The FCC has acted on net neutrality. Now it's Congress' turn

[Commentary] For a decade, Congress twiddled its collective thumbs while the Federal Communications Commission took an increasingly rigorous approach to protecting net neutrality. Now, perhaps, lawmakers will actually do something to preserve the free and open nature of the Internet.

The most elegant way would be to have Congress amend federal communications law to give the FCC narrowly tailored authority to write rules against ISPs interfering with the data on their pipelines, with an exception for reasonable network management. But when lawmakers tried to do so in previous sessions of Congress, their efforts were blocked by colleagues who refused to "regulate the Internet." We never would have reached this point had foes of regulation not stopped Congress from giving the FCC specific authority just to protect net neutrality. Nor would the FCC have reclassified ISPs had one of the loudest opponents of reclassification, Verizon, not sued to challenge the commission's previous set of rules. Feb 26’s action should breathe new life into the effort to write a new chapter of communications law specifically for ISPs. They're clearly the 21st century version of a dial-tone provider; the Internet is the dominant communications medium of the day, and you can't get on it without an ISP's help. But many of the regulations designed for monopoly local phone companies don't or shouldn't apply to what ISPs do.