Perry blasts Obama’s Internet proposal

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) became the latest potential GOP presidential candidate to blast President Obama’s proposal for open Internet rules. 

Perry on Wednesday described Obama’s proposal to reclassify broadband Internet as a utility as a “Great Depression” era regulatory scheme. He said Texas owes a lot to regulatory certainty.

{mosads}”President Obama’s call to saddle 21st century technology with outdated, unnecessary regulations from the era of the Great Depression is alarming and will stifle innovation and growth,” he said in a statement Wednesday evening. 

In the release, Perry’s office touted Texas as home to some of the first cities to enabled 1-gigabit Internet speeds, which “could be delayed by the regulatory uncertainty that the president’s ill-conceived plan creates.”

A number of other potential candidates weighed in on Obama’s plan Monday, mostly falling along partisan lines. He is one of the few governors to express his view. 

Obama on Monday called on the Federal Communications Commission to use the strongest possible authority to enforce net neutrality rules online. Advocates have said reclassifying broadband as a utility is the only way to prevent Internet service providers from negotiating deals with websites for faster service.

Republicans and service providers are almost universally against the stricter regulations that come with reclassification.