Trump campaigned on “draining the swamp” of the industry insiders who enjoy a revolving door relationship with the regulatory branch, moving from industry to government and back again. But his actions speak louder than his words.
Trump’s FCC advisers are the epitome of DC insiders: The American Enterprise Institute’s Jeffrey Eisenach, whose hatred of net neutrality is matched only by his paychecks from Verizon; and former Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison, who also works for the American Enterprise Institute.
The AEI has a long history of employing past- and present administrative branch staff, and has offered big cash payouts to scientists who’d criticize climate change.
“Net neutrality in the US is backfiring against some of the very people it is supposed to help,” Jamison wrote in an American Enterprise Institute paper this year.
When Trump is inaugurated in January, he will have the power to swing the FCC back to conservative control, and with both a Republican White House and Congress, the FCC’s net neutrality rules are in more danger of being rolled back than ever. Trump’s latest advisers are a signal he may work to make that happen.
Trump’s new FCC advisers are more bad news for net neutrality
[Colin Lecher/The Verge]
(Image: File:American Alligator eating crab.JPG
, Gareth Rasberry, CC-BY-SA)
