FCC Commissioner O'Rielly on the Future of Internet Regulation

Today, my colleague and I announce the beginning of a process to free the Internet from the terrible restraints of common carrier regulation now imposed on America’s broadband providers. After almost two years of experience, it is clear that this archaic regime never should have been imposed in the first place.

Based on hyperbole, rent seeking, imaginary problems and liberal ideology, the previous FCC took Internet policy down into a dark and horrible abyss. Well, we are here to declare that those days are over; we are bringing sanity and evidence-based decision-making back to the Commission’s rules. In releasing a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission initiates the necessary procedures to expunge net neutrality regulations from the Internet. Following a methodical and transparent path, which I commend the Chairman for pursuing, will help prevent opponents from complaining about procedural shortcuts and the like. Instead, we will follow the Administrative Procedure Act to the letter of the law. Hopefully, over the course of the next few months, we can move forward to a final order.