This will be a busy week for Net Neutrality on Capitol Hill. The fun starts at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, when the House Telecom Subcommittee officially kicks off the mark up of telecom legislation.
The evening session will be devoted to opening statements, in which the members will stake out their priorities. The real legislative work will start the next morning, Wednesday, at 10 a.m. At that point, they will get down to actual amendments and changes to the draft bill. If necessary, the mark up will carry over to Thursday.
Also this week, the House Judiciary Committee may hold a hearing on Friday on market power of telcos and Net Neutrality. Officially, the hearing will be by the Committee's Task Force on Antitrust, which happens to have all of the committee members on it. If the House is in session, the hearing will be at 10 a.m. And if there is a hearing, witnesses are expected to be PK Board member Larry Lessig, Earl Comstock from the Competitive Telecommunications Association, Paul Misener from Amazon and Walter McCormick from the U.S. Telecom Association (representing telephone companies). If they don't hold it this week, it will be held after the Easter recess, which ends April 24.