With the Senate’s confirmation of Anna Gomez as the fifth member of the Federal Communications Commission, the Democrats finally have their long-awaited 3-2 majority. So FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel didn’t waste any time in initiating a rulemaking proceeding proposing to reimpose “Net Neutrality” regulations on Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Verizon, Comcast, and dozens of others. […]
As I noted yesterday, ACUS’s newly adopted Recommendation 2021-1, Managing Mass, Computer-Generated, and Falsely Attributed Comments generated three separate statements. Separate statements are permitted by the Administrative Conference Act (5 U.S.C. 595(a)(1)) and the agency’s bylaws (Section 302.6(d)(1)). They are relatively rare and typically used to register disagreement with a recommendation the Assembly has voted to […]
Pursuant to the Constitution’s Article VI Supremacy Clause, federal laws and regulations preempt conflicting state laws. But may state laws be preempted when they clash with a federal policy of nonregulation? The answer to that question may well determine whether the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIF Order) preempts state net neutrality […]
I wanted to follow up on Aaron Nielson’s great post about the D.C. Circuit’s long-awaited net neutrality opinion with a couple of related thoughts. (I saw, as I was writing this post, that Professor Daniel Lyons also has a post up on the Volokh Conspiracy touching on similar points.) For one, it’s interesting how Judge […]
Everyone, it seems, is waiting for the D.C. Circuit’s “net neutrality” decision. The case was argued last December and so could be decided anytime.* But it wasn’t decided this week. Although the D.C. Circuit’s only opinion this week did involve the FCC, and while it was authored by Judge Tatel, it wasn’t the big one […]
On June 24, Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the United Kingdom communications industries, issued a consultation paper on traffic management and net neutrality. An Ofcom statement reported that the purpose of the consultation paper is to open up a discussion on how existing and future powers “might be used to address traffic […]
Big Tech claims a broad First Amendment right to censor user speech. FCC Commissioners Carr and Simington explain why that’s wrong.
*This is the seventh post in a symposium on William Araiza’s Rebuilding Expertise: Creating Effective and Trustworthy Regulation in an Age of Doubt. All posts from this symposium can be found here. Bill Araiza’s stellar new book Rebuilding Expertise offers a thoughtful program for reform of contemporary administrative law. With his trademark clear prose and fair-minded analysis, Araiza offers […]
In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that the emission limits adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Clean Power Plan exceeded the agency’s authority, because the Clean Air Act did not clearly authorize the agency to “restructure the American energy market.” Ordinarily, courts would review the interpretive issue under the […]
I confess that I haven’t closely followed Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco — argued today in the Supreme Court. After reviewing the transcript from the oral argument, however, it turns out that the case may raise pretty significant questions about remedies in administrative law. The question presented is “[w]hether States with interests […]
Over the past two days, I’ve posted a mini-symposium of separate statements filed by ACUS members in response to Recommendation 2021-1, Managing Mass, Computer-Generated, and Falsely Attributed Comments. The third and final contribution comes from Senior Fellow Richard J. Pierce, Jr. (GW Law) (it is an abbreviated version of a statement that is on the ACUS website): […]
Yesterday, I posted the first of three separate statements filed by ACUS members in response to Recommendation 2021-1, Managing Mass, Computer-Generated, and Falsely Attributed Comments. The second statement comes from Senior Fellow Nina A. Mendelson (Michigan Law): This Recommendation, the product of much hard work, will help guide agencies managing mass comments and addressing falsely attributed […]
Motivated largely by the “Techlash” against the digital platform giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google along with the Net Neutrality debate implicating Internet service providers (“ISPs”) like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast, there is a growing concern that the nation’s antitrust laws and regulatory institutions are ill-suited for the Digital Age. What is needed, some say, […]
Back in March 2000, I published an essay in Legal Times titled, “Any Volunteers?” The piece argued that the Federal Communications Commission’s merger review process is often tainted by the agency’s extraction of so-called “voluntary” conditions from merger applicants during the agency’s consideration of a proposed transaction. Now, two decades later, the Court of Appeals […]
Nope!* * It’s been a good run. If you’re interested, here is the complete list of posts: August 2015: Obamacare Round 3? King Solomon and the APA “It was the best of times ….” Can You Keep a Secret? September 2015: The Second Most Important Court? The Future of […]