Youre recognized. Mr. Wyden mr. President , thank you. Mr. President , i rise today in opposition to the president s nomination of ajit pai to head the federal Communications Commission. My view is that, in particular, mr. Pai will do an enormous amount of damage to one of the foundational principles of the internet Net Neutrality and i am going to outline why that would be a horrendous mistake for our country. Mr. President , after we came to use the internet and see what an extraordinary asset it could be to our country, really beginning late in the 1990s, we laid out what i still consider to be the Legal Foundation for the internet. In other words, there was a lot of joking about who created the internet. The internet was being used and to see how beneficial it would be. And on a bipartisan basis, the senate and house to really lay out what were the foundational principles of the net for a variety of them. Mr. President , we wanted to make sure that folks werent hit with multiple and discriminatory taxes, a tax on access to the internet. We wrote the digital signatures law, which is of enormous benefit to people, for example, in the president s home state of nevada when theyre making business transactions. We made a judgment which some have said has led to 1 trillion worth of private wealth for our economy in terms of innovation, where we said that we werent going to expose the small entrepreneur, the person thats Getting Started in the garage, to needless litigation. And one of those Core Principles was Net Neutrality, which in my view, for the reasons i am going to tribe this morning describe this morning, i think mr. Pai would work long and hard to try undermine. Now, because so much of this telecommunications debate sounds like a lot of complicated lingo, i want to try to describe in something representing english what Net Neutrality is. Net neutrality means after youve paid your Internet Access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. That, in a sentence, is what Net Neutrality is all about. And it is a bedrock principle for Internet Users in the president s home state of nevada, in oregon, and all across the country. And it essentially locks in what amounts to everybody gets a fair shake, everybody is treated equally in terms of access to the internet; that were not going to have some kind of information air to crasscy in our aristocacy in our society. And folks who dont have much are kind of stuck with what almost resembles dialup. That is not what we want in terms of Communications Policy in america. We want to give everybody a chance to get ahead. The kid in rural oregon and rural nevada has the same kind of opportunity as youngsters in Beverly Hills on the gulf coast of chicago or balm beach. Or palm beach. Now, mr. Pai says that hes for real Net Neutrality, and we have tried to pin him down on a whole host of approaches that really get him to commit to the essence of it. But he mostly says a version of what the big Cable Companies say. The big Cable Companies have come to say, you know, we like Net Neutrality. Were not going to block anything. Were for the consumer. Were for the little guy. We just dont want a whole lot of government nobody does where its needless and they really say that what they would like is voluntary Net Neutrality. They know the consumer hears about that concept Net Neutrality and the public likes it so they dont hold a bunch of rallies saying, we dont want any Net Neutrality. They say things like, lets have Less Government and lets sort of have voluntary Net Neutrality. Thats what they say theyre for. Mr. President and colleagues, let me tell you something. There is about as much likelihood that the big Cable Companies will voluntarily subscribe to Net Neutrality as there is the prospective the prospect that William Peter wyden, one of my 9yearold twins, the boy there is bass much likelihood that there is about as much likelihood that the Cable Companies will subscribe to Net Neutrality that William Peter wyden will limit himself to one dessert. It just isnt going to happen. Its just not going to work. Mr. Pai is on the side of the big Cable Companies. Hes got a long history of putting those companies before the consumers, the big corporate players over the Small Businesses, and paytopay over the free and open internet. I introduced the first strong Net Neutrality bill here in the senate in 2006. We all know that, again, back then we were just starting the debate about Technology Policy. The senate was getting ribbed pretty serious by by the latenight talkshow hosts when it was said that the internet was a series of tubes and the like. So what we tried to do is make sure, as ive indicated, you pay your Internet Access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. Net neutrality has been the law of the land, and our economy has grown around this leading principle with respect to equal access to information and customers. And mr. Pai has said and ill quote him he wants to take a weed whacker to the strong, enforceable Net Neutrality rules. So right away with his quotes his quotes that are on the record hes talking about blowing up this notion of a level Playing Field that is so crucial to innovation and free speech online and allows the startups to get out of the garage to become the next youtube and google and ebay. And i want to emphasize that point, mr. President. People talk a lot about Technology Policy and some of those early laws that we wrote that were bipartisan that ive discussed here this morning. And then they say, well, were going to have a battle between google and oracle. Were having some of that discussion right now, another one of the key foundational principles of the internet. Colleagues, this tech policy debate is not about google versus oracle or big guys competing with each other. They got lawyers and lobbyists and the like. This is about the little guy. This is about the little guy who wants to be able to get their business out of the garage so that they could become the next big guy. And Net Neutrality gives us the opportunity to create opportunities for that small entrepreneur, the person who is a small entrepreneur with big dreams. Net neutrality prevents your Internet Service provider from favor one type of service over another. Suppose your Internet Provider has a financial stake in a thirdparty content site. They could ensure that congress tent comes to your home faster and clearer than its competitors if you didnt have real Net Neutrality, enforceable, real Net Neutrality, not Something Like mr. Pai wants, which is, oh, well kind of Pay Lip Service to Net Neutrality but not make it enforceable. For example, you could have at t deciding to provide, quoteunquote, free data for customers streaming h. B. O. Causing more customers to subscribe to that service over competitors, necessary to create new and innovative content p. Thats the kind of thing that happens if you dont have real Net Neutrality. It even holds true for telehealth providers. Telehealth depends on reliable and fast and lowcost internet coverage to transmit Critical Health information, especially in rural and remote areas. For example, Remote Monitoring of blood glucose levels in diabetes patients. Net neutrality prevents the Internet Service providers from viewing this lifesaving service as a cash cow, charging rural hospitals and Community Health centers a premium fee to deliver critical and Timely Health care services. Not long ago, mr. President , the federal Communications Commission adopted a strong, Legal Framework that would make sure that a federal Communications Commission had the tools to protect the open internet. And the reality was that then the federal Communications Commission and a gentleman named mr. Tom wheeler who had background in the industry used his experience in how the companies operated and how they treated consumers to make sure that we had constructive, real, concrete consumer protections. The reason i feel so strongly about this pai nomination is mrs comments about taking a weed whacker to anything enforceable, hes going to roll back the rules, and then hes going to claim to be fixing a problem that doesnt exist. The reality is weve got strong Net Neutrality protections in place right now. You vote for mr. Pai, make no mistake about it, you are voting to roll back consumer protection. Youre voting to take a big step backward for the internet. Youre going to hurt the people, the Small Business people, the startups who are dreaming in their garage of the chance to be big and who are going to have a lot more problem if there is a teleCommunications Policy that doesnt give them a fair shake. As i indicated, mr. President , this notion of a voluntary solution to Net Neutrality is absurd. I talked about it in the context of my own son. My own son, it would be, it would be hilarious if i even suggested, well, im going to let you, william, voluntarily limit yourself to one dessert. He would smile and wait until i got out of the room and hed dig in for more. And thats going to be the same thing if we embark on a Net Neutrality policy that says, oh, well, lets just trust the Cable Companies. Those big Cable Companies in their heart of hearts are all about the little guy, and theyre just going to voluntarily go along with Net Neutrality because theyre just those kind of good folks who want to make sure that the little guy wants to get ahead. The fact is chairman pais track record demonstrates that he is not in the consumers corner. Last year the federal Communications Commission acted on the responsibility given to them by the congress to protect browsing history, favorite applications, even location of broadband users from the i. S. P. During that vote, mr. Pai voted no. He was again with Cable Companies profits, big Cable Companies over the American Consumers privacy. During the august recess, mr. Pai began an attempt to really backdoor a proposal that would lower the acceptable standards speed of Internet Access in rural areas. Mr. President , that is just wrong. Rural areas are already facing huge broadband challenges. Last saturday night i was in oak ridge, oak ridge, oregon a little bit over 3,000 in population. Earlier in the day i had been to le pine in central oregon. Right on the top of their agenda is trying to find ways to expand opportunities for Better Communications in rural areas, for more opportunities for broadband. And so in the august recess when communities like oak ridge and le pine want more opportunities in rural communities, we had the chairman of the federal Communications Commission trying to sneak through a proposal that would lower the acceptable standard speed of Internet Access in Rural America. Hurt Rural America. Make no mistake about it, that would hurt Rural America, the oak ridges and the le pines. Its just wrong. Congress mandated the f. C. C. Expand access to highspeed internet to every american, and mr. Pai basically says, no, slower internet speeds is good enough. And as i indicated, just this last weekend on saturday night, really good crowd there probably arent that many town hall meetings, mr. President , on saturday night in small towns. We had one in oregon, and im telling you those small communities are telling me about their current frustrations with slow and unsatisfactory internet speeds. Mr. Pai is giving a big guest to the powerful interests and their internet speeds are going to get slower rather than what Rural America wants, which is faster internet so they have more opportunities to participate in a global economy, more opportunities to help their kids with their homework. Mr. President , congress and the federal Communications Commission ought to be working to expand access is to highspeed internet to all and not telling folks in Rural America what they have is just good enough. Now, mr. Pai has repeatedly failed on another matter, and thats to act even in the face of the clear danger to the security of americas mobile phones. Despite years of warnings about wellknown weaknesses in mobile phone networks that allows hackers and spies toent september calls and to intercept calls and messages, mr. Pai has taken a hands handsattitude. His Commission Says its not going to force wireless carriers to fix the weaknesses. And what a surprise. His traditional answer, voluntary measures are going to do enough. I disagree because they havent worked. Mr. President , we always talk about the role of government, and i think this is an area that really lends itself to thoughtful discussion, because obviously we dont want government, if you can figure out a way to solve a problem, without it. So the voluntary measures have not worked here on these basic Security Issues ive described. Selfregulation approach has failed. The federal Communications Commission has to force the carries to secure their carriers to secure their networks and protect americas Critical Communications infrastructure. The failure to act on this security issue means that the American People are going to be less safe. Mr. President , i close by saying my view is that Net Neutrality has sparked the flames of innovation and commerce on the internet. Net neutrality has been one of the foundational principles that we started working on in the late 1990s, early part of this century. It was up there in terms of importance like trying to prevent multiple and discriminatory taxes on the electronic commerce, particularly taxing Internet Access, the digital signatures law, making sure that you couldnt hold somebody personally liable if they were investing in a website. These were foundational principles that have been of enormous benefit to our country. And Net Neutrality was one of those. I guess it would be the fourth in the kind of list of foundational principles that we talked about and have been talking about for well over a decade. We should be building on Net Neutrality, not walking it back. I believe that what mr. Pai is talking about is a significant retreat from the freedom and openness that the internet is all about. I urge my colleagues to vote against