A net victory

Given up for dead in June, the issue of enforcing net neutrality is back with a vengeance with a key state legislative panel reversing itself. Odd as that political turnabout sounds, another unusual factor may be California’s biggest-ever wildfire.

An Assembly committee approved nearly the same bill it gutted two months ago that seeks to guarantee that internet traffic be treated equally, a shot at telecommunications firms that want to charge fees or favor preferred providers. Such a shift would be a fundamental change in digital access and consumer freedom.

The latest vote came with a special jolt brought on by the giant Mendocino Complex fire and a fire crew that experienced severely slowed data transmissions when its Verizon service was curbed.

Though Verizon officials say the incident was an accident and shouldn’t have occurred, critics pounced on the disruption as an example of throttling, a tactic that major telecoms may use if net neutrality rules aren’t in place.

The timing of the wildfire episode and panel vote was uppermost in the mind of Sen. Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat pushing the access rules embodied in SB822. The fire crew’s experience was evidence of throttling and its effect on safety.

Now a winner, Wiener was an infuriated loser earlier this summer when his plan was stymied. He had sought to enforce open access rules in California after the Trump administration dropped the policy put in place by the Obama team. The issue has brought on lobbying by telecom firms that oppose neutrality aligned against consumer groups and major streaming and business services worried about higher bills to reach their audiences.

Wiener’s bill needs to pass both the Assembly and Senate and be signed by the governor. But this state’s smoky summer is keeping a major issue before lawmakers.