The FCC on Thursday took a procedural step toward publishing the controversial rules in the Federal Register, the official U.S. government publication for agency rules. The FCC, said a spokesman, planned to send a Paperwork Reduction Act notice to the Federal Register and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Thursday, one of the final steps before the rules are published.

Next week, the Federal Register is likely to publish the FCC's estimates on the paperwork burden the net neutrality rules would create, the spokesman said. After a 30-day public comment period on the paperwork estimate, the OMB will have to approve the proposed rules.

After the OMB approves the rules, they will be published in the Federal Register. Sixty days after publication, they go into effect, meaning it could be nearly a year between the FCC's vote to approve and the implementation of the rules.

The , passed by Congress in 1980, was intended to reduce the paperwork burden that the U.S. government creates for the public. The law requires federal agencies to get OMB approval before collecting a significant amount of new information from the public or from businesses.

The net neutrality, or open Internet, rules prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic or applications. The rules also require broadband providers to disclose to the public information about their pricing, speeds and network management practices, and that portion of the rules is what needs to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the FCC spokesman said.