FCC lacks authority from Congress to regulate provision of Internet services
Just three short weeks ago, the FCC took the Nation to the mountaintop and showed us the promised land of broadband – every man, woman, and child among us interconnected by high-speed Internet. Part of the dream foresees an Internet free of any provider’s control, giving everyone access to all of the content on the planet.
That last part – Commission-protected freedom from providers’ control – has now taken a serious hit from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Court has concluded that the FCC lacks authority to require providers to treat Internet content even-handedly.
Comcast launched the case back in 2007, when it deliberately hindered its Internet customers’ access to certain file-sharing services (possibly, some critics thought, to protect its parent companies’ on-demand cable services from competition). Comcast stopped the practice after the story came out, and after its claims that it was “just controlling congestion” were shown to be untrue. The FCC subsequently imposed certain reporting and disclosure requirements on Comcast’s traffic management practices. Comcast took the FCC to court, where we observed that the oral argument did not go well for the FCC.
The court has now ruled squarely for Comcast and against the FCC, holding that the powers granted to the FCC by Congress do not include the power to regulate Comcast’s provision of Internet service.
The FCC’s position was a little shaky from the start. It never had a rule prohibiting the Comcast action that caused all the trouble, just a loosely-worded policy statement. And nothing in the Communications Act, from which the FCC derives all of its authority, specifically authorizes control over Internet traffic. The FCC thus had to fall back on a claim of “ancillary authority,” based on a catch-all statutory provision that allows the FCC to do pretty much anything “as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.”
But as the Court had previously held on a number of occasions, ancillary authority applies only if (1) some other statutory provision covers the subject matter, and (2) the challenged action is “reasonably ancillary” to the FCC’s exercising of its authority under (1). The FCC passed the first test, but not the second. The “other provisions” on which the FCC relied, said the Court, were either mere statements of congressional policy (which cannot support ancillary authority) or statutory provisions that miss the specific topics involved in Comcast’s behavior.
As a result, the FCC is legally barred from imposing or enforcing network neutrality.
The FCC still has a few options. For example, it can ask the same court for a hearing en banc (Latin for “lots more judges”) or appeal to the Supreme Court. Or it can ask Congress for a law that gives it the authority it needs. There may be other alternatives as well, involving adjustments to the existing regulations for a better fit with the existing statutes, but their likelihood of success in court remains to be seen.
But right now, the view from the broadband mountaintop is a little murky. For the time being, at least, Internet providers are free to favor or block content as they choose. And no use complaining to the FCC.
