House Republicans are at it again, putting poison pills into appropriations bills to undo anything good that's happened under President Obama. In this case it’s net neutrality, and everything else the FCC has come up with.
WASHINGTON -- A divided House Appropriations Committee Thursday passed an FCC appropriations bill, part of a larger Financial Services Bill, that would require the FCC to pause the set-top box proceeding impact studies were completed, would block broadband rate regulation, would block FCC net neutrality rules until legal challenges were resolved and would require the FCC to publish items 21 days before they were voted on. […]
Ranking member José Serrano (D-N.Y.) called them part of a toxic combination his side had no choice but to oppose. Serrano and another New York Dem, Rep. Nita Lowey, tried to strip the FCC riders from the bill, but were unsuccessful. The amendments blocking the set-top proposal and net neutrality, both of which President Obama went out of his way to support, and blocking broadband rate regulation, which Democrats say is overbroad, have little chance of making it to a bill signed into law.
The provisions are veto bait, should this appropriations bill actually work its way through a full legislative process and actually get to President Obama's desk. Given the dysfunction in Speaker Paul Ryan's House, that seems unlikely. But it does show that Republicans are never going to stop trying to undo all the good stuff.