FCC Signals Potential Different Outcome for Net Neutrality Remand

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission has asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to hold off on hearing a challenge to its response to the court's remand of its Restoring Internet Freedom net neutrality deregulation order, suggesting that challenge could ultimately be moot depending on how the new FCC deals with multiple petitions to reconsider that response. "Only one of the three Commissioners who voted for the Remand Order remains on the Commission, while two of the remaining Commissioners dissented, and one of those dissenters has since become the Acting Chairwoman of the Commission," the FCC told the court, which has principal jurisdiction over challenges to FCC decisions. "In view of these circumstances, placing this case in abeyance to allow time for the newly constituted Commission to consider the petitions for agency reconsideration would be appropriate." And the FCC went further, suggesting how that reconsideration might affect the legal case: "If the Commission were to grant the petitions for reconsideration in whole or in part, the agency’s action could significantly alter or render moot the issues raised by the petition for review in this case."