Senate Commerce Committee members Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) wasted no time putting the network neutrality issue back on the legislative calendar.On Tuesday, the first day of the new Congress, the pair re-introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which would prevent broadband providers from "discriminating against Internet content, applications or services, and require them to offer stand-alone broadband service not bundled with video or voice."
Snowe, in introducing the legislation, said there had been a turning point in the network neutrality fight, and pointed to the FCC's "imposition of net neutrality conditions" on the AT&T/Bell South merger as one of the new signs of the times.
They introduced the bill in the last Congress, but as an amendment to a larger video franchise reform bill,the vote to add it to the bill was an 11-11 tie, with ties meaning the amendment did not pass.
Co-sponsors of the bill's latest incarnation include John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Barack Obama (D-IL).
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