AT&T Discusses APA Issues Relating to Open Internet

AT&T met with staff from the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus and the Office of General Counsel on September 25, 2017 to discuss arguments made in the open internet proceeding regarding the Administrative Procedure Act. AT&T discussed its white paper it says addresses arguments by Title II proponents that the APA imposes various substantive and procedural obstacles to restoration of a Title I regime for broadband internet access.

AT&T claimed nothing in the APA requires the FCC to identify any post-2015 change in factual circumstances as a basis for restoring a Title I regime, to issue a new notice of proposed rulemaking to specify the metrics to be used in a cost-benefit analysis of Title II regulation, or to stall this proceeding pending a new round of comments on the significance or not of informal complaints made public in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.