Isn't this what happens when you do everything through the executive, rather than legislative, branch? If net neutrality were required by law, the FCC chairman would to some degree be compelled to enforce it.
Weird, I seem to remember the legislative branch repealing some regulations that nearly all Americans support exactly on party lines in order to make the Internet worse recently...
It doesn't matter at all in this particular instance because the people who want to remove NN own both branches and can do it just as easily no matter where the rules come from. The only things that can persist in the face of a 1 party lockstep government like this is a constitutional amendment, or something that is so widely popular and easily understandable that repealing it is political suicide, like health care.
There is a good chance you are right. With that said, privacy isn't important to Google and Facebook, but net neutrality is important to their business. I think if net neutrality repeal were in a congressional bill, a lot of big companies would come out to lobby against the repeal. That has a chance of making a difference, whereas in this case everything is up to Ajit Pai.
Also, if it didn't make a difference if you used a bill or not, why wouldn't the conservative FCC commissioners just strike down the privacy rules at the FCC and be done with it? My guess is because they want to make it harder to bring privacy rules back if a democrat president were elected.
Yeah, the republicans would have to take an extra couple weeks to slash and burn if it was legislated instead.
You are still correct that regulation is more flexible. It's a double edged sword. Without the FCC to regulate would we have even gotten net neutrality in the first place? Would we be able to adapt to changing conditions easily?
When things are just rules or policies, they can be enacted and removed with a stroke of a pen or by a handful of people voting. When it's the law, they at least have some external pressure to enforce it..
No. The FCC is an independent (not executive) federal agency, and ultimately serve at the pleasure of the Congress. Congress granted FCC their statutory authority to regulate (and can revoke it).
FCC commissioners go through presidential appointment and senate confirmation, and almost always has as a 2-1 or 3-2 party split. This DOES make the Commission's direction subject to different political winds than just the executive, or just the Congress. But that doesn't make them under the executive any more than that confirmation process makes the judiciary part of the executive.
> No. The FCC is an independent (not executive) federal agency, and ultimately serve at the pleasure of the Congress. Congress granted FCC their statutory authority to regulate (and can revoke it).
While this is generally an important distinction, I'm not sure it really matters in this case. The point is we have a new president and thus new FCC chairman and commissioners, and thus a new FCC policy. If Obama and the democratic congress he had had passed a law mandating net neutrality, Ajit Pai would have a much harder time "fast-tracking" a repeal of net neutrality.
