The US House of Representatives has passed the DOTCOM Act, which seriously reduces the chances of transferring the DNS root zone oversight from the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to a multistakeholder Internet community in September 2015, which was earlier announced as the target date.
Given that the bill was passed with a 245-177 vote, the US lawmakers are clearly opposed to the plan. The bill would prevent the NTIA from agreeing to any community-created IANA transition proposal until the Government Accountability Office – the auditor of Congress – had considered and approved the proposal. The GAO would have one year from the point at which ICANN submits the proposal to come up with this report.
That means that if ICANN and NTIA want to stick to their target date for the transition, ICANN would need to produce a proposal within three months, which is highly unlikely because currently, the Internet community is still discussing the general concept for a management body to replace the NTIA.
Yet, to come into force as a law, the DOTCOM Act still has to be approved by the Senate. Observers believe that the approval is quite likely to be obtained, as Republican lawmakers are very united in support of the move. As for the Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate and who are largely opposed to the act, do not show such unanimity. The Republicans would need no more than four votes from undecided Democrats to push the bill through the Senate. In that case, President Obama would be the transition’s last hope, with the power to block the DOTCOM Act by veto.
