The Federal Communications Commission announced Wednesday that it will overhaul net neutrality regulations that were overturned in court and bring them back to the Internet.
The idea, said FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, is to ensure all Internet traffic gets treated the same way by providers, the Hill reported.
“Preserving the Internet as an open platform for innovation and expression while providing certainty and predictability in the marketplace is an important responsibility of this agency,” Mr. Wheeler said in a statement.
An appeals court overturned “open Internet” rules last month, saying the FCC was trying to regulate online providers the same way as telephone companies — and that’s not legal.
So the FCC is heading back to the drawing board, and rewriting rules to keep Internet providers from blocking or prohibiting entry to websites, or slowing access to certain sites, according to the Hill. The FCC will also create new regulations to require Internet providers to give details to the public on how they manage traffic.
Many on Capitol Hill see the FCC’s net neutrality rules as inhibitors to growth, and that the Obama administration just won’t let the regulatory wish die.
“No matter how many times the court says ’no,’ the Obama administration refused to abandon its furious pursuit of these harmful policies to put government in charge of the web,” Reps. Fred Upton and Greg Walden said in a joint statement reported by The Hill.
The two Republican members of the FCC decried Mr. Wheeler’s decision.
“I am deeply concerned by the announcement that the FCC will begin considering new ways to regulate the Internet,” one of them, Mike O’Rielly, said in a statement.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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