Grilling Of FCC's Tom Wheeler Starts This Week

Tom Wheeler

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has been able to ignore Republicans over the past year’s bruising net neutrality battle, thanks to Democrats’ 3-2 majority at the agency.

This week, he’ll have to fight them face to face, according to Politico.

On the heels of the FCC’s vote last month to treat broadband like a utility, Wheeler will appear before five congressional committees over the next two weeks, facing off with Republicans in both chambers who have accused him of bending to the will of President Barack Obama and seizing regulatory control of the Internet.

Without Democratic support, there’s little Republicans can do to roll back the FCC’s order. But that hasn’t stopped conservatives from trying, and they’re planning to assail Wheeler with aggressive questions in what’s sure to be a rocky and unprecedented few days for the bespectacled chairman.

“He’s going to get grilled and he deserves it,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who’s begun an investigation into alleged White House meddling with the FCC’s decision-making and will host Wheeler’s first Hill hearing on Tuesday.

The chairman and the four other FCC commissioners are also scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday and the House telecom subcommittee on Thursday; the meetings are slated as general oversight hearings, but net neutrality will figure heavily into both.

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