DC Circuit To Accept Amicus Briefs Backing Challenges to FCC Net Neutrality Order
A federal court accepted the requests of parties to file amicus briefs supporting petitioners challenging the FCC net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. An order Tuesday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in USTelecom v. FCC,…
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No. 15-1063, granted the motions of: (A) Richard Bennett, (B) the Business Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, (C) Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, (D) Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, Georgetown University, (E) International Center for Law and Economics and Affiliated Scholars, (F) former FCC employee William Kirsch, (G) Mobile Future, (H) Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, (I) Phoenix Center, (J) Telecommunications Industry Association and (K) Christopher Yoo, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, ex-FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Washington Legal Foundation had filed notices of their intent to file amicus briefs; lawyers for the three said they didn't have to file motions because they received the consent of all the parties to the case. (For more on the arguments the parties plan to make in their briefs, see 1507130064, 1507140035, 1507150012, 1507210054 and 1507270045). The briefs of the amici and intervenors supporting petitioners are due Thursday. Tuesday's order also directed the court's clerk to file Kirsch's brief, which he submitted early to protect petitioner due process rights. Kirsch said the FCC arbitrarily and capriciously failed to address his comments in the net neutrality proceeding on international telecom. "The FCC is entitled to deference for a Title II Court-guided classification, but should be subject to a de novo review for a quasi-judicial standard in place of the rules based approach that should be required of a so-called expert agency," Kirsch's brief said. It addressed intervenors' standing to address harm from "gatekeepers" and petitioners' standing to address harm from the U.S. Trade Representative's decision ceding the country's telecom advantage in the World Trade Organization agreement on basic telecom to trading partners, including China.