Sen. Rockefeller doubts net neutrality bill will move this year

The Senate Commerce Committee chairman said on Wednesday he believes it will be "almost impossible" to move a network neutrality bill through Congress this year.

"I am 100 percent for net neutrality. I know [House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry] Waxman is fighting hard," Sen. John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said following the Senate's weekly luncheons. "I think it will be almost impossible to get anything done on that."

Waxman, D-Calif., and Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., have been working on a bill that could supplant a proposal by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski to reclassify some aspects of broadband as a telecommunications service, a plan staunchly opposed by broadband providers.

A draft of the bill, obtained this week by Tech Daily Dose, would apply nondiscrimination principles to wireline broadband but not wireless and direct FCC to deal with enforcement on a case-by-case basis, rather than through rulemaking. The draft would bar FCC from reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service.

With the prospects of Congress passing a measure slim at this point, Rockefeller added FCC might need to act on its own. He said he still favors Genachowski's reclassification proposal.

Rockefeller said he has been talking with Genachowski but wouldn't say whether he has pressed him to move forward with reclassification.

Rockefeller added despite concern from some public interest groups, he believes Genachowski is "solid on net neutrality."

When asked if he is willing to shepherd a net neutrality bill through a lame duck Senate session if the House manages to pass a bill, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Commerce Communications Subcommittee, said "oh wow" and declined to comment further on the issue.