White House Defends Net Neutrality Rules, Disses Defunding

The Obama Administration came to the defense of the FCC's
network neutrality rules, which have been under fire from Republicans trying to
block or defund them.

In a statement of administration policy, the Office of
Management and Budget said the administration strongly opposes some provisions
in the bill, HR 2434, the Financial Services and General Government
Appropriations Act of 2012, including a provision that would defund the FCC's
network neutrality rules.

"Section 621 of the bill would prohibit the FCC from
promoting open Internet practices that prevent unnecessary discrimination
across content carried by Internet service providers," said the OMB. "The FCC
has carefully crafted rules to promote competition while balancing the technical
needs of Internet providers."

The bill was reported out of the House Appropriations
Committee July 7.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.