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Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law. I'm Greg Store in our

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Speaker 1: Washington studios with June Grasso in New York. The new

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Speaker 1: Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, A Jeep Pie,

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Speaker 1: has never liked net neutrality. That's the rule that bars

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Speaker 1: Internet service providers from slowing or blocking traffic. This was

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Speaker 1: him on Bloomberg TV two years ago, the day after

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Speaker 1: the FCC approved the net neutrality rule along party lines.

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Speaker 1: Do you want the an unelected bureaucracy, three bureaucrats in particular,

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Speaker 1: to make decisions about how the Internet functions? Or do

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Speaker 1: you want to rely on the bipartisan light touch regulation

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Speaker 1: we've had for the last twenty years that has allowed

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Speaker 1: companies like netflixs to grow tremendously. I would much rather

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Speaker 1: have a free market approach that's delivered proven consumer value

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Speaker 1: as opposed to having a Washington bureaucracy makes some of

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Speaker 1: those decisions. At a news conference yesterday, Pie said the

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Speaker 1: agency was moving towards giving relief to small Internet service providers,

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Speaker 1: but otherwise he wouldn't commit when asked whether the agency

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Speaker 1: would continue to enforce the net neutral Ualty rule with

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Speaker 1: us to discuss what the future is for net neutrality

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Speaker 1: now that Washington is controlled by Republicans. Is Enrique our Mijo,

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Speaker 1: professor at Elon University Law School and Daniel Lyons, a

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Speaker 1: professor at Boston College Law School. Welcome to you both,

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Speaker 1: Um Enrique, let me start with you. Can you just

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Speaker 1: give us in a nutshell tell us what net neutrality is,

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Speaker 1: what it what it does? Sure, net neutrality is generally

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Speaker 1: the idea that all Internet traffic has to be treated

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Speaker 1: equally UM by Internet service providers UM and I SP

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Speaker 1: can't use whatever control it has over its network to

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Speaker 1: discriminate against sites and services it deems inconvenient to its

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Speaker 1: business and in the particular context of the rules at

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Speaker 1: the FCC PASS what that means is that I s

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Speaker 1: p s can't discriminate in blocking traffic and making certain

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Speaker 1: traffic faster or slower, or making certain traffic uh not

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Speaker 1: count for purposes of their data caps, which, uh, that

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Speaker 1: last one is an issue as I'm sure we'll discuss

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Speaker 1: that the new that the new chairman is very much

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Speaker 1: interested in and in having an influence over, Daniel, do

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Speaker 1: you see Pie as being more of a consensus leader

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Speaker 1: than Wheeler was and perhaps waiting to try to reach

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Speaker 1: some kind of compromise before he goes ahead and plunges

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Speaker 1: into the quagmire of net neutrality. That Since Twisian Pie

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Speaker 1: has become Chairman Pie, most of his statements have focused

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Speaker 1: on the need to build consensus and and overcome what

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Speaker 1: was seen as UH poisoned partisanship of the Wheeler administration.

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Speaker 1: As Commissioner A. G. Pie was huge critic of the

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Speaker 1: UM push for a series of three two votes that

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Speaker 1: broke down along party lines UM and more importantly, the

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Speaker 1: breakdown of communication between majority and minority commissioners. So it's

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Speaker 1: been nice to see that since he's taken the chairmanship

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Speaker 1: his focus has been upon UH increasing communication between majority

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Speaker 1: and minority commissioners and UH. Importantly, the focus of his

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Speaker 1: first meeting this week was on items that receding an

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Speaker 1: animous consent, So I'd expect him to move forward first

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Speaker 1: on consensus building endeavors before really tackling more controversial topics.

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Speaker 1: And Enrique, the question yesterday to the Chairman was whether

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Speaker 1: he would the FEC would continue to enforce net neutrality,

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Speaker 1: and he didn't give a much of an answer. There

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Speaker 1: can the FEC just say we're not going to enforce

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Speaker 1: this rule, even though it's still on the books. Well, sure,

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Speaker 1: the SEC for better for worse, has a lot of

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Speaker 1: control over its own docket. It can it can address

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Speaker 1: the complaints that come to it, and and and the

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Speaker 1: order and with the priority of the f CC um

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Speaker 1: deems it has. There's no U there's no f CC

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Speaker 1: net neutrality for issues that the FEC has to consider,

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Speaker 1: it gets to decide what it gets to decide and

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Speaker 1: how important those things are. But I do think the

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Speaker 1: new chairman, you know, his long term strategy will be

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Speaker 1: to have if to do away with net neutrality. If

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Speaker 1: he plans to do that, no indications are that he does,

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Speaker 1: He should and will do that the same way that

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Speaker 1: the net neutrality rules were adopted, which is h which

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Speaker 1: is through a formal notice and common rulemaking with public

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Speaker 1: participation and and and basically a finding that the net

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Speaker 1: neutrality rules are are no longer in the public interests.

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Speaker 1: And that's a vote that will be supported by a

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Speaker 1: Republican majority FEC Commission f CC. Daniel is this is

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Speaker 1: net neutrality a rule that goes along party lines. The

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Speaker 1: Republicans don't like it and the Democrats like it. So

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Speaker 1: historically it was not UM when the genesis of net

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Speaker 1: neutrality was the FCC's Policy Statement on an Open and

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Speaker 1: Connected Public Internet, which passed unanimously back in two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: which suggested that consumers are entitled to access lawful content

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Speaker 1: of their choice, to run applications and services of their

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Speaker 1: choice UM, to connect their choice of legal devices to

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Speaker 1: the network UM, and we're entitled the competition among network providers.

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Speaker 1: So the policy statement is one that's not binding, but

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Speaker 1: it's sort of suggested. This is where we thought, UH,

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Speaker 1: this is where the SEC thinks that Internet policy should go,

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Speaker 1: and that had the support even of the SEC under

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Speaker 1: the Bush administration. The difficulty is that at some point

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Speaker 1: the conversation became much more politicized, and at the same time,

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Speaker 1: the focus shifted, i think slightly from consumers rights to

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Speaker 1: the rights of what we call edge providers right companies

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Speaker 1: like Google or Netflix whose primary business model is providing

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Speaker 1: Internet based content applications. And so the confluence of those two,

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Speaker 1: I think, the increasing visibility of it and the shift

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Speaker 1: toward a much more um conscious focus on the need

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Speaker 1: of Internet based companies UH came together to make it

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Speaker 1: a much more politicized decision. In Rique, if assuming the

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Speaker 1: SEC does go down the path you are talking about

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Speaker 1: notice and comment rulemaking, what would that likely look like

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Speaker 1: revoking the rule entirely or would some parts of it

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Speaker 1: stay in place. Well, I think the part of the

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Speaker 1: rules that that are most in danger are the ones

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Speaker 1: that that that that banned what's known as paid prioritization.

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Speaker 1: I think the new chairman thinks, and really has always thought,

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Speaker 1: that if a if an I s P goes through

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Speaker 1: the trouble and the enormous expense of building a network,

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Speaker 1: it should be able to say that if there is

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Speaker 1: a particular consumer who wants to they're um now here

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Speaker 1: consumer I mean company who who wants to send traffic

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Speaker 1: over more quickly or has a larger um amount of

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Speaker 1: traffic that they want to send, and the I s

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Speaker 1: P should be able to charge to charge that user

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Speaker 1: of its network more UH. And and that certainly, um

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Speaker 1: it makes a certain economic sense. Um it. You know,

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Speaker 1: in in the world outside the Internet, it costs more

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Speaker 1: UH to mail a heavy package in a light package.

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Speaker 1: So I think that you know, the claim that pray

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Speaker 1: prioritization should not be unlawful under any conception of net neutrality,

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Speaker 1: I think is one that that will certainly have a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of appeal, Daniel, should the net

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Speaker 1: neutrality rule, if it is going to be revoked, should

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Speaker 1: it be revoked at the SEC level? Or do you

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Speaker 1: see Congress passing a law? I mean, so we've often

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Speaker 1: thought that ultimately the answer to a lot of these

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Speaker 1: questions about UM Internet regulation lies with Congress, mostly because, uh,

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Speaker 1: the SEC is regulating in a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: statutory vacuum. The SEC's authority comes from the Communications Act,

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Speaker 1: which was last updated in back in the days when um,

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Speaker 1: those of us who did have Internet access were largely

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Speaker 1: uh accessing the Internet through dial up right so UM.

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Speaker 1: Much of the controversy over the net neutrality rules has

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Speaker 1: been in part how the FEC justifies being able to

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Speaker 1: regulate Internet providers at all. Uh. This is the origin

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Speaker 1: of the famous title to reclassification, which I think is

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Speaker 1: the one area that Commissioner Chairman Pie has indicated he's

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Speaker 1: he's definitely opposed to and would like to get rid

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Speaker 1: of at some point soon. Which just the subjection of

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Speaker 1: broadband networks to the entire panoply of regulations that were

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Speaker 1: originally drafted for the old Belt telephone system. So Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: I think the answer wise in Congress, but I don't

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Speaker 1: see any uh dramatic change coming anytime soon. So in

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Speaker 1: the meantime, I think we'll see the SEC change this

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Speaker 1: via noticing comment. And Enrique, we only have about thirty

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Speaker 1: seconds left. But there's also a court fight that at

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Speaker 1: one point looked really big where the net neutrality rule

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Speaker 1: was being challenged. Does that have any ongoing relevance or

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Speaker 1: can we forget about that? Well, it might, you know,

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Speaker 1: and an agency changing a rule is judicially reviewable. UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, if if the FCC does change the rules

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Speaker 1: to a softer form of net neutrality from what it

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Speaker 1: has now, I certainly expect there to be UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: public interest groups in the advocacy groups that were so

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Speaker 1: instrumental in getting the rules passed to challenge, UM, to

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Speaker 1: challenge that change in in in the in the regulation

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Speaker 1: regulatory system. But the problem is that the an agency

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Speaker 1: generally has a lot of leeway, UM to decide what's

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Speaker 1: in the public interests, and that includes that We're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to leave it there, Enrique, Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: to our guests, and Enrique Aramijo of Elon University Law

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Speaker 1: School and the annual Lions of Boston College Universe at

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Speaker 1: Boston College Law School coming up. Yesterday was a bad

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Speaker 1: day for Donald Trump's golf club in Jupiter, Florida. That's

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Speaker 1: coming up on Bloomberg Law. This is Bloomberg