Regarding the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued today holding unlawful the FCC’s rules promulgated in its “Digital Discrimination” proceeding, Free State Foundation President Randolph May issued the following statement:
“The FCC rule adopting a 'disparate impact’ theory purporting to hold broadband providers liable, along with many other entities only tangentially related to the provision of broadband services, for discrimination constituted one of the agency’s more blatant power grabs in an unfortunately long history of bureaucratic aggrandizement. The court of appeals had little difficulty in holding that the Commission exceeded its authority with regard to both the adoption of the disparate impact theory and the coverage of the entities potentially liable under its rules. Now the agency can put its focus on acts of intentional discrimination where it properly belongs.
Aside from getting rid of unlawful rules that sought to aggrandize its power, the court’s decision is important in striking down a loosey-goosey enforcement regime that could have imposed substantial monetary forfeitures on entities not subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction and for actions that they could not have known fell within the ambit of the agency’s rules. In other words, a lawless regime."
Posts
