Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld will testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 10:15 a.m. His testimony in the hearing “A Legislative Hearing on Four Communications Bills” will address H.R. 2669, the “Anti-Spoofing Act;” H.R. 1301, the “Amateur Radio Parity Act;” H.R. 2666, the “No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act;” and the “Small Business Broadband Deployment Act.”
Mr. Feld’s testimony will support both the Anti-Spoofing and Amateur Radio Parity Acts but raise serious concerns with the two broadband bills. Additionally, he will advocate for Congressional legislation that empowers the Federal Communications Commission to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market instead of limiting it.
The following may be attributed to Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge:
“The Communications Act is the software of our communications policy. Like the computer code that runs the modern communications network, a poorly written line of code can create a feedback loop that ultimately crashes the entire network, or create a security hole that someone can exploit to abuse consumers or undermine competition.
“The two broadband bills use incredibly broad language that endangers the ability of the FCC to protect consumers from fraudulent charges, threatens the ongoing effort to reform the Universal Service Fund to subsidize rural broadband, and potentially deprives millions of consumers of the right to know how their broadband providers make critical decisions about their broadband subscriptions.
“In the absence of any evidence of a real problem, why would Congress risk passing open-ended bills with such potentially disastrous unintended consequences? Congress will have plenty of warning in the event problems begin to emerge that require legislation — and will be able to craft an appropriately tailored solution.”
You may view this full testimony here.
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.