FCC and the broadband industry argue net neutrality’s future

Attorneys for the Federal Communications Commission and groups representing the broadband industry argued about the future of net neutrality to a panel of appeals court judges on October 31. The hearing was part of an endless political ping-pong game over net neutrality rules—which reclassify internet service providers (ISPs) as common carriers, barring them from selectively throttling web traffic. After being enacted under President Barack Obama and repealed under his successor, Donald Trump, they were reinstated by Joe Biden’s FCC in April. The latest iteration didn’t get far since the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals put the rules on hold while it considers the case. Much of the hearing focused on the significance of the “major questions” doctrine, which says Congress must explicitly grant agencies the power to make certain decisions, and the end of a doctrine known as Chevron deference, which instructed judges to defer to agency expertise. In a post-Chevron world, courts have far more liberty to make their own determinations about whether a policy like net neutrality should exist. While net neutrality has always faced its challenges, these changes make its path to implementation even harder.