GOP lawmakers make the case for net neutrality gridlock

If lawmakers in Congress can't figure out how to handle network neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission shouldn't be allowed to, either. That's the argument Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and a handful of other GOP lawmakers are making before a federal appeals court in Washington, in a high-stakes legal battle over the future of the Internet.

The lawmakers' filing takes aim at the FCC's net neutrality rules, which went into effect earlier in the summer and seek to regulate Internet providers, such as traditional telephone companies. Rep Blackburn and her colleagues say Congress never explicitly gave the FCC the appropriate permissions to do that. Pointing to the 18-odd times Congress has tried and failed to reach a consensus on net neutrality, the lawmakers say the legislative gridlock itself provides evidence of an FCC power grab. "That Congress spent nearly a decade struggling with whether and how to regulate the Internet does not provide a justification for the FCC to bypass that process," the filing reads. It adds that the country's system of government was purposefully designed to ensure that large, significant decisions would not be made without "careful deliberation." The FCC maintains that, as an independent agency, it always had the freedom to regulate Internet providers more strictly under powers granted to it in the Communications Act. That's the set of authorities it initially received from Congress.