Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced plans for the FCC to regulate Internet service providers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. It was well-received; “following Wheeler’s announcement, average Americans, entrepreneurs, and civil libertarians cheered the use of Title II.” It seems only two groups weren’t happy with the ruling: Internet service providers, obviously, and congressional Republicans.
The dismay from Internet service providers is understandable, but the objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill seems odd. This isn’t about market regulation or government overreach. Their object seems to stem from the idea that President Barack Obama may have placed pressure on Wheeler and the FCC, which is supposed to be an independent board, to regulate ISPs under Title II.
While it is often understandable for Republicans to question the actions of their Democratic counterparts, this situation doesn’t seem particularly controversial. While Obama has said publicly that he wanted the FCC to regulate ISPs under Title II, he wasn’t the only person to speak out publicly.
In the days leading up to the end of the public comment period on the FCC’s potential actions last July, the number of public comments submitted was reported to have exceeded 780,000 and as the deadline for public comment approached, the FCC announced “the commission is now extending it until midnight on Friday, July 18,” from the original deadline of July 15.
According to an article published by The Verge in Sept. 2014, by the time that the public comment period ended, “it closed out as by far the most-commented issue in agency history with a total of approximately 3.7 million replies.” The article goes on to say, in “an automated analysis of just over 800,000 comments, the Sunlight Foundation believes that two-thirds of initial comments supported that reclassification.”
While the analysis of these 800,000 comments doesn’t reflect all of the comments, it’s reasonable to assume that the remaining 2.9 million comments reflected the same sentiment that the FCC should reclassify the Internet as a utility.
Obama did make a statement in Nov. 2014, in which, according to The New York Times, he “said on Monday that a free and open Internet was as critical to Americans’ lives as electricity and telephone service and should be regulated like those utilities to protect consumers.“ Obama obviously speaks with a tremendous amount of weight, but he’s far from the only person who made a comment in favor of net neutrality.
Unfortunately, Republicans are assuming there must be some wrongdoing and as a result, The Washington Post published an article Tuesday titled, “Republicans are about to ‘Benghazi all over again’ on net neutrality.” It’s unclear at this point whether Republicans truly believe that The White House or the FCC did something wrong or they just want to pry into things and summon officials to the Capital the same way they did with Benghazi and The Affordable Care Act.
Stronger regulation of ISPs under the classification as a utility is something that has overwhelming support from the public. According to a poll conducted by The University of Delaware last November, “Fully 81 percent oppose ‘allowing Internet service providers to charge some websites or streaming video services extra for faster speeds.’”
With such broad support for the regulatory proposals, Republicans should embrace the policy idea. Simply put, in a democratic system, people shouldn’t be surprised when a governing body adopts a proposal that more than 80 percent of the people support.
Reach the columnist at zjosephs@asu.edu or follow @zachjosephson on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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