• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 12, 2016

Net neutrality advocates are opposing a Republican proposal to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating the monthly fees charged by broadband providers.

The bill's broad language "virtually guarantees a host of unintended consequences that are bad for consumers and bad for competition," Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said at a hearing by the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

He added that the measure could prevent the FCC from enforcing consumer protection laws, as well as policing overcharges and "outright fraud."

Feld also said that the measure could be interpreted in a way that would prohibit the FCC to enforce net neutrality rules against paid fast lanes, on the grounds that those rules also regulate the rates charged for broadband access services.

Republicans in Congress say that the proposed "No Rate Regulation 5 of Broadband Internet Access Act" (HR 2666) would merely codify FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's promises to refrain from regulating rates that broadband providers charge.

Last year, the FCC reclassified broadband access as a utility service, which theoretically empowers the agency to set rates. Although Wheeler has said the FCC won't do so, Republicans say a law is needed.

Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Oregon) said on Tuesday that the bill will require "future chairmen to live by the commitments this administration has made as to how the sweeping authority the FCC granted itself is to be used."

Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell testified in support of the measure, which he characterized as a "positive and constructive development for the Internet." He added that the net neutrality order "leaves open the possibility that the Commission could regulate rates in different ways, resulting in collateral and negative effects on broadband infrastructure investment."

Advocacy group Free Press criticized the proposed law, saying that it could undermine the net neutrality rules. “The bill could give companies like AT&T and Verizon carte blanche to gouge Internet users with punitive data caps, discriminatory exemptions, unjustified fees and penalties, outrageous overages, and even fraudulent charges," policy director Matt Wood said in a statement. "It would legalize monopoly abuse, barring the FCC’s efforts to protect consumers from the unfair practices of industry giants that face few to no competitors."