The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission was mostly lawful in its rollback of Obama-era “net neutrality” guidelines, while offering a glimmer of hope to proponents of the guidelines.
In a 2–1 ruling, the court said the FCC had acted lawfully in its decision to stop regulating broadband like a utility or a “common carrier” such as a phone service. But it said the FCC had exceeded its authority in attempting to block states from passing their own rules in contradiction of the net-neutrality repeal, as California did in 2018.
The ruling was largely seen as a victory for President Trump and his hand-picked FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, who repealed the net-neutrality rules on a party-line vote in 2017. In a statement, Mr. Pai said the decision was “a victory for consumers, broadband deployment, and the free and open Internet.”
Meanwhile, opponents of net-neutrality repeal vowed to continue their fight.
“I stood up for an open internet in 2017 because the @FCC was on the wrong side of the American people and the wrong side of history. Let’s keep up the fight,” Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic FCC commissioner, wrote on Twitter.
“It is clear that the fight over net neutrality is just beginning,” consumer lawyer Andrew Schwartzman told the Wall Street Journal. “The FCC can try to fix its mistakes, but the court made it clear that the commission cannot block states from passing their own net neutrality statutes and issuing executive orders.”