FCC/NET NEUTRALITY/OBAMA: “A federal regulator’s plan to roll back Obama -era net-neutrality rules is sparking another battle that is expected to rival or exceed the epic political clashes over internet regulation in recent years.
The dispute intensified last week when Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai held a closed-door meeting with telecommunications groups to sketch out his ideas for rolling back the 2015 net-neutrality rules, one of the Obama administration’s signature regulatory changes.
Mr. Pai’s emerging rollback plan appears aimed at preserving the basic principles of net neutrality, while shifting oversight responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission to reverse what GOP critics view as the overreach of the previous approach.
‘This will touch off another huge political firestorm,’ said Lawrence Spiwak, president of a conservative telecommunications think tank, the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies.”
-John D McKinnon, “Fight Looms Over Planned Rollback of Net-Neutrality Rules,” The Wall Street Journal online, April 10, 2017