Pai Brings Unprecedented Transparency to Open Internet Proceeding

Graham Owens

Chairman Pai is running the most transparent FCC maybe ever, but you won’t hear that in the coming weeks. Instead, Pai’s critics claim the new Open Internet Order announced today was rushed or hidden in the holidays to minimize criticism.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The current FCC Chairman has done more to make the FCC’s decision-making transparent and open than any FCC chairman in the agency’s 73-year history.

FCC rules have long required the Chairman to circulate draft orders — “white copies” — three weeks before the meeting at which they’ll be voted on. But until Pai took office, no Chairman had ever made these white copies available to the public. In fact, previous Chairmen often took weeks after the vote before allowing the public to see any order text at all. Conversely, at the start of his tenure as Chairman, Pai committed to making draft text available three weeks prior to the vote.

Pai published the draft Open Internet Order today because tomorrow, a holiday, is three weeks from the December 14 meeting, when the Commission will vote on the final order. Previous Chairmen have even refused to release draft language to the other Commissioners (yes, those who ultimately vote on its passage) until the day of the vote, even while well-connected political allies were privy to the same non-public information. By releasing the order over three weeks in advance, Chairman Pai is giving all stakeholders — regardless of position on the policy underlying the order — a chance to weigh in and provide comments. Regardless of your stance on the policy underlying the order, going against previous agency policy and opening yourself up to immense criticism is admirable and should be applauded.

Yes, today’s white copy came out the day before Thanksgiving, But it was Chairman Wheeler who wrote the schedule of this year’s meetings — putting the December meeting on the 14th, thus making the white copy date today. Pai promised to resolve this issue back in April by the end of the year. Had the order been ready to be released in October and voted on at the November meeting, he surely would have done so.

If you really want to see what burying an item looks like, consider Julius Genachowski, President Obama’s first FCC Chairman, who first released the 2010 Open Internet Order on December 23rd. Not only was that two days before Christmas, it was also two days after the Commission actually voted on the language. Not to be outdone, it took Chairman Wheeler two weeks to publish his 2015 Open Internet Order text.

Chairman Pai has clearly done his best to release the draft as soon as it was ready, giving the public and other Commissioners as much time as possible to review and address any concerns.

To understand the significance of Chairman Pai’s willingness to release the draft to the public far in advance of the vote, one need only look at the myriad of previous FCC rules, which afforded stakeholders and Commissioners alike almost no time to review its language in anticipation of the actual vote. In fact, no previous FCC — from Obama to Bush to Clinton — has afforded the public an opportunity to view the draft language of an order until days, or even weeks, after the FCC already adopted the rule as law.

Policy wonks can, and will, undoubtedly argue ad nauseum about whether the Chairman’s policies are in the best interest of our country. However, one thing is inarguably certain: Chairman Pai’s approach to opening up the FCC to the public is unprecedented, and will undoubtedly empower people to share, contribute, and connect with FCC like never before. As Chairman of the agency tasked with connecting our country, these efforts should be commended, regardless of political affiliation.