The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which existed for about a century before being mercifully put out to pasture in 1995, is one of the best historical examples of how governmental attempts at regulating the economy can backfire.
Created with the stated goal of protecting consumers from the competitive interests of Gilded Age railroad barons, the ICC was quickly captured by the very special interests it sought to control, then helped entrench a railroad cartel. At the height of its powers, the ICC tried to limit the use of trucks for hauling freight (an effort that thankfully failed) and used its influence to have a critic of the railroad monopoly committed to an asylum.
Naturally, some senators see the ICC as the ideal model for a new agency aimed at regulating Big Tech. Bad ideas never seem to truly die in Washington.
While promoting their bipartisan bill to ramp up federal regulation of successful tech companies in The New York Times, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) pointed to the ICC as one model for what they aim to do. “It’s time to rein in Big Tech,” they argued, “and we can’t do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem.” Warren has also invoked the ICC in posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) and in public comments calling for tighter federal control over companies like Amazon and Facebook.
Indeed, their bill wouldn’t nibble. It would create a new federal commission to regulate online platforms. The Digital Consumer Protection Commission would have concurrent jurisdiction (which really means overlapping and duplicative mandates) with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice. In the senators’ telling, this newfangled ICC would aim to “preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries.”
That’s far from the whole story of the original ICC.
Hellbound and Down 