On Monday, The Buckeye Institute, together with the Washington Legal Foundation and the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, filed an amicus brief in the case Ohio Telecom Association v. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The brief urges the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to consider the case en banc and reaffirm Congress’s authority over federal rulemaking.
David C. Tryon, director of litigation at The Buckeye Institute, stated: “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.”
The organizations argue that when Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act in 1996, its goal was to limit administrative agencies’ power and assert legislative control over federal regulations. They note that Congress used this act in 2017 to repeal an FCC rule and that in 2024, despite lacking new authorization from Congress, the FCC introduced a similar regulation. According to their brief, the Congressional Review Act “strips the agency of authority to ever try reissuing the rule unless Congress greenlights it first.”
