WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Republicans in Washington Wednesday vowed to take action to strike down the Federal Communication Commission's just-passe net neutrality rules.
The FCC board, in a partisan 3-2 vote Tuesday, approved rules guaranteeing unbiased service from Internet providers. In effect, the rules say an Internet carrier cannot slow or block consumer access to Web sites that produce legal content, PC Magazine reported
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the incoming House majority leader, said net neutrality "will hurt our economy, stifle private-sector job creation and undermine entrepreneurship and innovation of Internet-related American employers."
Other influential House members, including the incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton, R-Mich., said they would throw their weight behind an effort to overturn the rules. Upton said he would "use every resource available to strike down the FCC's brazen effort to regulate the Internet."
Businesses have been divided over the issue, which Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., said was an effort to "fix something that isn't broke."
Senators also took shots at the new rules.
"The FCC is attempting to push excessive government regulation of the Internet through without congressional authority and these actions threaten the very future of the technology," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
