The Case Against the Net Neutrality CRA

Network neutrality skeptics sought to sound the alarm during a TechFreedom Hill briefing on the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to undo the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of Obama-era open internet rules. The measure passed the Senate on a 52-47 vote, but still needs 218 backers to force a vote in the House. TechFreedom President Berin Szoka and Wiley Rein lawyer Bennett Ross both suggested the use of the CRA tool would have unintended effects, such as inviting lawsuits and blocking the FCC from ever enforcing transparency provisions (which the GOP-controlled agency "enhanced" when it repealed the broader rules). “No one disagrees that transparency is a good thing,” Ross told a roomful of Congressional staffers regarding what he called “administrative shenanigans.” A Democratic Senate aide dismissed such concerns, saying the CRA would simply restore the FCC’s net neutrality protections from 2015 without these complications.

Former-Trump administration official Grace Koh isn’t ruling out a House victory. “It is very unlikely … but it is an election year and things are the way they are and you just don’t know,” said Koh, a former White House telecom adviser who left her role on the National Economic Council earlier in 2018. “It’s highly unlikely, but crazier things have happened before.”