A federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s landmark net neutrality rules on Thursday, ending a nearly two-decade effort to regulate broadband internet providers as utilities.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said the F.C.C. lacked the authority to reinstate rules that prevented broadband providers from slowing or blocking access to internet content. In its opinion, a three-judge panel pointed to a Supreme Court decision in June, known as Loper Bright, that overturned a 1984 legal precedent that gave deference to government agencies on regulations.
“Applying Loper Bright means we can end the F.C.C.’s vacillations,” the court ruled.
The court’s decision put an end to the Biden administration’s hallmark tech policy, which had drawn impassioned support from consumer groups and tech giants like Google and fierce protests from telecommunications giants like Comcast and AT&T.
The F.C.C. had voted in April to restore net neutrality regulations, which expand government oversight of broadband providers and aim to protect consumer access to the internet. The regulations were first put in place nearly a decade ago under the Obama administration and were aimed at preventing internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from blocking or degrading the delivery of services from competitors like Netflix and YouTube. The rules were repealed under President-elect Donald J. Trump in his first administration, but they continued to be a contentious partisan issue that pit tech giants against broadband providers.
Thursday’s decision effectively concludes the back-and-forth battle. Brendan Carr, whom Mr. Trump has named as the incoming F.C.C. chair, has been a strong critic of net neutrality. The court’s reliance on the Loper case in its ruling could also portend more lawsuits to hollow out federal regulations at the F.C.C. and other agencies.
The court’s opinion “puts to bed an issue that unnecessarily sucked up a lot of oxygen in tech and telecom for two decades now,” said Evan Swarztrauber, a former policy adviser to Mr. Carr.
In a statement, Mr. Carr said that he was “pleased” by the decision and that “the work to unwind the Biden administration’s regulatory overreach will continue.”
The court’s decision doesn’t affect state laws on net neutrality in California, Washington and Colorado. Democrats at the F.C.C. called on Thursday for Congress to create laws promoting net neutrality, signaling that the issue may continue to fester.
“Consumers across the country have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open, and fair,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, the chairwoman of the F.C.C. and a Democrat who had pushed for the reinstatement of the rules. “It is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take up the charge for net neutrality and put open internet principles in federal law.”
Judge Richard Allen Griffin, who wrote Thursday’s opinion, said that the panel of judges acknowledged that the internet was complicated and that the F.C.C. “has significant expertise in overseeing ‘this technical and complex area.’”
But the F.C.C.’s interpretation of its authority to define broadband internet service akin to phone service exceeded legal definitions in the Telecommunications Act, he wrote.
“The F.C.C. lacks the statutory authority to impose its desired net-neutrality policies,” he said.
The term net neutrality was coined in 2003 by Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor, who warned that broadband internet service providers could become gatekeepers of internet access and block or charge for access to certain content.
The concept was championed by Google, Facebook and Netflix. The companies lobbied the F.C.C. to create rules to prevent preferential treatment of content by the internet service providers.
In 2010, the F.C.C. under the Democratic chairman, Julius Genachowski, created the first proposals for net neutrality rules, stirring waves of public interest. The rules prompted street protests, torrents of email comments and even threats of violence against commissioners who opposed the rules.
The technical and wonky issue resonated politically with progressives who saw the rules as a necessary restraint on corporate power and a campaign to keep the internet open and fair.
But cable and telecom companies opposed the rules largely because they saw them as regulatory overreach. They feared that classifying broadband providers as “common carriers,” like phone companies, opened the door to utility-style regulation and government price setting.
Broadband providers hailed the court’s decision on Thursday. “Our fight to stop the government’s unwarranted internet takeover has resulted in a major victory,” said Grant Spellmeyer, the chief executive of a small cable trade group, ACA Connects.
In recent years, the issue has lost much of its public momentum. Anger has since turned toward social media platforms for their spread of misinformation and harms to young users. But the battle over the regulations continued, with each administration introducing or rolling back the rules along partisan lines.
“The market no longer thinks it’s a big deal and hasn’t for a while,” said Blair Levin, a former chief of staff to the F.C.C. and an adviser to NewStreet Research.
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