The White House has issued a veto threat for any bill that seeks to overturn the net neutrality policy put in place by the FCC last year.

This week, House Republicans will offer a “resolution of disapproval” to take down the FCC action. This kind of resolution only requires a simple majority vote in either house, and there is a companion action in the Senate, though when they would actually vote on it is undetermined. However, the Statement of Administration Policy essentially turns the requirement into a 2/3 vote to override any veto.

A Statement of Administration Policy issued late Monday emphasized that the White House “strongly opposes House passage” of the resolution of disapproval, which would roll back rules the FCC enacted in December that require Internet providers to treat all traffic equally.

The administration described any Republican attempt to undo the FCC’s work as one that would “undermine a fundamental part of the Nation’s Internet and innovation strategy — an enforceable and effective policy for keeping the Internet free and open.”

“If the President is presented with a Resolution of Disapproval that would not safeguard the free and open Internet, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the Resolution,” the statement said.

When introduced in December, most net neutrality activists derided the FCC’s rules as woefully insufficient, while conservatives railed against having any rules at all. This is a classic Obama middle ground, then, and he’s strongly defending it.

The biggest near-term threat to the net neutrality rules actually comes from the courts. Verizon sued the FCC over the plan, even though the whole point of the rule was to placate the telecoms. By getting the go-ahead for tiered pricing, wireless discrimination and proprietary content while challenging the rules against wireline content discrimination in court, Verizon thought they could have it all. But so far, a DC court of appeals has not agreed.

In what may only be a speed bump in a longer legal battle, a D.C. court of appeals has thrown out Verizon’s challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s recent net neutrality rules, saying the company filed the lawsuit prematurely.

Verizon launched the legal challenge before the rules, which were enacted in December, were filed in the Federal Registry.

“We are pleased the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the Commission that Verizon and MetroPCS were premature in challenging the Open Internet framework,” said FCC spokesman Robert Kenny. “The Commission’s policy preserves Internet freedom and openness and strikes the right balance for consumers and businesses across America.”

But Verizon will simply re-file the lawsuit once the rules get printed in the Federal Registry, so this battle has only begun. The only difference is that Verizon was attempting to get the case put before a favorable jurisdiction, and this rejection could affect that.

“It was a blatant effort to steer the case to a sympathetic court, but the judges unanimously agreed that the appeal’s prematurity was incurable,” (the Media Access Project’s Andrew) Schwartzman wrote. “The future of the Internet is too important for such legal shenanigans,” he added. “Notwithstanding Verizon’s ploy, this case will be heard in the right court, at the right time.”

So much for that consensus-building exercise by Julius Genachowski.