U.S. Democrats introduced on Monday a legislation that would let the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restore net neutrality.
Last month, the federal appeals court tossed away net neutrality rules obliging Internet broadband providers to treat all Web traffic evenly. The rule also proposed that websites eating up the most bandwidth, such as file-sharing site BitTorrent and video-streaming site Netflix, must pay fees to deliver excellent service.
Under the Open Internet Preservation Act of 2014, authored by Calif. Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo, the FCC could implement net neutrality rules until such time it comes up with a more stable solution, the Huffington Post reported.
The group of House and Senate Democrats believe that through the legislation, they will generate more support from their colleagues. However, they are also positive that Republican lawmakers, who have tried several times to abolish the commission's net neutrality rules, will strongly act against it.
Mass. Sen. Ed, on the other hand, has also introduced the legislation in the Senate. He had received supports from Democratic Conn. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, N.M. Sen. Tom Udall and Ore. Sen. Ron Wyden. Minn. Sen. Al Franken and Ore. Sen. Jeff Merkley also signed on to the Senate bill.
Several advocates of Internet rights and free speech are hoping that the commission will authorize the restoration of open Internet. The group also embarked on a campaign and was able to collect over a million signatures. Over 85 groups, including Reddit, American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have also showed support for the campaign.
On Friday, during a live video conference, U.S. President Barack Obama, who supports net neutrality, showed confidence that the commission, under Tom Wheeler's leadership, would act in favor of the preservation of open Internet.
"The one good piece of news coming out of this court opinion was that the court did confirm that the FCC can regulate this space -- they have authority," said Obama.
