We have oft written about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) serially going light years beyond their legal authority.
Illegally voting themselves overlords of various technology and communications sectors – including over both the wired and wireless Internet, so as to begin imposing the absurd Network Neutrality.
It was the December 21st wired Web vote that first saw the FCC unlawfully insert themselves and begin the illegal Net Neutrality Era.
Which they at the time said was SO important, they HAD to vote on it immediately. Right after the Less Government (November) election, on the eve of Christmas and just before the new Republican-richer Congress convened.
A Congress which could have written a law making what the FCC was going to do actually legal.
After all, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski admitted it wasn’t.
But the Chairman said Net Neutrality was too important to let its illegality get in the way, so we were force fed the vote.
But despite this pre-power grab “urgency,” five months afterwards the FCC still has not yet published the Net Neutrality order.
What happened to the earnestness?
We’ll tell you what happened to the earnestness:
Well, two companies are waiting to sue the Commission to undo the order – and they can’t until it’s filed. And the Commission’s delay is intended to help them duck the D.C. Circuit Court.
Which has already once ruled that the FCC does not have the legal authority to do what they are trying to now again do.
The Commission figures the incessant delay will – once they do finally file – land the lawsuits in a different court.
The FCC can in fact get the job done – again, when it suits them.
We know the Commission can file timely when they wish – as it took them less than a month to register their April wireless Internet power grab.
Which Verizon Wireless immediately thereafter appealed.
It is through this prism that we must view the FCC’s selective delay of the wired Net Neutrality order.
The FCC is also putting the illegal cart before the legal horse – abusing the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) process.
The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) exists to force every federal agency to go through its process before a new regulation is imposed. So as to make the agency evaluate the damage said regulation will do to the free market.
And provide the public an opportunity to challenge the estimates and the regulation – and thereby perhaps stop it.
But the FCC is regulating first, and obeying to the law later – adhering to the PRA only after illicitly voting in their new regulations.
Which they did with their December Net Neutrality power grab.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) is in fact availing themselves of the FCC’s tardy offering:
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has told the FCC and the Office of Management and Budget that the FCC has significantly underestimated the time and money it will take to comply with the transparency and complaint procedures it adopted in its Open Internet order (net neutrality rules).
OMB is vetting the paperwork-collection requirements to make sure they do not run afoul of Congress’s Paperwork Reduction Act mandate to keep bureaucratic tree-killing to a minimum. NCTA has asked for changes in those requirements, which could delay that effective date even more.
Wouldn’t it have been fantastic if the FCC had adhered to the PRA – and engaged the process before, rather than after?
Wouldn’t it have been even more fantastic if the FCC had adhered to their legal limits – and never in the first place voted themselves wired and wireless Internet Overlords?
Indeed it would have.
