WASHINGTON :Public interest groups on Tuesday asked the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that the Federal Communications Commission lacked legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules.
The decision by a three-judge panel blocked the FCC under then President Joe Biden that had sought to reinstate the open internet rules implemented in 2015 but later repealed by the agency under President Donald Trump.
The groups – Free Press, Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society – argue the appeals court decision conflicts with an earlier decision by another court.
The groups said the case centers on the FCC’s decades-long effort to prevent broadband internet providers “from abusing
their gatekeeping power, in furtherance of the providers’ economic or political interests, to constrain their users’ access to third-party websites.”
A spokesperson for FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who voted against net neutrality rules, did not immediately comment.
Net-neutrality rules require internet service providers to treat internet data and users equally rather than restricting access, slowing speeds or blocking content for certain users. The rules also forbid special arrangements in which ISPs give improved network speeds or access to favored users.
The decision leaves in place state neutrality rules adopted by California and others but may end more than 20 years of efforts to give federal regulators sweeping oversight over the internet.
The FCC voted in April along party lines to reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet and reinstate open internet rules. Industry groups filed suit and successfully convinced the court to temporarily block the rules as they considered the case.
The rules would have given the FCC new tools to crack down on Chinese telecom companies and the ability to monitor internet service outages.
A group representing companies including Amazon.com, Apple, Alphabet and Meta Platforms had backed the FCC net-neutrality rules, while USTelecom, an industry group whose members include AT&T and Verizon, last year called reinstating net neutrality “entirely counterproductive, unnecessary, and an anti-consumer regulatory distraction.”
