Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Direct Final Rule to permit the agency’s offices and bureaus to eliminate existing rules without a transparent notice-and-comment rulemaking process – a clear violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. While the APA allows an agency to eliminate rules without transparent notice-and-comment in very limited cases for ‘good cause,’ the process adopted for eliminating rules by Direct Final Rule far exceeds what Congress authorized.
Public Knowledge recently joined 21 other public interest and digital rights groups in a letter urging FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to pull this item from the agency’s July Open Meeting agenda. Public Knowledge argues that this Direct Final Rule eliminates or relaxes critical safeguards designed by the Administrative Conference of the United States to prevent abuse by government agencies.
The following can be attributed to Alisa Valentin, Broadband Policy Director at Public Knowledge:
“The FCC’s adoption of a Direct Final Rule procedure creates a dangerous path for bureaus empowered by Chair Brendan Carr to gut any rules it deems ‘obsolete, unlawful, anticompetitive, or otherwise no longer in the public interest,’ which will inevitably undermine transparency and accountability. This action sets a troubling precedent that fits into the broader pattern of executive overreach by the Trump administration.
“With today’s action, the Commission could ram through substantive rule changes with virtually no oversight, which would shut out consumers, public interest organizations, researchers, technical experts, and industry’s ability to discover the proposed rule changes, much less respond effectively. If the FCC truly has nothing to hide, it should be open to a process that allows for full public scrutiny instead of slamming the door on the American people.”
You may view our letter to FCC Chairman Carr urging him to drop this item from the July Open Meeting agenda for more information.
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.