Petitions of the day

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission’s assumption of gatekeeper power over new methods of communication, “in the most important place [] for the exchange of views. . . the ‘vast democratic forums of the Internet,’” violates the First Amendment; (2) whether the radical reinterpretation of the Communications Act of 1934 by the FCC is entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Inc., and, if so, whether that deference violates Article I, § 1 of the Constitution; and (3) whether the FCC has statutory authority to promulgate the Open Internet Order, vastly expanding regulation of the Internet, in light of the policy enacted by Congress “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services [defined as services that provide access to the Internet], unfettered by Federal or State regulation,” 47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(2).

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission has statutory authority to reclassify fixed and mobile broadband Internet access service as a “telecommunications service” subject to common carrier regulation; and (2) whether the FCC has statutory authority to reclassify mobile broadband Internet access service as a “commercial mobile service” subject to common carrier regulation.

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission has statutory authority under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to impose common-carrier regulation on Internet access service; and (2) whether the FCC’s order below was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or undertaken without observance of the procedures required by law.

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission unlawfully reclassified broadband Internet access service as a “telecommunications service” under 47 U.S.C. § 153; and (2) whether the FCC unlawfully reclassified mobile broadband Internet access service as a “commercial mobile service” under 47 U.S.C. § 332.

Issues: (1) Whether it was arbitrary and capricious for the Federal Communications Commission to reverse long-standing policy without identifying and substantiating any actual changed circumstances or accounting for broadband providers’ massive reliance interests; (2) whether the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to give adequate notice of key aspects of the final order; and (3) whether the FCC exceeded its statutory authorization by reclassifying broadband as a “telecommunications service.”

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission’s Order imposing common carrier status upon broadband providers constitutes a major rule of vast “economic and political significance,” requiring Congress to “speak clearly” if it wishes to delegate the matter to an agency’s interpretive discretion, when the Order will affect (i) every American Internet service provider, which collectively invest over $78 billion in network investments annually as of 2014; (ii) every Internet content provider, an industry that currently includes the five largest companies in the United States by market capitalization; and (iii) every Internet consumer, currently totaling over 275 million Americans; and, if so, whether Congress expressly authorized the FCC to issue the major rule, when (i) Congress enacted Telecommunications Act of 1996, upon which the FCC relies, with the express purpose of ensuring “the Internet and other interactive computer services,” remain “unfettered by Federal or State regulation,” 47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(2); and (ii) the FCC concedes that “the Communications Act did not clearly resolve the issue of how broadband should be classified”; and (2) whether the FCC’s reinterpretation of the term “public switched network” to include IP enabled services is, by virtue of implicating additional services, a minor or major question.

Issue: Whether the Federal Communications Commission lacked the clear congressional authorization required to assert plenary authority over a large and growing segment of the economy by imposing public-utility, common-carrier obligations on broadband Internet access service.