FCC not beefing up budget for net neutrality lawsuits

There is no need for the Federal Communications Commission to beef up its legal budget to defend against anticipated lawsuits against its net neutrality rules, according to the agency’s managing director, Jon Wilkins. 

Wilkins said the commission must defend itself against major litigation in any given year, and its budget does not have to be increased to defend the new Internet regulations, which are opposed by Internet service providers and Republicans. 

{mosads}”This is certainly an important issue that will take staff work,” Wilkins said. “But in terms of my staffing discussions with those offices and bureau heads, it is not different than the usual large important issues that those staffs support. So there is no increase in this budget, for example, to support that activity.”

Wilkins made the comments during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the FCC’s budget. 

Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) argued it would have been cheaper for Congress and the FCC to work out net neutrality legislation rather than forcing the commission to defend its own regulations in court. 

“That litigation is not free,” Johnson said. “The taxpayers are paying for that litigation. The question is: Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to let Congress work with the FCC to get a legislative fix to net neutrality rather than spend taxpayer dollars to litigate something they know is going to be litigated?”

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Communications and Technology subpanel, shot back that the FCC has had to defend plenty of actions that Congress has approved, including the upcoming spectrum auction.

“There is not a tidy answer to this,” she said. “Congress takes action on a daily basis and people sue, so it’s not just one way or another.” 

Service providers are expected to challenge the FCC’s new rules in court. An appeals court struck down the commission’s prior 2010 Internet rules, setting off the current rewrite. 

Aside from that back-and-forth, the subcommittee hearing largely stayed away from the commission’s vote last week to reclassify broadband Internet under authority governing traditional telephones. 

A trio of hearings are scheduled for later this month that will deal specifically with the issue. 

Wednesday’s hearing mostly stuck to policy questions about the FCC’s increased budget request to pay for increased IT infrastructure and moving portions of the agency to a cheaper location.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, found it curious, nonetheless, that Republicans held a hearing to probe the FCC budget a week after the agency’s passage of the new regulations. 

“The timing of today’s budget hearing has raised some eyebrows, coming just days after the commission adopted new network neutrality protections. And now that might be a coincidence, and I’m hopeful it is,” Pallone said in opening remarks. 

“With the struggle Republicans have been facing to fund the Department of Homeland Security, however, I doubt the public wants us to create a brand new funding cliff,” he added at another point.