Preempt State Broadband Reporting Requirements? Under What Authority?

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission members have been pushing the FCC to preempt state data collection of broadband deployment. The matter came up when the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling finding that nothing in federal statutes or previous FCC orders stops states from collecting their own information about broadband deployment. The ruling expresses no opinion about whether state PUCs have existing authority (given that broadband is a Title I "information service") or whether or not it would be a good idea for states to collect their own data. But even this specter that someone somewhere might do something carriers don't like prompted Commissioners McDowell and Baker to push for the FCC to preempt state authority to collect information. After all, as we all know, broadband providers are timid creatures and likely to be scared off by the least thing that could conceivably raise their cost of doing business — as the broadband providers themselves constantly remind us. But Feld just has to ask, "Under what authority, exactly, do McDowell and Baker believe the FCC could preempt state reporting requirements?"