Federal Court Throttles Biden’s Net Neutrality Rules on His Way Out the Door

An appeals court has struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s latest net neutrality rules, paving the way for Internet providers to arbitrarily throttle Web access for certain customers and services.

The ruling is the latest twist in a decade-long battle over the FCC’s power to regulate telecom companies in Washington. It’s also a sign of the diminishing authority of executive branch agencies to interpret the laws they enforce, a 2024 Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The case overturned previous court precedent, known as Chevron deference, that gave agencies latitude to interpret ambiguous laws.

In 2015, the FCC under former President Barack Obama adopted rules that classified broadband Internet providers as telecommunications services and prohibited them from arbitrarily blocking and throttling Internet users or favoring websites that pay for preferential treatment.

Under Donald Trump’s first administration in 2018, the FCC repealed those net neutrality rules. Then in 2024, under Joe Biden, the FCC voted to reinstate them.

A coalition of telecom industry groups again sued to block the rules, leading to the latest ruling by the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A panel of three judges wrote That the FCC oversaw the Internet with a “light touch” for the first 15 years after Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and classified Internet service providers as “information services,” limiting what the agency could regulate them.

That changed in 2015 when the agency interpreted Internet service providers as telecommunications services, a different category under the 1996 law that allowed for stricter regulations.

In an earlier series of cases challenging net neutrality rules, federal courts upheld the FCC’s decision to classify Internet service providers as telecommunications services in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., which cited the executive branch. Agencies are the authority to interpret ambiguities in laws passed by Congress.

But now that the current Supreme Court has struck down so-called Chevron deference, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to determine how Internet service providers should be classified.

In response to the ruling, FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworsel called on Congress to act.

“Consumers across the country have told us repeatedly that they want a fast, open and fair Internet,” he said in a statement. “With this decision, it is clear that Congress must now heed their call, take responsibility for net neutrality and enshrine open internet policies in federal law.”