Mr. President , after we came to use internet and see what an extraordinary asset it would 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. C in other words, was a lot of joking about who could the internet. The internet was being used, how beneficial it would be, and on a bipartisan basis, big effort, out really layout what were the foundational principles of the net. There were a variety of them. We wanted to make sure that folks were not hit with multipld and discriminatory taxes or tax on access to the internet. We wrote the digital signatures law which is of enormous benefit that people, for example, in the president s home state in nevada they are making business transactions. Which we made a judgment which some of dollars worth of private wealth go innovation, where he said we were not going to expose small entrepreneurs, people Getting Started in the garage to needless litigation. And one of those Core Principles was Net Neutrality, which in my view for the reasons im going to describe this morning, i think mr. Pai would work longer. And hard to try to undermine. Because so much of this communication is debate sounds like a lot of complicated lingo, i want to try to describe something resembling english what Net Neutrality is. Net neutrality essentially means asking you to pay your internete access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want and how you want. That innocence is what Net Neutrality is all about. And it is a bedrock principle for internet users, and the president s home state of nevada, in oregon, and all across the country. 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 aristocracy in our society where the affluent have access to some kind of technological treasureav trove, folks who dont have much are kind of stuck with, almost resembles dialect. Not that is not what we want in terms of communication 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, the gold coast of chicago or palm beach. We want to make sure that everybody has a chance to get ahead. 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 nlc says a version of what the big Cable Companies say. The big Cable Companies have come to say, you know, wed like Net Neutrality. We are not going to block anything. We are for the consumer. We are for the little guy. We just dont want a whole loty of government. Nobody does, and they really say that what they would like is voluntary Net Neutrality. They know the consumer cares about the concept Net Neutrality and the public likes it, they dont hold a bunch of rallies thing we dont want any Net Neutrality. They say things like lets havet Less Government and lets sortl. Of have voluntary Net Neutrality. Thats what they say they areid for. Mr. President , and colleagues, let me tell you something. There is about as much likelihood that the Big Cable Company will voluntarily subscribe to Net Neutrality as there is the prospect that William Peter wyden, one of my nineyearold twins, the boy, has about as much likelihood that the Cable Companies will voluntarily subscribe to Net Neutrality as there is that William Peter wyden, age nine, will voluntarily 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, has got a long history of putting those companies before the consumers. The big corporate players over the Small Businesses and pay player over the free and open internet. And i introduced the first strong Net Neutrality bill here in the senate in 2006. We all know that again backing were just starting the debate about technology policy. The senate was giving pretty serious by the late night talk show host when it was said the internet was a series of tubes and lights. And so what we try to do is make sure, as a indicated, you pay your Internet Access fee, you go where you want when you want and how you want. And Net Neutrality has been the. Gr has grown around this leading principle with respect to equal access to information and customers. E him and mr. Pai has said, and i will quote him, he wants to take a weed wacker to the strong, enforceable Net Neutrality rules here so right away with his quote, his quote 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 start of to get out of the garage to become the next youtube and google and ebay. And want to emphasize that prese point, mr. President. People talk a lot about technology policy. And some of those early laws that we wrote that were bipartisan that i have discussey here again this morning, then they say well, we will have a battle between google and oracle. 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 the 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 favor of one Internet Provider other another. And the net provider has a stake in the Third Party Content site to make sure it comes to your home faster and clearer than competitors if you didnt have Net Neutrality. Enforceable real Net Neutrality, not Something Like mr. Pai wants. We are going to Pay Lip Service to Net Neutrality, but not make it enforceable. For example, you could have at t deciding to provide, quote, unquote, free data to h. B. O. , compared to competitors, subscribers necessary to create new and innovative content. Thats the kind of thing that happens if you dont have real Net Neutrality. Even holds true for telehealth providers. Telehealth depend on reliable and nas and low cost 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 Life Saving Service as a cash cow, charging rural hospitals and Community Health centers, the freedom fees for delivering critical and Timely Health care of services. Not long ago the president of the federal Communications Commission adopt add strong legal frame work that would make sure that the 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, mr. Pai made it clear with his comments 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 backwards 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 problems if theres 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 s 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 till i got out of the room and hed dig into more. 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, favored applications, even location of broadband users from the ifp. During that vote, he was with Cable Companies profits, big Cable Companies over the americans privacy. During the august recess, mr. Pai began an attempt to really back door a proposal that would limit the speed 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 over 3,000 in population and i had been to pine, a central oregon. On 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 lapine 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 mistakes about it, it would hurt Rural America, the oak ridges and the lapines. And congressman dated fc krchc update high Speed Internet to america. Mr. Pai says, no, lower speeds are good enough. As i indicated, saturday night, a good crowd, probably arent that many town hall meetings, mr. President , on saturday night in small towns, but we had one in oregon and im telling you, those small communities are telling me about their current frustration with slow and unsatisfactory internet speeds. Mr. Pai has given a big gift 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 the global economy, more opportunities to help their kids with their homework. Mr. President , congress and federal Communications Commission ought to be working to expand access to high Speed Internet to all and not telling folks in Rural America that 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 a 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 to track phones and messages and hack the phones themselves, mr. Pai has taken a handsoff attitude. His federal Communications 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. I mean, 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 approaches have failed. The federal communications economies have to force the 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 started working on the late 1990s, early part of this century. It was up there in terms of importance like trying to prevent multiple and discriminatory tax and particularly taxing Internet Access, the digital signatures lost. Making sure you couldnt hold somebody personally liable if they were investing in a website or a block. These were foundational principles that have been of enormous benefit to our country and Net Neutrality was one of those. I guess would be the fourth in the kind of foundational principles that we talked about and have been talking about for well over a decade. We should be billuilding on Net Neutrality, not walking it back. I believe what mr. Pai is talking about is a retreat from what the internet is all about. I urge my colleagues to vote against mr. Pai, in favor of an open internet. And i yield the floor, the democratic leader is here to speak. Later on the senate will move to a vote to advance the nomination of ajit pai to become chairman. Federal Communications Commission. I rise today in strong enthusiastic support or confirming chairman pay as the permanent chairman. Fcc. In the nine short months since donald trump chose mr. Pai to serve as the fccs acting chairman, he has restored confidence in the agencys ability to do its work on behalf of the American People and within the rule of law. Hes working to establish the light touch regulatory frame