Loper Bright, A Court Ruling That Changes How D.C. Operates
Loper Bright sets the stage for a Republican-led overhaul of broadband and telecom policy in 2025.
Jericho Casper
A Supreme Court decision this year redefined the balance of power between federal agencies and the courts – curbing the power of regulators like the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to interpret ambiguous statutes.
The ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, issued in June, was expected to unleash a wave of legal challenges to FCC and NTIA policies that lack explicit Congressional backing, reshaping the landscape of telecommunications and broadband regulation.
The 12 Days of Broadband (click to open)
- On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
An extra-planetary-life-promoting tech billionaire set on electing a president. - On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: 23 million served by the Affordable Connectivity Program.
- On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
3rd year without the Federal Communications Commission having spectrum auction authority. - On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funds already allocated. - On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
5,500 active satellites currently in Low-Earth Orbit. - On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More than 6 years of service at the FCC by Commissioner and Chairman-designate Brendan Carr. - On the Seventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More than 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually consumed by data centers in the U.S. - On the Eighth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$8.1 billion dollars in annual Universal Service Funds. - On the Ninth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$90 billion in global telecom Merger & Acquisition deals value in 2024. - On the Tenth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
100 broadband-related rulemakings at the FCC relying on Chevron Deference. - On the Eleventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
Nearly 11 years to complete the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, complete with defaulted locations. - On the Twelfth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More than a dozen policy-makers and pro-tech thinkers echoing the Andreessen-Horowitz “Little Tech” agenda.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court overturned the Chevron doctrine, a forty-year-old precedent that required courts to defer to federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, so long as those interpretations were deemed reasonable.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote to opinion for the Court in Loper Bright, said Chevron deference needed to be abandoned.
"Chevron was a judicial invention that required judges to disregard their statutory duties. And the only way to ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion is for us to leave Chevron behind," Roberts said.
