A Sea Change at the FCC

The Trump administration recently announced that Ajit Pai will be stepping up to be the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. This is good news for the consumers and signals a welcome shift in the FCC’s aggressive regulatory agenda.

Pai was a constant critic of outgoing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s strong-arm tactics to expand the FCC’s reach, going so far as reclassifying the internet as a public utility in order to claim regulatory oversight of one our most dynamic technologies.

Elsewhere, Pai has been critical of the closed-door policies at the FCC, where rules are pushed through with little public participation and little time for commissioners to provide a thoughtful review. Pai’s new chairmanship offers an opportunity to rein in the excesses of an agency that controls the future of the internet.