Cruz, Other Senate Republicans Urge FCC to 'Shelve' Draft Pro-Title II Net Neutrality NPRM

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas, Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune of South Dakota and 41 other chamber Republicans urged FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday to “end this charade and shelve” her draft net neutrality NPRM aimed at largely reinstating the commission’s rescinded 2015 rules and reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 2309280084). Republicans have given the proposal an almost uniformly negative reception since Rosenworcel first announced it last week (see 2309260047).

“Partisans argued” when the FCC rescinded the 2015 rules almost six years ago “it was the ‘end of the internet as we know it,’ that ‘you’ll get the internet one word at a time,’ that consumers would have to pay by the tweet, and that online access would slow to a crawl," Cruz, Thune and other Republicans said in a letter to Rosenworcel. “All such hyperbolic claims have proven false, as even FCC Democrat commissioners have admitted.” Thune and others brought up the matter during a June Senate Commerce confirmation hearing for now-Commissioner Anna Gomez (see 2306220067).

“Any attempt by the FCC to reinstate net neutrality regulations and the onerous rules of Title II on [ISPs] will not survive judicial review” because the U.S. Supreme Court established the major questions doctrine in its 2022 West Virginia v. EPA ruling (see 2206300066), the GOP senators said. They cited an anti-Title II September paper from Obama administration U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and ex-Principal Deputy Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn that drew major GOP interest (see 2309200001).

“Re-imposing heavy-handed, public-utility regulations on the internet would threaten the progress our country has made since 2017,” the Republicans said. “Our country faces real challenges,” but a “lack of public-utility regulations for the internet is not one of them.” Other signers included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and three of the five Republicans who voted to confirm Gomez in September: Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Todd Young of Indiana (see 2309070081). Three Republicans who backed a 2018 Congressional Review Act resolution aimed at reversing the rescission (see 1805160064) -- Susan Collins of Maine, John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- didn’t sign the letter.

The FCC didn’t comment. The commission separately touted Title II reclassification Thursday as allowing it to “require broadband providers to report and address internet outages, like the FCC does for voice service today, and ensure that response personnel know when service is impacted, especially during emergencies” (see 2310050063).