Public Knowledge Files FCC Comments to Preserve Net Neutrality Rules

As Public Knowledge’s comprehensive filing of more than 100 pages makes abundantly clear, Chairman Pai’s proposal would remove consumer protections the Federal Communications Commission has explicitly and repeatedly identified as critical to protecting broadband subscribers. It would for the first time explicitly make cable companies the gatekeepers of the internet.

To attempt such a dramatic change of policy without even acknowledging the over 20 years of FCC past practice chronicled in these comments is the definition of arbitrary and capricious -- and leaves Pai’s proposal highly vulnerable to reversal in the courts. Twice opponents of Title II have pitched their alternate history of ‘light touch regulation’ to the D.C. Circuit in an effort to overturn the FCC’s existing net neutrality rules. Twice the D.C. Circuit has flatly rejected it. Chairman Pai apparently thinks that the third time will prove the charm. Hopefully, Chairman Pai will reconsider his unpopular plan to strip away net neutrality and critical consumer protections.