New chairman quickly shakes up FCC

Ajit Pai, the new Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is quickly making his mark on the agency, shaking up its operations and rolling back Obama-era initiatives. His moves have drawn Republican praise but alarmed Democrats and consumer groups and set the stage for the fights ahead.

Gigi Sohn, a former aide to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said Pai's moves were a severe blow to the Lifeline program and saw it as a call to action. "The way you undermine this program without doing anything too drastic would be to not let any other providers participate, which would drive the prices up," said Sohn. “He uses the process reforms as a smokescreen to try to steer people away from the fact that he is dismantling pro-consumer, pro-competitive and pro-social policies from the previous administration.”