1 and wire­less gate­ways. Like­wise, AT&T spent $22 bil­lion in cap­i­tal invest­ments, up $20 bil­lion from the pre­vi­ous year. In fact, 2016 rep­re­sents the indus­try’s high­est sin­gle year jump in broad­band net­work invest­ment since 1999.

So the notion that they are some­how going to slow down on invest­ment is just not true. The his­toric growth came after com­pa­nies had a full year to digest the impacts of Title 2 and net neu­tral­i­ty rules being put in place by the Oba­ma-era FCC.

So where are we today? Well, these com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to make mon­ey and they want a free pass on con­tin­u­ing to make more.

That is why our goal is not the prof­its of big cable companies.

Our goal to make sure that the inter­net econ­o­my con­tin­ues to grow and the jug­ger­naut of job cre­ation and inno­va­tion con­tin­ues to expand.

We want the inter­net ecosys­tem that has dou­bled as a per­cent­age of GDP from 2007 to 2017 to con­tin­ue to grow. As I said, in my state it’s about 13% of our state’s econ­o­my and I spend prac­ti­cal­ly every day in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate hear­ing about anoth­er inno­va­tion from some­one in my state.

It may be the farm econ­o­my and more effi­cient ways to pro­duce prod­uct or get prod­uct to mar­ket or man­age their live­stock. It might be in telemed­i­cine, in help­ing some­one from one side of the state to the oth­er to get access to care.

It may be as basic as con­nect­ing peo­ple to their fam­i­lies and loved ones. But it is the inter­net that we know today and it is so inte­gral to our lives.

Well, I hope that the com­mon sense leg­is­la­tion in front of us, the CRA, which would restore those Oba­ma-era FCC net neu­tral­i­ty rules, pass­es. I hope that our col­leagues will under­stand that get­ting exor­bi­tant inter­net fees from cable providers is not the direc­tion the Amer­i­can peo­ple want to go. Amer­i­can entre­pre­neurs, inno­va­tors, and con­sumers can­not afford to take that hit. What they want to see is an open inter­net, one that con­tin­ues to allow so much more of the inter­net econ­o­my to flourish.

Let’s make sure that we say to the FCC, we don’t want you fold­ing or sit­ting on your hands. We want you to police the inter­net and we want you to have the rules to do it. That is why we must pass the CRA today and I hope our col­leagues on the oth­er side of the aisle will join us because there is just too much at stake in our inno­va­tion econ­o­my. I thank the Pres­i­dent, and I yield the floor.

Watch the speech on demand.