Press

Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), today released the following statement after the FCC voted in favor of Chairman Wheeler’s Open Internet rules to reclassify the Internet as a public utility:

“The FCC’s decision today to impose outmoded telephone regulation on the Internet is a bad call, substantively and politically.

“In the first instance, there is no evidence of systemic misconduct that would justify dramatically expanding the FCC’s power to regulate the Internet. In a classic case of fixing something that ain’t broke, the FCC has reached for the biggest possible hammer to deal with abuses that have yet to happen.

“In embracing preemptive regulation, the FCC also reverses the ‘light touch’ approach to Internet oversight the Clinton administration pioneered two decades ago. Such regulatory humility enabled the Internet’s exponential growth as a platform for digital innovation and competition. As PPI has documented, the communications boom is a prime catalyst of U.S. growth and has made America the world’s leader in digital innovation and trade.

“There is nothing ‘progressive’ about the FCC’s backsliding to common carrier rules dating back to the 1930s. Also troubling is its lack of transparency — the 317-page rule it approved has not yet been made public. Decisions this important to U.S. jobs, growth, and competitiveness ought to be made by Congress, following open democratic deliberation and debate.

“PPI therefore urges lawmakers from both parties to collaborate in crafting legislation that would do what the FCC has failed to do: Assure a free and open Internet without resorting to heavy-handed regulation that could inhibit investment and innovation in a fiercely competitive digital sector.”