The Honorable Ajit Pai 
Chairman 
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WASlllNGTON. DC 20510- 0905 
December 12, 201 7 
Federal Communications Commission 
445 Ith St., SW 
Washington, DC 20554 
Dear Chairman Pai: 
We write to urge you to abandon your reckless plan to radically alter the free and 
open internet as we know it. Your proposed action will amount to the largest abdication 
of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) statutory responsibilities in 
history. 
At its inception, Congress delegated to the FCC the primary responsibility to 
protect consumers and the public interest with respect to the nation's communications 
networks. With your current proposal, you have now decided to throw overboard those 
long-standing responsibilities - and consumers with them. In short, you are walking 
away from your statutory duties and effectively eliminating FCC oversight over high­
speed internet access. 
Your plan gives a broadband provider the ability to significantly alter their 
subscribers' internet experience. Once adopted, this proposal will permit that provider to 
freely block, slow down or manipulate a consumer's access to the internet as long as it 
discloses those practices - no matter how anti-consumer- somewhere within mounds of 
legalese in a new "net neutrality" policy. 
Your proposal also makes sure that no other state or local government can fill this 
gaping consumer protection void by preempting them from adopting their own open 
internet consumer protections. It is not enough for the FCC to tum its back on 
consumers. You willfully plan to tie the states' hands to prevent them from protecting 
their own residents. It is a stunning regulatory overreach. 
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Underlying your plan is the false notion that your action will return the internet to 
the supposed halcyon days of "light touch" regulation in the past. This notion - that the 
way the agency approached internet access in the 1990s and early 2000s is the perfect 
approach today - ignores the very different role that the internet plays in 2017. Over the 
past 20 years, internet communications have become widely adopted and relied on by 
American homes and businesses. Yet, your plan ignores the central and critical role that 
access to a free and open internet plays in Americans' lives and the role that the nation's 
expert communications agency should play with respect to the networks underlying that 
access. Moreover, your assertion that your plan returns internet access to the way it was 
before is not correct. Even under the Bush-era FCC, the agency adopted open internet 
principles and held out the threat of regulatory action to combat harmful activity. Your 
plan eradicates even that backstop and leaves Americans without a regulatory safety net. 
The future of the internet hangs in the balance. The FCC' s responsibilities over 
the nation's communications networks remain, and are more crucial than ever, as the 
internet has become fundamental to every aspect of our society. On behalf of our 
constituents - and future generations of Americans - we urge you to abandon this radical 
and reckless plan to tum the FCC's back on consumers and the future of the free and 
open internet. 
Sincerely, 
BILL NELSON 
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MAZIE KIRONO 
The Honorable Ajit Pai 
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The Honorable Ajit Pai 
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