Biden FCC nominee questioned in Senate over support for net neutrality
Christopher Hutton
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Senators questioned President Joe Biden’s Federal Communication Commission nominee, a veteran of the broadcast industry who would give Democratic appointees a majority at the agency, over her support for net neutrality.
FCC nominee Anna Gomez appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Thursday, where she answered a number of questions on communication and technology matters. Gomez appeared alongside current FCC commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr. A recurrent theme at the hearing was Gomez’s position on net neutrality, a legal principle that demands that internet service providers treat all data the same and not discriminate based on its source or destination.
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“I think that private internet access service is too important, too central, to our lives and to our economy not to have effective oversight,” Gomez said. “And so I would be supportive of reclassification to Title II.”
ISPs are currently categorized as “information services,” regulated under Title I under the Communications Act of 1934. Recategorizing ISPs as “common carriers” under Title II, which covers telecommunications services, would allow the FCC to implement additional regulations, including net neutrality.
When asked if the FCC needed congressional authorization to enact net neutrality, Gomez concurred with Starks, a Democrat, in arguing that the agency already has the power to do so unilaterally. The Republican Carr, in contrast, argued Congress would have to do so.
Gomez served for 12 years at the FCC as the deputy chief of its international bureau and chief of the bureau overseeing landlines. She has also worked at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and as Sprint’s vice president of government affairs.
Biden’s previous nominee, the public interest advocate and scholar Gigi Sohn, had been blocked after a long delay. Republican lawmakers opposed Sohn’s appointment, alleging she is a left-wing ideologue who favors heavy-handed regulation, censorship of conservatives, and net neutrality.
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Sohn withdrew her appointment in March, stating she was disappointed that “dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators.”
The inability to get a fifth commissioner confirmed has left the FCC with a 2-2 Democrat-Republican split for the last three years. That has made passing new rules or regulations increasingly difficult.