FCC Counsel: "Wheeler Not Lap Dog For President Obama"

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is not a "lapdog" for President Obama, said Gigi Sohn, a special counsel for the chairman.

The Hill reports that during an interview Tuesday, Sohn gave one of the FCC's strongest defenses of Wheeler, denying that Obama is the one who swayed the independent agency into reclassifying broadband Internet under rules governing traditional telephones.

"We are actually going beyond what the president said," she said in an interview Tuesday with radio host Kojo Nnamdi on non-com N/T WAMU 88.5 FM. (Listen Here)

Gigi Sohn

"So this chairman is not a lapdog for the president. He is acting independently, and he is acting based on evolution over a year proceeding."

She said Wheeler's net neutrality proposal goes farther than Obama's recommendations because it will use a series of other authorities in tandem with reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act.

She also pointed out that the plan would give the agency authority over interconnection deals, something Obama’s recommendations in November only hinted at. Obama asked the agency to apply the net neutrality rules to those points of interconnection "if necessary."

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