The Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to impose net neutrality rules today, restoring the common-carrier regulatory framework enforced during the Obama era and then abandoned while Trump was president.
The rules prohibit Internet service providers from blocking and throttling lawful content and ban paid prioritization.
“Consumers have made clear to us they do not want their broadband provider cutting sweetheart deals, with fast lanes for some services and slow lanes for others,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at today’s meeting.
Why did it take so long to get this implemented during Biden’s term? Why are we only seeing this just before the next election. I ask as an outsider to the states.
Biden’s original pick got jammed up in the Senate and finally withdrew their name from consideration. This wasn’t resolved until last September.
https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/09-7-2023/fcc-deadlock-vote-senate/
Because elections are coming up, why else?
This is the “fourth year surge,” where 1st term presidents rush to get a lot of positive policy change so they look like they’re doing a good job. They tend to pass more legislation and use fewer executive orders during this time.
Some of the policy that previous presidents are best known for were passed during this surge time, including Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Civil Rights Act, Federal Highway Aid Act, Equal Pay act, etc.
Here, asking “why” is asking “what is their incentive”.
There may be some merit to saying that a president is an entire branch of government and cycling out staff in key positions to get them in political alignment can take a lot of time. Biden’s admin has had to re-staff many departments after Trump.
It’s literally not that at all. It was about the GOP gumming up the appointment process to the FCC board. Democratic party appointees have only had a 3-2 majority on the FCC board for about 6 months.
Thanks for the context in this specific case in response to my last paragraph.
So you’re saying it could have been done 6 months ago but is only now being done in the 4th year of Biden’s term?