Is the FCC’s Regulatory Revival Deterring Infrastructure Investment?

[Commentary] There is a Regulatory Revival underway at the Federal Communications Commission, a revival which one leading industry executive described as a "war on infrastructure investment."

Indeed, as we at the Phoenix Center have frequently noted, over the past seven years the FCC either has reversed, or is threatening to reverse, many of the most significant bi-partisan deregulatory accomplishments of the past two decades. The FCC's increased appetite for regulation is driven, in large part, by the increased politicization of the FCC's deliberative process including, in some instances, direct and public pressure on the independent agency from the White House. "Broadband Service Providers ("BSPs") -- some of the nation's largest spenders on capital equipment -- are now treated by the FCC as villains of Voldemortian proportion."

[Ford is Chief Economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]