Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute joined the Washington Legal Foundation in filing an amicus brief in Ohio Telecom Association v. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), calling on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to hear the case en banc and affirm congressional authority over federal rulemaking. The National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center also joined the brief.

“The FCC has ignored congressional authority in proposing a nearly identical rule to one Congress already scrapped using the Congressional Rule Act process. The FCC simply does not have this authority. If it wants to impose this rule, it must do so through Congress,” said David C. Tryon, director of litigation at The Buckeye Institute. 

In its brief, the amici argue that when Congress passed the Congressional Review Act in 1996, it intended to rein in the overreach of the administrative state and assert congressional authority over federal rulemaking. This is precisely what Congress did when, in 2017, it exercised its constitutional authority and used the Congressional Review Act to scrap an FCC rule. In 2024, despite the absence of subsequent congressional authority, the FCC proposed a nearly identical rule again. As the amici argue, the Congressional Review Act “strips the agency of authority to ever try reissuing the rule unless Congress greenlights it first.”

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