New York obtains significant win for states' ability to regulate broadband.

Trade groups claimed the state law is preempted by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality rules. Pai’s repeal placed ISPs under the more forgiving Title I regulatory framework instead of the common-carrier framework in Title II of the Communications Act. 2nd Circuit judges did not find this argument convincing:

Second, the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction.

  • @Awkwardly_FrankEnglish
    58•7 months ago

    Several of the trade groups that sued New York “vociferously lobbied the FCC to classify broadband Internet as a Title I service in order to prevent the FCC from having the authority to regulate them,” today’s 2nd Circuit ruling said. “At that time, Supreme Court precedent was already clear that when a federal agency lacks the power to regulate, it also lacks the power to preempt. The Plaintiffs now ask us to save them from the foreseeable legal consequences of their own strategic decisions. We cannot.”

    This has to be one of the better, legal “go fuck yourselves” I’ve ever seen.