Former FCC chairmen Tom Wheeler and Michael Powell will be among the high-profile witnesses at the Feb. 7 House Communications Subcommittee hearing on network neutrality.
It was Wheeler's Open Internet rules that were overturned by the current FCC with its deregulatory Restoring Internet Freedom order while Powell crafted the network neutrality principles about openness and access that the FCC adopted as a policy statement, the attempted enforcement of which essentially began the year's long legal and political battle over how the government should, or should not, regulate internet access.
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The complete witness list for the hearing is as follows: Wheeler, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution; Powell, now president and CEO of NCTA – The Internet & Television Association; Jessica Gonzales, deputy director and senior counsel, Free Press & Free Press Action Fund; Denelle Dixon, COO, Mozilla; and Ruth Livier, actress, writer, and UCLA doctoral student.
Mozilla is the lead petitioner on the challenge to the Restoring Internet Freedom order. Oral argument on that challenge was held last week.
Doyle has said that net neutrality will get plenty of attention under the new Democratic regime in the House.
He led the attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to nullify the Restoring Internet Freedom order in the last Congress.
