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April 1, 2025
The Supreme Court Seems Unlikely to Revive Nondelegation Doctrine in FCC Case
Earlier this month, I previewed the arguments in Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research. The case asks the Supreme Court whether the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) violates the nondelegation doctrine, which prohibits Congress from delegating legislative power to executive branch agencies. As my previous post explains, nondelegation is a largely toothless doctrine, which has…
March 25, 2025
The Public Interest as a Political Tool
Donald Trump and Brendan Carr, the president’s choice to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), seem intent on reinvigorating the Commission’s statutory authority to ensure that over-the-over broadcasters serve “the public interest.” That’s especially so when it comes to deploying the FCC’s news distortion rule to potentially punish stations—for example, CBS affiliates that aired 60…
March 21, 2025
Will FCC v. Consumers’ Research Revive the Nondelegation Doctrine?
The idea behind the nondelegation doctrine is sound: Congress should not delegate legislative power to executive branch agencies. But its implementation leaves much to be desired. Nearly every nondelegation case acknowledges there’s a theoretical boundary but then finds that Congress hasn’t crossed it here. Only twice has the Supreme Court found a law violated the…
March 21, 2025
New Poll on Workers’ Attitudes to AI Reinforces Old Divides
Will artificial intelligence help, replace, or kill us? These long-unanswered questions came back into focus earlier this week, as the Pew Research Center published the results of an eye-opening poll that further underscores an unhappy trend: our debate about AI is fundamentally broken. Pew found that more than half of all American workers reported being…
March 18, 2025
The Sad Myth of Independent Agencies
President Trump’s recent executive order (EO) asserting more formal control over so-called independent agencies has sparked controversy. Critics decry it as a “fundamental reshaping of the federal government” and even “illegal,” fearing that it will allow the president to direct regulatory decisions. But while the EO may look dramatic, in practice it changes little. Independent…
March 18, 2025
Children’s Online Safety Should Rely on Content Providers, Not Device Manufacturers
Creating and managing a positive digital environment for children has become a priority for parents, lawmakers, and technology companies. However, as proposals progress to develop solutions and implement protections, we must ensure that our approaches address parents’ concerns without creating additional issues from the extensive collection of minors’ data. Several legislative proposals currently seek to…
March 7, 2025
Design Mandate Proposals Threaten American AI Leadership
Scholars often cite the 1984 Betamax case as a pivotal moment in the development of modern American tech policy. The entertainment industry sought to prohibit Sony from selling its videocassette recorder, because it could be—and largely was—used by consumers for copyright infringement. But the Court declined, finding that the device was “capable of substantial noninfringing…
February 26, 2025
This Silent Plane Just Made History
Two weeks ago, Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator plane made history when it broke the sound barrier over the continental United States, reaching 750 miles per hour (Mach 1.12) near Barstow, California. You might be wondering why this is news. Since Chuck Yeager’s first sonic boom in 1947, thousands of military aircraft have broken the sound barrier. Even…
February 21, 2025
Haste Controls Waste! A Theory of Reform
I’m intensely ambivalent about fast-moving events in Washington, DC, where President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a joint venture with Elon Musk, is causing consternation. Whether part of a purposeful strategy or not, the administration is “flooding the zone” with activity, producing talk of “constitutional crisis” from critics who deplore loose talk from the…
February 19, 2025
Will the Department of Justice Break the Internet?
There were many contradictions in antitrust enforcement under Biden. But what if Trump’s administration follows the same path? In a striking irony, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust case against Google, which was decided last summer, may reduce competition—both in search and in access to the World Wide Web. The DOJ’s proposed remedies would stifle…