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Galraedia

(5,015 posts)
Thu Jan 3, 2019, 08:47 PM Jan 2019

FCC Chairman Pai celebrates failure to nullify his net neutrality repeal

As one Congress ends and another begins, many are looking forward to a rebalancing of power — especially in the House of Representatives, which Democrats handily retook in November. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is more pleased with what the House failed to do — namely, roll back his repeal of net neutrality rules.

To be fair, he does have reason to celebrate; no one likes to see their work undone. But a statement issued today tells a very selective truth about congressional opposition to his master plan.

“I’m pleased that a strong bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulation,” Pai said. The “heavy-handed” remark is the usual boilerplate in reference to 2015’s rules, which used what the current FCC calls “depression-era” regulations to exert control over internet providers. That aspersion doesn’t really make sense, as I’ve noted before.

And the “strong bipartisan majority” bears a bit of explanation as well. Indeed, the Democrats fell about 30 short of the votes they needed to put the Congressional Review Act into effect and undo the FCC’s order. But that was only after the Senate, by a similar “strong bipartisan majority,” as Pai would no doubt put it, voted for the rollback. No mention of that in his statement.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/02/fcc-chairman-pai

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