FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Plans to Step Down January 20
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, who oversaw the repeal of landmark US net neutrality rules and a series of key spectrum auctions to address growing wireless needs, said Monday he plans to leave the commission on Jan. 20.
Pai’s departure will come the same day President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office. Under Pai, the FCC voted 3-2 in 2017 to repeal the Obama administration’s 2015 net neutrality rules barring Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing internet content or offering paid “fast lanes.”
The FCC voted in October to maintain the repeal. “It is patently obvious to all but the most devoted members of the net neutrality cult that the case against the (net neutrality repeal) was a sham,” Pai said in October.
Democrats are likely to attempt to reinstate the 2015 rules when they take control of the FCC and argue they are crucial to maintaining an open internet.
Pai, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the agency in January 2017, had said the FCC needed to take a “weed whacker” to unneeded rules. He oversaw the repeal of numerous prior regulations.
Trump has pressed the FCC to adopt new rules to limit the legal protections of social media companies like Twitter.
