Net Neutrality Dead Under Trump? FCC Member Says Its Days Are Numbered

Net neutrality advocates have already voiced concern over net neutrality opponents appointed to Donald Trump’s transition team, but it appears there biggest challenge may already be in office. Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai vowed to take on the regulations during the President Trump administration.

The promise from Pai, the FCC’s senior Republican member, came Wednesday during a speech made for the conservative-leaning Free State Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C. During the speech, Pai said he and the commission need to “fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation and job creation."

Net neutrality was front and center in the list of regulatory decisions made under President Obama that Pai would like to do away with. He referred to net neutrality as a “regulatory overreach.”

He told the think tank members he has believed since the rules passed that net neutrality would eventually be reversed.

"Today, I am more confident than ever that this prediction will come true,” he said. “And I’m hopeful that beginning next year, our general regulatory approach will be a more sober one that is guided by evidence, sound economic analysis, and a good dose of humility."

Pai criticized what he deemed to be an overstepping of power by the FCC, including plans to restrict the rates prisons can charge inmates to place calls and to block state laws that restrict municipal broadband services from competing with national internet service providers. Pai opposed both decisions, and both were eventually overturned in court.

Though his term expired in June, Pai will remain on the commission until the end of 2017. He may be tapped to take over as interim chairman and is likely to be reconfirmed by the Republican-controlled senate for an additional five-year term.

Michael O'Rielly, a fellow conservative member of the FCC who also spoke before the Free Station Foundation, echo’s Pai’s positions and stated the commission should “should consider acting quickly to reverse any damaging policies put into place over the last eight years and in the last few weeks of this administration."

O’Reilly targeted net neutrality in his speech. He also pointed to privacy rules imposed by the FCC that required internet service providers to get opt-in consent from its users before sharing their internet browsing data and other private information with advertisers and third party entities.

The speeches from the conservative members of the FCC suggest a significant shift to the organization’s policy making over the next four years. Partnered with former Verizon consultant Jeff Eisenach, Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton—all three of whom are vocal opponents of net neutrality —already on the Trump transition team and it would appear likely net neutrality is approaching its end.