House lawmakers from the Energy and Commerce Committee held their first hearing on net neutrality today, and while most said they agreed with several key concepts, a clear partisan divide emerged over what “net neutrality” rules should look like.

Lawmakers have long fought over how to reinstate the net neutrality rules, whether through a measure that would roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 repeal of the rules or through legislation that codifies the rules themselves. But it was clear today that Democrats and Republicans are no closer to a bipartisan solution than they were last year.

“Dèja vu all over again,” Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) said. “We fight, fight every fight and do nothing about net neutrality.”

“Dèja vu all over again”

In 2017, the FCC repealed net neutrality by rolling back a previous order that classified broadband access as a Title II “utility,” rather than a Title I “information service.” For the most part, Republicans have argued that any new rules on net neutrality should do away with Title II classification, a designation that most advocates for the rules believe is crucial to the idea of net neutrality.

“Title II is the outlier here,” Greg Walden (R-OR), ranking member of the full committee, said. “Title II sounds innocuous, but it gives big government unlimited authority to micromanage every single aspect of a provider’s business, that includes setting rates. There is nothing neutral about this kind of authority.”

Walden, and Republicans in general, said that internet service providers should not be able to block, throttle, or engage in discriminatory behaviors like paid prioritization, but he argued that Title II classification was not the way to secure these central pillars of net neutrality regulation.

Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who led the agency’s initiative to approve the 2015 order, was invited by the committee to testify. Wheeler argued that any new initiatives to reinstate net neutrality should use the 2015 Open Internet Order, which enshrined net neutrality rules, as a starting point.

“Our only hope is the millions of Americans who are fed up.”

“The policies articulated by the FCC prior to 2017, and crystalized in the 2015 Order, are backbone concepts for the oversight of networks,” Wheeler said. “Any further policy considerations should use the 2015 concepts as the starting point to securing the public’s critical interest in a free and open internet.”

The Democrats who are now in charge of the House of Representatives will likely continue to push net neutrality as a priority. More hearings and legislation are imminent — including from Republican lawmakers. Today, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH), reportedly introduced a bill that would leave broadband access classified as a Title I “information service,” a move similar to previous Republican proposals. Several other Republican bills were introduced today too, including one from Walden.

Democrats continued to push witnesses on issues like the commission’s false claims of a DDoS attack and how fraudulent comments appeared in the agency’s net neutrality proceedings.

“Until strong open internet protections are enacted,” Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said, “our only hope is the millions of Americans who are fed up and will hold Congress accountable for passing strong net neutrality laws.”