He doesn't. Ignoring the public comment period and making comments like demonstrate he's not acting in the interest of the consumer. There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down.
Is there any historical precedent for this? I'm trying to assess the resemblance between this case and such a hypothetical case.
I want to believe...
It's going to have definite winners (telcoms) and losers (tech companies) but that is true of literally every type of regulation.
There are respects in which, say, fracking is not the best thing for the public either (lighting your tap water on fire, etc). The party in charge gets to decide what the best interests of the public are, and what policies to use to achieve them.
Disregard of the integrity of the legally-mandatory public comment process is, in and of itself, strong evidence that there is a violation of procedural rules governing regulation.
You've actually got it backwards. If this were a case of an Executive Branch run amok, the proper move at this point would be for Congress to pass a law and fix it. And Congress itself is definitely an opinion poll, we call them 'elections'.
Elections have consequences, and administrators have a large amount of leeway in how their departments get run.
Which is a straw man, as I did not argue anything about failing to treat the public comment process as a poll.
Note that 'Arbitrary or capricious' is a legal standard of review for a government agency's decisions[0].
"In administrative law, a government agency's resolution of a question of fact, when decided pursuant to an informal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), is reviewed on the arbitrary and capricious standard. Arbitrary and capricious is a legal ruling where in an appellate court determines that a previous ruling is invalid because it was made on unreasonable grounds or without any proper consideration of circumstances. This is an extremely deferential standard."
It's a pretty low bar, but it exists.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_review#Arbitrary_a...
So, the reason here is "promoting competition". No need to demonstrate that this rule actually does it (in fact it does not, but that doesn't matter).
Courts ain't gonna do shit on this, sorry.
Take a look at those pushing "net neutrality" and understand why. I am not saying they are not without merit but both sides have merit but one side is funded by very large monied interest for one reason, they know they can use net neutrality to force what they want to relieve costs on their business interest and never have to pass it on because all onus will be on service providers.
Service providers who have since the prior rule changes have reduced roll out of higher speeds including some very big names (google is one). Why should they? Where is the payoff for adding throughput if its going to get regulated.
I remember the last time it was all regulated, my choice was ISDN provided I could get it or T1 provided I could get it or just suck it up and stay on dial up. With lack of regulation new players came in with higher bandwidth and made it available to me increasing competition. With regulation on service people magically expect higher speed broadban but totally ignore the fact there is no incentive to provided it and once regulated it will be mired in delay after delay and only show where powerful politicians want it.
What is also means if with regulation of service providers they will tell you exactly what services you may use the regulated network for. welcome to China
2014 Reclassification was a response to a legal order brought about by Verizon suing the FCC, from 2010 to 2014 NN was in place under Title I regulations, The Courts ruled the FCC exceeded its authority under Title I and if they wanted anything like the Open Internet Order the ISP had to be moved to Title II
Internet Service was also regulated under Title II from its inception until 2005 when it was reclassified by the FCC under Title I
As to violation here is a list, this is not all inclusive but is a good starting reference
https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...
>> they know they can use net neutrality to force what they want to relieve costs on their business interest and never have to pass it on because all onus will be on service providers.
This assertion by the ISP that companies like Google are getting a "free ride" is moronic. It fails to identify who the consumer is of these companies, it is not Google or Netflix, it is the average homeowner or resident who pays and obscene amount of money for these companies to go out and pickup data from Internet Peering Points. Google and others also pay money to send data out to these peering points.
This idea that if Verizon and Comcast can start charging Google will be good for the consumer has no basis in reality or history. At best it will simply increase the already extreme profit margins for the companies. Companies with a Captive Consumer market do not "pass savings" along, why would they there is no other competitor around for the consumer to change to.
>>I remember the last time it was all regulated, my choice was ISDN provided I could get it or T1 provided I could get it or just suck it up and stay on dial up. With lack of regulation new players came in with higher bandwidth and made it available to me increasing competition
WOW, that is extreme revisionist history...
Had nothing at all do with advancement of Technology, no, it was all regulations that prevented everything
Jesus. are you for real
Funny. In the UK, with it's massively regulated marketplaces, one has far greater choice in home broadband providers. The concept that all regulation by government hampers innovation and investment is a highschool-level understanding of economics, an Ayn Rand approach. In cases of monopolies, which includes ownership of private infrastructures (railroads, fiber etc), regulation can keep markets open and alive that would otherwise stagnate. In a great many circumstances government regulation can foster competition. But such wider understandings don't fit well with modern identity politics.
In capitalism, any market with a sufficiently high barrier to entry will always end in a monopoly in the absence of regulation.
Because.
However, when incumbents over-invest in the status quo, if a newcomer can change the game then they can disrupt the incumbent and take over the industry. For example, Blockbuster was once the dominant name in video rentals in the US. Then along came a little rent-by-mail service called Netflix. I suspect something similar will happen to ISPs once we figure out how to remove the current reliance on their physical infrastructure. I have no faith that American politicians will regulate for competition in that field at least while the current incumbents remain the top dogs.
For anyone curious about the actual spending on lobbying and donations, here are the numbers:
AT&T (#9 in lobbying spending in 2016): https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000076
Verizon: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000079
Comcast: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=D...
Charter: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=D...