FCC Votes to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted late last week to reinstate Obama-era net neutrality rules blunted during President Donald Trump’s tenure. In a party-line vote of 3 to 2, the Democratic-controlled FCC is now encouraged to begin the rule drafting process, which includes a public commenting period for stakeholders to provide input. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel also delivered on her promise to reinstate net neutrality once the U.S. Senate confirmed a new commissioner to fill the long-empty fifth seat left behind by former chair Ajit Pai. Pai was the Republican responsible for leading the effort to repeal net neutrality. In recent decades, each commission has given one of the two major parties a simple majority to reflect the party that controls the White House and the executive branch. Anna Gomez filled the fifth seat left by Ajit Pai after she was confirmed and sworn in late last month. Gomez was not President Joe Biden’s first choice to fill the empty seat. Consumer rights attorney Gigi Sohn was nominated twice, and the Senate halted her nomination twice. All of this is based on the efforts of giant telecoms and internet service providers, like Verizon or Comcast, and the efforts of far-right Republicans to drag Sohn through the mud simply for being a lesbian. Gomez was selected and succeeded. Now, the fully staffed FCC can advance a regulatory agenda promised by the Biden administration that has been on hold for nearly three years of his term. “We propose to reinstate enforceable, bright-line rules to prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization,” Rosenworcel said in her remarks on the vote. “These rules are legally sustainable because they track those that were upheld in court in 2016—from front to back. “They would ensure that the internet remains open and a haven for creating without permission, building community beyond geography and organizing without physical constraints,” she added. Gomez gave similar praise for the vote to reinstate net neutrality rules. “I look forward to a substantial record developing and listening to consumers and stakeholders on the best approaches to keep the critical resource of the Internet open and accessible for all,” she said in her remarks. Commissioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the commission, was not as pleased as his colleagues in the majority. Note that Carr served as a legal advisor to Pai during his tenure as chair and has served in private practice for some of the largest telecommunications firms around. “One of the things we must do is focus on emerging trends and challenges,” Carr said in his remarks. “We should lay the foundation for new innovations and new forms of competition.  “We should tackle the issues consumers care about now and into the future. We should not spend our time staring into the regulatory rear-view mirror or relitigating disputes that have long since passed from relevancy.” Civil society organizations supported the FCC’s vote in favor of rule reinstatement. “Biden and other lawmakers campaigned on bringing back net neutrality,” said Caitlin Seeley George, the campaigns director for the nonprofit Fight for the Future group.  “No one should pay any attention to the oppositional astroturf campaigns funded by Big Telecom in an effort to stop the FCC from moving forward.” Fight for the Future is a Battle For The Net coalition member. Members include Common Cause, Left Click, Demand Progress, Democracy for America Action, Progress America and others. Critics of the net neutrality reinstatement effort include researchers at free market-leaning think tanks, including the R Street Institute. R Street technology and innovation fellow Jonathan Cannon told the business-to-business Communications Daily news outlet that the rule is no good. “The muted response, especially from the advocates who foresaw an apocalyptic end to the internet as we know, indicates that they realize their fear campaign was nonsense,” said Cannon. “This time, net neutrality isn’t even the focus of the order. “It’s a minuscule part of a discombobulated order looking at national security, public safety, privacy and other unrelated issues.” Cannon was an aide to the junior Republican-leaning FCC commissioner, Nathan Simington.  Simington said in his remarks after the vote that “ISPs are serving consumers better than they ever have before, and forcing utility regulation onto them now is the wrong move at the wrong time.” The third Democratic-leaning commissioner, Geoffrey Starks, disagreed with Simington. “Some have questioned our authority to act even though the D.C. Circuit upheld the exact rules we propose to reinstate,” Starks said. “They predict that the Supreme Court will no longer defer to reasonable interpretations of agency statutes and that the loss of deference spells the loss of a free and open internet.” Adult industry advocacy group the Free Speech Coalition has previously campaigned to support net neutrality rules.