Upcoming policy issue

On his first day as a newly minted nominee to the Supreme Court, more than a half-dozen swing senators made clear that Judge Brett Kavanaugh will have to say the right things on their policy priorities if he wants to get confirmed. Judge Kavanaugh will have to work to gain the vote of a skeptical Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) over the government’s surveillance powers. Sen Paul is never one to give up his vote easily. And he has serious concerns with Kavanaugh’s views on government surveillance.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, is less likely to override Roe v. Wade than to rein in the agencies at the heart of the modern administrative state. Here’s why. In 1984, the Supreme Court decided in Chevron v. NRDC that unless Congress has spoken clearly on the subject of a regulation, the courts should defer to an agency’s decision as long as it is reasonable, even if the courts would have reached a different interpretation. Whenever a statute is ambiguous, the agency enjoys wide discretion.

For years, the big internet service providers have striven to hamstring competition across the telecommunications landscape. And in June 2018, they essentially asked the Federal Communications Commission to finish the job by repealing a rule granting competing phone and internet companies wholesale access to their copper-wire phone infrastructure.

T-Mobile and Sprint are small players in a wireless market where being small makes it hard to survive. One expert told me that if the deal is framed as a pairing of two of the four national wireless carriers, it has little chance of making it past the regulators. That’s why T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint executive chairman Marcelo Claure have been trying to describe the combined company as a new kind of entity that sells not only wireless service, but potentially home broadband service and a host of media in the future.

Critics of the Sinclair-Tribune merger continue to try to get Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to delay a decision on the deal until a federal appeals court rules on the UHF discount that made the combo possible. Common Cause and Public Knowledge officially petitioned the FCC to "hold the proceeding in abeyance," which is just legalese for "hold off," pointing out that "the Court’s consideration of the UHF Reinstatement Order has direct bearing on whether the proposed acquisition of Tribune Media Company (“Tribune”) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.

The New York attorney general’s office is investigating how T-Mobile’s  $26 billion deal to buy Sprint could impact competition in the pay-as-you-go wireless market, according to people familiar with the matter. Representatives from the state attorney general’s office have contacted companies that sell prepaid phone services in recent weeks with questions about pricing and customers. Dozens of other state attorneys general are part of the probe. Prepaid subscribers don’t sign long-term contracts and instead pay up front each month.

Apparently, Walt Disney Co. is close to winning US antitrust approval for its $71 billion deal for 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment assets, creating a potentially insurmountable hurdle for a rival bid from Comcast. The Justice Department is set to approve the deal in as soon as two weeks, according to an unnamed source. Disney has agreed to sell some assets to address competition problems stemming from the tie-up. 

Although net neutrality protections end June 11, don't expect to see huge changes right away.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai (in)famously said, “We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation.” On June 1, 2018, we learned a bit about how far follow-Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly is willing to go to cut back consumer protections. In FCC Regulatory Free Arena, Commissioner O’Rielly highlights the pervasiveness of the “app economy” to argue that traditional companies regulated by the FCC should seek to be released from their regulatory obligations.

[Commentary] The best and fastest vehicle for bringing back the vital protections of net neutrality resides in both houses of Congress. It’s called a “Joint Resolution of Disapproval” which is allowed under a law called the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA allows Congress to overturn an agency decision soon after it is adopted with a simple majority of members in attendance. This Congress used the CRA last April to repeal Federal Communications Commission rules that would have required ISPs to protect the privacy of their customers.