FCC official: Chairman no ‘lapdog’ for Obama

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is not a “lapdog” for President Obama, said Gigi Sohn, a special counsel for the chairman. 

During an interview Tuesday, Sohn gave one of the FCC’s strongest defenses of Wheeler, denying that Obama is the one who swayed the independent agency into reclassifying broadband Internet under rules governing traditional telephones. 

{mosads}”We are actually going beyond what the president said,” she said in an interview Tuesday with radio host Kojo Nnamdi. “So this chairman is not a lapdog for the president. He is acting independently, and he is acting based on evolution over a year proceeding.”

She said Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal goes farther than Obama’s recommendations because it will use a series of other authorities in tandem with reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. 

She also pointed out that the plan would give the agency authority over interconnection deals, something Obama’s recommendations in November only hinted at. Obama asked the agency to apply the net neutrality rules to those points of interconnection “if necessary.”

Wheeler’s office has been fighting the perception that Wheeler caved to White House pressure after Obama made his recommendations for reclassification in a November YouTube video viewed more than 850,000 times. 

Reclassification was not a key portion of Wheeler’s previous draft proposal last year. Republicans have strongly opposed using the new authority, and some have even taken to derisively calling the regulations “Obama’s plan.” A pair of congressional committees are investigating whether the White House put improper pressure on the independent agency. 

Sohn said millions of public comments helped sway Wheeler even before Obama weighed in. Two months before Obama’s recommendations, Wheeler had already decided the net neutrality rules would apply to mobile service, she said. And a month before, Title II was already part of the plan. 

She also defended Obama’s decision to make the public recommendations, which opponents called a bully tactic. Presidents going back to Ronald Reagan have made similar recommendations on FCC issues, she said. 

The proposal is slated for a vote at the FCC on Feb. 26.