[WillPostForFood]

Like you said, the FCC position was "1. we refuse to regulate ISPs, 2. nobody else can either". That does not open the door to "ISPs are at the mercy of state regulators". However, the FCC was sued, and the courts overturned #2 (nobody else can either). Now the door is open, but that's not the intent of the FCC, which is why the Federal Govt is continuing to litigate.

[kstrauser]

It does, actually. FCC reigns supreme in telecom regulations when they regulate something. However, they claimed that federal net neutrality was out of scope of the FCC's regulatory power. Because of that, by their own words they lack standing to prevent the states from doing their own thing.

For instance, the FCC can't sue California over smog controls because clean air isn't under the FCC's jurisdiction. Well, the FCC has claimed, in court, that net neutrality is also not under their jurisdiction. Their claims under oath are contradictory: either they have the power to enforce net neutrality (in which case it should still be federal law) or they don't (in which case they don't have grounds to tell California that CA can't enforce it).