In Rush Order — and Without Public Comment — Trump FCC Removes Net Neutrality Rules

WASHINGTON — On Friday, a Federal Communications Commission bureau issued an order announcing its decision to remove the agency’s Net Neutrality rules. The agency neglected to provide advance notice or give the public an opportunity to comment. 

The rules, adopted in April 2024 under the leadership of former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, reinstated the agency’s Title II authority over broadband-internet access. Title II empowers the FCC to hold powerful telecommunications companies accountable for providing service on just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms to internet users across the United States. However, in January 2025 the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of an industry suit seeking to overturn the FCC’s legal framework and rules. 

Rules protecting Net Neutrality have broad bipartisan public support; the issue generated record numbers of public comments during prior agency proceedings on these essential open-internet safeguards. 

Free Press Vice President of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood said:

“The FCC’s so-called deletion today is little more than political grandstanding. It’s true that the rules in question were first stayed by the 6th Circuit and then struck down by that appellate court — in a poorly reasoned opinion. So today’s bookkeeping maneuver changes very little in reality.

“What’s sad about it is Brendan Carr as usual prioritizing political theater and ideological obeisance over actual legal reasoning and policy impacts. There’s no need to delete currently inoperative rules, much less to announce it in a summer Friday order. The only reason to do that is to score points with broadband monopolies and their lobbyists, who’ve fought against essential and popular safeguards for the past two decades straight. It also shows subservience to Elon Musk’s incredibly destructive government-by-chainsaw attitude — which seems to have outlived Musk himself in some corners of the Trump administration.

“The appeals process for this case has not even concluded yet, as Free Press and allies sought and got more time to consider our options at the Supreme Court. Today’s FCC order doesn’t impact either our ability to press the case there or our strategic considerations about whether to do so. It’s little more than a premature housekeeping step, with Brendan Carr deciding to get out ahead of the Supreme Court in ways that someone with so-called regulatory humility might typically avoid.”