Net Nuts

Net neutrality is dead:

Judge Griffin makes it clear that this time around, the FCC would not be able to rewrite federal law to suit its purposes.

That brings us to today. The Safeguarding Order once more imposes net-neutrality policies on Broadband Internet Service Providers by reclassifying broadband Internet as a telecommunications service subject to common-carrier regulation under Title II. 89 Fed. Reg. at 45404.3 This order—issued during the Biden administration—undoes the order issued during the first Trump administration, which undid the order issued during the Obama administration, which undid orders issued during the Bush and Clinton administrations. Cf. Loper Bright, 144 S. Ct. at 2288 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (lamenting that “Chevron deference engender[ed] constant uncertainty and convulsive change even when the statute at issue itself remains unchanged”). Applying Loper Bright means we can end the FCC’s vacillations.

Nuking net neutrality is an unalloyed good. It restricts the ability of the FCC to meddle in the marketplace, and reduced meddling usually results in more liberty, more innovation, less rent-seeking, less power by lobbyists, and better outcomes for citizens. If the parade of horribles forecasted by Obama as he created from whole cloth, the boogeyman net neutrality that was supposed to be defeated does appear; then Congress can give the FCC jurisdiction. Until then, they need to go back to their well-paid cubbyholes and leave us alone.

Unfortunately they probably won't...