Don't Trust Courts, FCC To Make Policy, Thune To Say at Chamber of Commerce

say at the Reboot Congress event, according to his prepared remarks. “If we continue to be bystanders while the FCC moves forward, we will be guaranteeing years of legal and regulatory uncertainty that will chill both innovation and investment. Congress must reassert our constitutional prerogative to make policy, because the only way to protect the open Internet while preserving the bipartisan light touch regime is to find a bipartisan legislative solution.” Thune has proposed legislation codifying net neutrality protections that would limit FCC reliance on Communications Act Title II and Telecom Act Section 706. Thune predicted courts would likely strike down FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality “overreach,” but said it’s a “fool’s errand” to predict court rulings. He pointed to the court decision that granted the FCC “far more power than anyone ever expected” in the “unbridled authority” of Section 706. He judged Wheeler’s order to be likely weak on legal grounds: “My understanding is that Chairman Wheeler is relying on all sorts of legal contortions and clever lawyer tricks in order to pound the square peg of the Internet into the round hole of Title II. In particular, the apparent legal rationale for applying Title II to wireless data seems quite weak.” The unpredictability of courts is why Congress must act, because “conservatives should know by now that we cannot rely on the courts to rein in this administration,” he said. Several other GOP lawmakers were to speak at the Reboot Congress event Wednesday and Thursday, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., following Thune.