The FCC’s New Life of Pai

[Commentary] Senate Democrats found time for a press conference haranguing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai for the high sin of opposing “net neutrality,” which is their euphemism for government regulation of the internet. Less noticed is that Chairman Pai is restoring bipartisanship and political accountability to an agency that desperately needs it.

Most headlines on the FCC have accused Chairman Pai of confiscating phones from poor people in a program called Lifeline. The reality is that the commission is reconsidering marginal changes to the program that the Obama Administration tried to ram through on its way out the door. Pai’s alleged net neutrality violation is closing an investigation on telecoms that offer free data plans, which are popular with consumers. The Obama Administration ran the FCC as an extension of the White House, even ordering the agency in a YouTube video to classify the internet as a public utility. For all the invented panic over Republican rule in Washington, note that Chairman Pai is divesting himself of authority and making the agency more responsive to the consumers who pay his salary.