The relentless fighting over network neutrality rules needs to end, but how can it?

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s latest target is the network neutrality rules the commission adopted in 2015 after a federal appeals court threw out the commission’s previous neutrality regulations. The 2015 rules try to preserve the openness that has been crucial to the Internet’s success by barring broadband providers from blocking or impeding legal sites and services, favoring some sites’ traffic in exchange for pay, or unreasonably interfering with the flow of data on their networks. These are all vitally important principles, as even opponents of the rules recognize.

The fight has largely been over how strictly they should be interpreted and enforced. In particular, the dispute has been over the FCC’s move to reclassify broadband providers as utilities, which a federal appeals court ruled the commission had to do before it could impose blanket prohibitions on blocking, throttling or prioritizing data. The reclassification also subjected providers to some of the same, decades-old rules as local phone monopolies. The process of undoing a rule usually requires another public notice and months of public comment on the proposed change. But Chairman Pai may take a procedural shortcut next month that undoes the utility classification right away. And instead of having neutrality rules that the FCC would enforce, Chairman Pai may call on broadband providers to pledge not to block, impede or prioritize traffic unreasonably — with the Federal Trade Commission available to slap the hands of any provider that goes back on its pledge. That’s a laughable idea.

Protecting net neutrality shouldn’t be a partisan issue, considering how widely shared that goal is. If Chairman Pai manages to kill the current rules, Congress shouldn’t wait for the courts to settle the matter. Instead, lawmakers should make clear once and for all that broadband providers mustn’t pick winners and losers online, and that the FCC has the power to make sure they don’t.