benton's blog

Op-ed

Decision Time: Fast Lanes for the 1% and Slow Lanes for the 99%?

TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL J. COPPS
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE FIELD HEARING
“PRESERVING AN OPEN INTERNET: RULES TO PROMOTE COMPETITION
AND PROTECT MAIN STREET CONSUMERS”
BURLINGTON, VT
JULY 1, 2014

Analysis

The FCC's Sisyphean Task

Sisyphus, you may recall from high school days, was sentenced to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill only to watch it roll back down.

Section 202(h) of the 1996 Telecommunications Act gave the Federal Communications Commission the Sisyphean task of reviewing all of its broadcast ownership rules every two years (later extended to four) and determining whether each of them continue to be "necessary in the public interest."