Verizon doesn’t like it when states pass laws that affect its business, and now it wants the Federal Communications Commission to simply sweep those annoying rules away with a single, blanket preemption.
In a white paper filed with the FCC, Verizon points to ongoing efforts in California, and several other states, to re-impose Internet privacy rules that were overturned earlier this year by the federal government. It also fears that states will try to reinstate net neutrality requirements, and other common carrier obligations that the FCC is likely to scrap in the coming months.
The white paper offers excruciatingly detailed arguments about why the FCC has the authority to take any and all broadband regulation out of states’ hands, but it boils down to treating it as a purely interstate service…
The Commission can ensure nationwide uniformity for interstate services by preempting state and local laws that interfere with its exclusive jurisdiction over such services and are inconsistent with federal policies for those services, including federal polices providing for less regulation. The Commission has a long history of setting a deregulatory policy for an interstate service and preempting state and local laws that threaten to impede that policy, and courts have consistently upheld these exercises of the Commission’s preemptive power.
This latest move at the FCC is running parallel with an overhaul of wireless permitting rules, that’s also expected to result in less state and local discretion regarding issuing permits for building cell towers or other wireless infrastructure.
Verizon wants the FCC to include this overarching preemption in what is expected to be a reversal of its 2015 order classifying broadband as a common carrier service, which could come as soon as next month. Even if this kind of blanket preemption isn’t rolled into the common carrier decision, though, the concept will find willing ears among commissioners. It’s a good bet that we haven’t seen the last of it.