Greg Walden, who will chair the House's subcommittee on telecommunication, opposes Net neutrality. House leaders blast FCC for secrecy

The trio of House Republicans who will hold top tech leadership positions next year excoriated the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday for failing to make the text of its Net neutrality order public.

The latest to add their voices to the calls for transparency are Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, who will soon chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Reps. Greg Walden of Oregon and Lee Terry of Nebraska, who will be the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the chamber's telecom subcommittee. The three members — who ardently oppose Net neutrality — stressed in a letter to Chairman Julius Genachowski that the agency has an obligation to release its draft text and solicit more comments before next week's meeting.


"You have said you want to make the FCC more transparent and data-driven, and we commend you for your efforts," the members wrote in their letter to Genachowski, released Friday. "The unique history and character of this proceeding, however, demands an extra level of transparency that can only be accomplished by allowing the American people, public interest groups and industry to review the item itself prior to adoption."

Genachowski formally announced in early December that he planned to implement rules that would require Internet providers treat all Web traffic equally, and the order is teed up for a vote at the agency's open meeting Tuesday.

But all that is known of Genachowski's proposal is that it borrows heavily from a bill introduced this year by current Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and could impose a stricter standard on wired Internet networks than on mobile networks.

Waxman's proposal never gained the support of Republican lawmakers, and the election break further doomed the congressman's legislation to the political back burner. But Upton, Walden and Terry each praised Waxman's Net neutrality effort in one respect: They said the congressman "felt compelled to take the extraordinary step of making the last draft available on his committee web site for all to see," unlike Genachowski.

Waxman himself told POLITICO this week he is only "aware of the agency's proposal in a general and not in a detailed sense." But the congressman said he supports Genachowski's effort to "get important Net neutrality provisions into law through their rule making."

Upton, Walden and Terry are hardly the first stakeholders to lambaste the chairman's office for failing to release the text of its Net neutrality order. A number of industry leaders and public-interest groups — not to mention Republican FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker — have asked for more transparency.

However, the lawmakers' letter could prove especially politically significant, especially if chairman-in-waiting Upton follows through on previous threats to drag Genachowski and others before the committee repeatedly next year.