There goes the internet as we know it.

In a 3-2 vote on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission rolled back the Obama-era "Open Internet Order," which mandated that internet service providers adhere to net neutrality rules.

That doesn't have to be the end of the fight.

The states of New York and Washington have announced their intent to sue the FCC. A California state senator, Scott Weiner, has said he will introduce a bill to require net neutrality at the state level. Members of Congress, including U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have plans to introduce a Congressional Review Act to restore the Open Internet Order.

Texas legislators should get onboard and help restore the common-carrier-style regulation that's allowed the internet to serve as the ultimate free market.

It is unfortunate that the fight over net neutrality seems to be breaking into just another Democrats vs. Republicans debate. How quickly people can forget that the Texas Republican Party once endorsed net neutrality as part of its platform. That changed at the 2014 convention, which just so happened to be sponsored by Time Warner Cable and Verizon. By the way, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used to work as assistant general counsel for Verizon.

Deep in our bones, Texans know that content neutrality is good policy. In fact, it serves as the foundation of our entire natural gas industry.

Those pipelines that crisscross from fracking fields to refineries and LNG plants all operate on their own version of net neutrality. Interstate pipelines aren't allowed to prioritize one source of gas over another.

It didn't used to be this way.

Before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed Order 636, natural gas was sold as a packaged good, which included both the cost of the product and the cost of transportation. (Think of it as Comcast selling you an internet connection, and automatically signing you up for a $10 monthly MSNBC.com streaming service that you can't reject.)

Under this bundle system, pipeline companies could give unfair, special treatment to their own products. This meant it was basically impossible to determine the actual, free market price of the natural gas itself.

Order 636 - net neutrality for natural gas - placed a wall between pipelines and content, allowing natural gas to be priced on its own and become a globally traded commodity. It is hard to imagine how the current natural gas boom would have happened without the fair market price guaranteed by content neutrality.

For the sake of a free internet, there needs to be a similar division between telecoms and content providers. Instead, the FCC wants to smash the wall. Internet service providers will be able to sell a bundle that gives special treatment to some websites ahead of others. Telecoms will be able to throttle your speed, charge you more, and overall tamper with the internet. AT&T and Comcast - not you - will pick the winners and losers. So long, free market.

EXPLAINED: What the FCC's decision means for you.

Texans in Washington need to sign onto efforts to reinstate net neutrality. Congress can also ensure that this never happens again by writing these rules into law.

Closer to home, the Legislature can implement statewide net neutrality rules and should also roll back our state's prohibition on municipal broadband. A public option for internet access would provide much-needed competition at a time when most households have no real choice among broadband providers.

Finally, Congress needs to ensure that our antitrust laws fit with a 21st century economy. Monopolistic control isn't just a problem isolated to massive telecoms like Comcast and AT&T. Internet companies like Facebook and Google command key nodes of our economy with an unprecedented consolidation of power. Regulations can help keep them in line, but, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

The internet was created by taxpayer-funded investments in research and infrastructure. Congress should make sure that it still belongs to the people.