Blackburn drops anti-net neutrality bill

Rep. Marsha Blackburn introduced a bill Friday that would keep the Obama administration from taking another stab at net neutrality rules.

The Tennessee Republican announced that she would be introducing the bill on Wednesday, when Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said that he would be attempting to rewrite the agency’s net neutrality rules.

{mosads}Those rules, which prevented Internet providers from blocking or slowing access to certain websites, were overturned by a federal court earlier this year. Wheeler said Wednesday that the agency would be rewriting the rules according to the court’s decision.

The bill that Blackburn introduced Friday — H.R. 4070, the Internet Freedom Act — would prohibit the agency from issuing new net neutrality rules.

“It’s time for Congress to slam the FCC’s regulatory back-door shut, lock it, and return the keys to the free market,” Blackburn said in a statement introducing the bill.

“My legislation will put the brakes on net neutrality and protect our innovators from these job-killing regulations.”

Echoing her statement after Wheeler’s announcement on Wednesday, Blackburn criticized the Obama administration for “proving once again that they will stop at nothing to restrict our Internet freedom” by attempting to resurrect the FCC’s net neutrality rules.

“Despite having their regulations rejected by a federal appeals court, Chairman Wheeler has decided to press forward with the effort to implement these overreaching rules,” which would give the FCC “a foothold into managing how internet service providers run their networks … deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all,” she said.