A Democratic congressman who played a leading role in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year has taken up a new cause: shielding Google from antitrust scrutiny. In a strongly worded letter to Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) praised Google's contribution to the nation's economy. He warned Leibowitz that if the FTC does choose to initiate an antitrust case against Google, Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority.

"At a time when the national economy continues to stagnate, it's not clear to me why the FTC should be focusing on a product that consumers seem very happy with, search engines," Polis wrote. "While Google is surely a big company and an important service in peoples' lives, my constituents also use a variety of competing services." To pursue antitrust action in this "hyper-competitive" environment, he argued, "defies all logic."

Polis drew a parallel to the debate over SOPA. In that case, he wrote, policymakers tried to "overregulate Internet content," but "consumers revolted" and stopped the proposal. He urged the FTC to "tread carefully."

Indeed, Polis hinted that if the FTC didn't heed his warning, it risked having its wings clipped by Congress. "Application of anti-trust against Google would be a woefully misguided step that would threaten the integrity of our anti-trust system, and could ultimately lead to Congressional action resulting in a reduction in the ability of the FTC to enforce critical anti-trust protections," Polis wrote.

Details of the FTC's ongoing investigation have yet to be released. But a final decision on whether to pursue a case against Google is expected before the end of the year.

While Polis seems to be a staunch Google supporter, some other members of Congress have been more critical of the company. At a hearing last year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) both asked tough questions of Google's Eric Schmidt. On the other hand, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) both seemed more supportive of the search giant, which has major offices in their respective states.