Already besieged FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is really copping it from the GOP, in the wake of Donald Trump’s shock victory. Party leaders want Wheeler to stand down and to not pass any more regulations.
The agency is poised to vote on a number of key and controversial agenda items this week, including Wheeler’s long-standing bid to send the cable box into extinction – a move that would cost the cable industry $21 billion in rental fees.
“I strongly urge the FCC to avoid directing its attention and resources in the coming months to complex, partisan, or otherwise controversial items that the new Congress and new Administration will have an interest in reviewing,” Senator John Thune (R-SD) wrote Tuesday in a letter to Wheeler. “Any action taken by the FCC following November 8, 2016, will receive particular scrutiny.”
The GOP has consistently hounded Wheeler in the past for actions such as passing net neutrality rules, reclassifying ISPs as common carriers, highlighting a lack of competition in the market, and implementing a higher 25 Mbps standard definition for broadband.
