FCC Commissioner Clyburn: ‘No perfect pathway’ on net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission will not end the debate on regulating Internet service providers by choosing which legal authority to use, said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

Regulators will have to work to ensure that their principles are carried out no matter how the new rules are written. “If we want some of the questions and some of the barriers and some of the promises to be realized, it’s going take more than pronouncing which pathway to take,” she added. “It’s going to take more granular detail.” Commissioner Clyburn said that she saw herself as a “tortoise” who was “going through the details and really looking in a more clinical, in a more deliberative fashion, exactly what principles need to be part of whatever pathway we take.” Clyburn’s focus on specific details instead of the larger legal framework indicated she could be supportive of a “hybrid” regulatory model like the one FCC Chairman Wheeler was reportedly considering.