Kathy Castor is Tampa Bay’s voice in the U.S. Congress. She was elected in 2006 and represents Florida’s 14th Congressional district, which includes Tampa and parts of Hillsborough County. She is the first woman to represent Hillsborough and Pinellas counties in the U.S. Congress.
Castor focuses on issues vital to Tampa Bay area families and businesses, and is committed to building a stronger economy that works for everyone as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. She works on initiatives to create jobs, protect the environment and consumers, improve schools, ensure veterans receive the benefits and care they have earned, provide access to affordable health care and defend protections for people with preexisting health conditions.
Rep. Castor has brought consumers' concerns to the forefront, from assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure after the housing market crashed, to legislative proposals for faster processing of Veterans' claims, to working with local law enforcement to get them the tools they need to crackdown on a massive tax fraud scheme uncovered in Tampa Bay in 2011, involving more than $468 million in taxpayer money.
Rep. Castor is committed to an open internet. In 2015, important steps were taken to ensure an open internet so consumers are protected and cannot be charged more for certain websites by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These rules took important steps to ensure an open internet where consumers cannot be charged more for certain websites by ISPs and prevented them from blocking, slowing down or charging more for websites you want to visit. Now, the FCC is making an anti-consumer effort to reverse these actions that preserved net neutrality protections, possibly causing consumers and businesses to suffer higher costs and less online access, affecting Rep. Castor’s neighbors in Tampa and across the country.
The FCC’s current Net Neutrality rules have been upheld in Federal Court and have strong public support. During the FCC’s public comment process to repeal the Open Internet Order, the Commission received more than 22 million comments that overwhelmingly called for the Commission to leave the current rules in place.