The Federal Communications Commission defended its rollback of Obama era net neutrality protections on Thursday, filing a legal brief with a federal appeals court that argues the agency has the right to change its mind.

The Republican-led FCC said it was within its legal right to roll back the 2015 rules,citing a Supreme Court decision from a decade earlier as precedent. The agency says the rules, which imposed utility style regulation on broadband networks, stifled investment by ISPs.

The FCC's brief offers a first look at how the agency will defend its position in a lawsuit filed against it by attorneys general from 22 states, consumer advocates and tech companies, including Mozilla. They say the agency's repeal of regulations to protect net neutrality was "arbitrary" and "capricious."  

The heated legal battle could eventually end up at the US Supreme Court, where all eyes will be on the newly appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who questioned the FCC's authority to adopt the original net neutrality protections. That position was expressed in a dissent he wrote that challenged the rules in last year.