Ajit Pai To Be FCC Chairman; Net Neutrality Threatened

By Neil Stevens | 12:30 PM on January 21, 2017

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In this photo made available by the South Carolina Department of Corrections on Wednesday, April 6, 2016, their director, Bryan Stirling, right, showing hundreds of cellphones that were seized in a single raid from the Lee Correctional Institution, S.C. Stirling speaks to FCC official Matthew Berry, left, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and FCC official Brendan Carr. Stirling wants federal officials to allow the state to block cell signals so contraband phones become useless to inmates. (Stephanie Givens, South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is one of the regulators that went completely insane under Barack Obama. Disregarding the law, tradition, and even the courts, they did what they want, when they wanted under Obama chairmen Julius Genachowski and Tom Wheeler.

Donald Trump is seeing fit to appoint a new chairman who will turn that around: Ajit Pai.

Outgoing chairman Wheeler flipped to his personal Twitter account to congratulate Pai:

Congratulations Chairman Pai.

— Tom Wheeler (@tewheels) January 20, 2017

Pai himself is waiting for it to be official, in the meantime tweeting about vital matters like the NBA’s former greatness:

And the socks…didn't get better than @ShowtimeCooper! RT @Super70sSports You can't tell me the NBA is better now. pic.twitter.com/QetI6WLfkr

— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) January 15, 2017

With Pai as permanent chairman, and a Republican replacement confirmed for Tom Wheeler, Pai will be backed by a 3-2 majority on the Commission. This is enough for him to be able to set and pass an agenda to repeal the runaway regulatory agenda of the previous administration, including the Net Neutrality power grab.

The Internet grew into the force we know it as, under the light regulatory touch mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Wheeler FCC used a gimmick called “reclassification” to declare arbitrarily that the Telecommunications Act’s light touch requirements no longer applied. Pai can reverse that back to the bipartisan consensus.