'Public Interest' Groups Biased in Favor of Regulation, Broadband Title II, Layton Says
"So-called public interest advocates" often promote self-interested regulation, including Communications Act Title II broadband oversight, suggested American Enterprise Institute scholar Roslyn Layton in a Wednesday blog post. A 1983 AEI book, The Political Economy of Deregulation, by Roger Noll and…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Bruce Owen, described how "the public interest becomes co-opted by special interest," and remains relevant today, wrote Layton, a Trump transition FCC landing team member who some see as a possible commissioner. She said it's "typical that entrenched interests oppose reforms that can legitimately help consumers." Noll and Owen found "many law firms and consumer groups claim to operate in the public interest, but regulatory process gives them a source of power they don’t have otherwise. As such, they are biased in favor of regulation over market solutions," wrote Layton. The "groups that demonize Chairman [Ajit] Pai are also the same ones calling for regulatory solutions over market-oriented ones, specifically the regulation of broadband under common carriage rules from the 1930s," she wrote. The groups want a "nationalized broadband network," not private provision, and see Title II as key to tapping broadband revenues to subsidize municipal networks; they also "oppose free data or zero rating from private providers, which lowers cost and increases consumer choice," she wrote, backing congressional oversight and "necessary FCC reauthorization" to help ensure the agency "focuses on the public interest."