Reading the responses of one of my sitting Senators, George Allen, to a local newspaper's candidate survey, I found the following comment by the Senator: "I voted for the Internet Consumer Bill of Rights Act, which addresses the issue of Net Neutrality in a way that promotes Internet freedom by keeping government regulation at a minimum and protecting the rights of unfettered Internet access by consumers." The interesting part is that, although as a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee of the Senate, he's had the opportunity to be present at multiple readings of the bill (S.2686), the Committee has not made a move on it since June of 2006.

There is no indication from the Library of Congress that the bill has had any further movement, and certainly has not been voted out of committee, or voted down, which usually would indicate that a formal vote had taken place.

Further investigation of the bill itself indicates that it charges the FTC with watching over practices by broadband providers (service providers for services of 200kbps and above) vis-a-vis discriminatory access. Annually, the Commission must report on such things and if they (the Commission) deems that it might be a problem, then they will submit recommendations (explicitly not to include new powers for the Commission) on how the problem can be mitigated.

The legislation requests these reports starting one year after the legislation is passed and that they continue to be reported for 5 years.

So, does this protect neutrality on the net?