When the FCC votes on net neutrality rules this month, they will propose regulating the internet like a utility, under Title II of the Communications Act, for the first time in history. What prompted this historic—and controversial vote? According to Republican Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Ajit Pai, it’s all due to “unprecedented” White House meddling in FCC affairs.
The FCC is an independent agency, and the president has no official sway over their decisions. But President Obama came out strongly in favor of Title II regulation late last year, and the FCC soon after began hinting that they would take up his suggestions.
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In an interview with the Daily Caller, Pai cited prompting from the White House as a main reason the FCC moved forward with the proposal, remarking on “the unprecedented involvement of the executive branch in our decision-making.”
“Here what you have is the president in an unprecedented way saying explicitly, ‘Not only do I want the FCC to do XY and Z, but this is the legal theory I want them to use to support it,’” Pai said. ”I think the writing was on the wall and the FCC felt like it was under enormous pressure to do what the president wanted us to do.”
And at an earlier press conference, Pai suggested that an investigation is already under way regarding FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s motivates: “We certainly want to find out to what extent [Wheeler’s] change of heart was actually his own or whether there was influence by the White House. [The FCC] is supposed to be an independent agency and so we’re trying to find the information. We want to find the communication between himself and the White House—his agency and the White House and see whether this truly was an independent act.”
As for the proposal itself, Pai called it a “gift to trial lawyers” and expressed concern about future “micromanaging,” in terms of “telling different providers of content and of broadband service how they should interact and on what terms they should interact and what prices they should interact.”
Pai was also skeptical of the proposal’s legal standing, noting that attempts to regulate the internet have failed in the past. “It seems to me, if those previous attempts—limited though they were in comparison were struck down by the courts, this one is just doesn’t put the FCC on a firm footing going forward.”
