National Review

The impossible has happened: A welfare program ended. Congress created a web-welfare program on an “emergency” basis during the Covid pandemic, and, in classic Washington form, politicians tried to make it permanent. They rebranded it the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and gave it billions in extra funding. The ACP paid its last benefits on May 31, and all funding for it has been exhausted. Are millions of people losing internet access? No. We knew that wouldn’t happen, even though ACP supporters were fearmongering that it would.

During the Covid pandemic, there was concern that some households would lose internet access. In the end-of-the-year omnibus spending bill in 2020, Congress created the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program (EBBP). The EBBP was temporary at first, but of course, government programs don’t stay temporary. It was made into a non-emergency program in the bipartisan infrastructure law in the summer of 2021.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that some advocates of network neutrality saw a political advantage in fomenting fear about the policy’s end. “Net neutrality” is a “very seductive marketing slogan,” Chairman Pai said. But “ultimately what it means is government regulation of the Internet.” “As to the question of why people are upset, I’ll be candid.

[Commentary] Congress passed the 1990 Children’s Television Act to tie broadcast-license renewals, the main asset of a local station, with a fairly general obligation to air educational and informational programming for children. Over the years, the Federal Communications Commission has imposed multiple rounds of added burdens on broadcasters under the premise of implementing the law.

[Commentary] Don’t believe the arguments pushed by ‘network neutrality’ activists: The government does more harm than good by interfering in the World Wide Web. Any student of Federal Communications Commission history knows roughly how this story will end if the rules are not repealed. The dominant Web and Internet providers will muddle through, perhaps more profitable but also more sclerotic and risk-averse. Their armies of attorneys, many of whom used to work at the FCC, will closely read the thousands of pages of orders, declaratory rulings, and press releases to anticipate shifting legal winds. Smaller providers and mom-and-pop tech startups, focused on customers and services rather than compliance, will be left in the dark.

[Brent Skorup is an attorney and a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University]

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has become famous -- or infamous -- for its recent proposal to adopt network neutrality rules. Lost in the debate is the lack of a demonstrable need for such rules, as validated by a rigorous and factually sound cost-benefit analysis.

The Internet has flourished because of the government’s hands-off approach. All regulations carry costs, which are inevitably passed on to consumers in one form or another. We should therefore be very concerned when an agency plans to enact new rules, especially unnecessary ones.

In Executive Order 13563, President Barack Obama reaffirmed that executive agencies should “propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its cost” and must “use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible.” He also called upon independent agencies like the FCC to follow the same principles.

If the Commission fully adheres to this directive, it should refrain from imposing net-neutrality regulations unless there’s evidence of an actual problem it would address, and unless the benefits of the regulations would clearly outweigh the costs.