Federal court strikes down FCC’s net neutrality rules

The Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled against the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, striking down the commission’s authority to regulate internet service providers and defeating the Biden administration’s efforts to restore the rules.

In the decision, the court found that the FCC lacked the authority to reinstate certain net neutrality rules, according to reporting from The New York Times. The commission voted to restore the rules last April after they were repealed under President Donald Trump in 2017. In August, the court blocked the rules from taking effect again following legal challenges from internet service providers, with the court stating the ISPs were “likely to succeed” in their challenge to the rules on the claim that the FCC overstepped its authority, adding that congressional authorization would be needed for the FCC to enforce net neutrality rules.

First created under former President Barack Obama and adopted in 2015, net neutrality prohibits ISPs from providing preferential treatment to certain internet users with improved speed or charging more to access certain websites. The rules also require ISPs to treat all internet users equally and prohibit the ISPs from slowing or blocking web traffic to certain websites. The rules would legally reclassify the internet as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Act of 1934 and provide the FCC regulatory authority over internet service providers.

Restoring the rules has been a signature part of President Joe Biden’s technology policy. In July of 2021, Biden signed an executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the rules. Last March, Alan Davidson, administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, reiterated the Biden administration’s support of the rules.

“Fair and open access to the Internet underpins virtually every aspect of American life,” Davidson said. “The Biden Administration supports the FCC’s efforts to put rules in place that preserve an open Internet, promote national security and protect consumers.”

In response to the court’s decision to overturn the rules, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel issued a statement Thursday urging federal lawmakers to codify net neutrality.

“Consumers across the country have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open, and fair,” she said. “With this decision it is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take up the charge for net neutrality, and put open internet principles in federal law.”

Brendan Carr, the FCC’s senior Republican commissioner who Trump has nominated as the incoming chair of the commission under his administration, has long been a critic of the rules, and previously called efforts to restore the rules “a needless waste of time and resources and a distraction from the real work that remains.””While the work to unwind the Biden Admin’s regulatory overreach will continue, this is a good win,” Carr shared on X on Thursday following the decision.