Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is making progress in narrowing gaps with his two Democratic colleagues over his controversial plan to adopt sweeping new rules for the Internet, National Journal has learned. But with the talks very fluid, and differences remaining, there's still a possibility that the regulatory initiative could be pulled at the last minute from the agenda of Tuesday's commission meeting.

Genachowski needs the support of Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn to approve his "network neutrality" proposal, which would create enforceable rules designed to protect the openness that is the Internet's hallmark. While both Copps and Clyburn are net neutrality advocates, they've complained that the chairman's framework cuts too many breaks for major telecommunications and cable providers of broadband. The two Republicans on the five-member commission remain staunchly opposed, arguing that the proposed rules amount to unnecessary government regulation of the Internet.

The Democrats have a message for Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps: Don't screw things up on net neutrality.

Democrats allied with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski are working to put public pressure on Copps as the net-neutrality vote draws near.

Genachowski needs Copps to vote for his plan during a commission meeting on Tuesday if the rules are to pass.

As a result, Democrats who support the plan are pushing this message in the media: If Copps doesn't vote for Genachowski's plan, the consequences will reverberate all the way up to the White House. They are arguing that the damage could even hurt President Obama.

A prominent Democrat close to the White House said it this way on Friday: "If Copps votes no on Tuesday, he'd be handing the president a huge loss at a time when the Democrats should have a big win."

"Voting no…would be snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory and would be giving the Republicans a huge win," the source said.
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“President Obama believes that Chairman Genachowski’s proposal on open Internet advances this important policy priority and constitutes an important step in preventing abuses and continuing to advance the Internet as an engine of productivity growth and innovation," he said.

It wasn't long ago that bipartisan and international consensus centered on insulating the Internet from regulation. This policy was a bright hallmark of the Clinton administration, which oversaw the Internet's privatization. Over time, however, the call for more Internet regulation became imbedded into a 2008 presidential campaign promise by then-Sen. Barack Obama. So here we are.

Last year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski started to fulfill this promise by proposing rules using a legal theory from an earlier commission decision (from which I had dissented in 2008) that was under court review. So confident were they in their case, FCC lawyers told the federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., that their theory gave the agency the authority to regulate broadband rates, even though Congress has never given the FCC the power to regulate the Internet. FCC leaders seemed caught off guard by the extent of the court's April 6 rebuke of the commission's regulatory overreach.

In May, the FCC leadership floated the idea of deeming complex and dynamic Internet services equivalent to old-fashioned monopoly phone services, thereby triggering price-and-terms regulations that originated in the 1880s. The announcement produced what has become a rare event in Washington: A large, bipartisan majority of Congress agreeing on something. More than 300 members of Congress, including 86 Democrats, contacted the FCC to implore it to stop pursuing Internet regulation and to defer to Capitol Hill.

Federal telecommunications regulators approved new rules Tuesday that would for the first time give the federal government formal authority to regulate Internet traffic, although how much or for how long remained unclear.