Wireline Bureau Reverts to Pre-Net Neutrality Rules
Since its 2024 net neutrality rules have never gone into effect, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Friday it's restoring sections of its rules to the language they would use absent the net neutrality order. Chairman Brendan Carr said the move was part of his "Delete" agenda and called it "the latest step the FCC is taking to follow the Trump Administration’s effort to usher in prosperity through deregulation." The agency said the moves axed 41 rules or "utility-style burdens."
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The FCC's rules were revised in the wake of its 2024 net neutrality order, the bureau said. With the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 2025 net neutrality decision undoing that order, the rules never went into effect, and the text in the Code of Federal Regulations "does not accurately reflect the rules actually in effect."
The bureau said it's also revising rules that remain on the books but were made moot by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 2002 Iowa Utilities Board decision. The deleted sections have "no effect on the scope and nature of the currently enforceable Commission requirements."
The deletions didn't involve any independent action or exercise of discretion, the bureau noted, and thus didn't require notice and public procedure.
In a statement, Free Press General Counsel Matt Wood called the FCC action "little more than political grandstanding." With the rules struck down by the 6th Circuit, "today’s bookkeeping maneuver changes very little in reality," he said. "The only reason to do that is to score points with broadband monopolies and their lobbyists, who’ve fought against essential and popular safeguards for the past two decades straight."
Noting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in May granted Free Press and others until Aug. 8 to file a cert petition with SCOTUS, Wood criticized the FCC move, saying the 6th Circuit case "has not even concluded yet." The Wireless Bureau order "doesn’t impact either our ability to press the case there or our strategic considerations about whether to do so," he said. "It’s little more than a premature housekeeping step, with Brendan Carr deciding to get out ahead of the Supreme Court in ways that someone with so-called regulatory humility might typically avoid."
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez also said the Wireline Bureau move "seems premature given pending judicial review.”