Washington - Aug 12, 2009 - On Aug. 3, 2009, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced a new Net neutrality bill that has been titled the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. Markey has led Net neutrality efforts in the past in his work on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. While that committee has Net neutrality on its agenda already, Markey is moving his effort straight to the House floor.

The Markey bill covers several points, but the general goal is to "guard against discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, lawful content, applications, or services by network operators based upon their source, ownership or destination on the Internet" and "preserve the freedom of independent Internet content, application and service providers to compete and innovate."

If enacted, the bill delegates the policy implementation to the FCC. If enacted, the FCC would have 90 days to create enforcement regulations. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has supported Net Neutrality for some time.

To read the text of the bill, go to thomas.loc.gov and enter H.R.3458 in the Search Bill Summary and Status field, then select the Bill Number button.