Chairwoman Rosenworcel's Response to Rep. Walberg Regarding the Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet Proceeding

On October 6, 2023, Rep Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to express concerns that she "misled the public and [was] not truthful" in Congressional testimony and has proposed broadband rate regulation. In her November 14 reply to Rep Walberg, Chairwoman Rosenworcel said, "I have no interest in pursuing regulation of broadband rates." She included a paragraph from the net neutrality/Title II proposal which reads:

We propose to forbear from all provisions of Title II that would permit [FCC] regulation of [broadband internet access service] BIAS rates. We believe that [FCC] rate regulation is unnecessary because the tailored approach we adopt here will enable the [FCC] to promote broadband deployment and competition, and because we will be able to rely on sections 201 and 202 to address non-rate related issues. Therefore, while we do not propose to forbear from sections 201 and 202 of the Act as a general matter, we ‘do not and cannot envision adopting new ex ante rate regulation’ or ex post rate regulation of BIAS, and we therefore propose to forbear from applying sections 201 and 202 to BIAS insofar as they would support adoption of rate regulations for BIAS. We seek comment on this proposal