Net neutrality bill passes in watered-down version
Lawmakers work to restore stronger protections
A weakened net neutrality bill was advanced by a state Assembly committee Tuesday even as its author held his nose about its passage.
As amended, SB 822 does not have the impact that State Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, intended.
“The bill, in its current form, no longer protects net neutrality and is not worth passing,” Wiener said in a statement Tuesday. “However, I am working with the Chair of the Communications Committee, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, to restore the protections that the committee removed.”
Santiago, the Democratic chairman of the state Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee, last week rushed through a vote on the amendments he proposed to the bill. The voting process on the amended version of the bill was unusual and drew outrage: He called for a vote at the beginning of the hearing, before any testimony was heard.
After being accused of being in the pocket of AT&T and others, Santiago last week released a statement explaining his stance: “I wanted to engage in a serious policy conversation and deliver a bill that could withstand legal challenges from the telecommunications industry — an industry that sued to block implementation of the 2015 FCC Order implemented under President Obama; most definitely an industry that will sue to block implementation of landmark net neutrality protections in California.”
SB 822 seeks to fill the void that the repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules leaves, and had been called the most comprehensive of the many state efforts to do so. But the amendments pushed through last week would allow for paid prioritization and zero rating, which is the practice of exempting certain traffic from data caps.
Net neutrality is the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally, and the Open Internet Rules adopted in 2015 prohibited internet service providers from slowing down or blocking traffic, and from preferring certain traffic over others. The Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the rules is a huge victory for internet service providers, which have spent nearly $1 million during the first quarter
to lobby against SB 822 and other bills in California.
Wiener said Tuesday in a statement that he simply wants to move the bill out of committee so he and other state legislators can keep working on it.
“To be clear, if the bill ultimately remains in its current form, I will withdraw it, as I have no desire to pass a fake net neutrality bill,” he said. “But my sincere hope is that we will be able to amend it in the near future back into a strong form.”
At the least, these are the biggest things Wiener would want restored to SB 822, spokesman Jeff Cretan said Tuesday: requiring adherence to net neutrality at the point of interconnection; banning abusive zero rating; and banning charging of access fees.
The bill, passed by the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee Tuesday, will head to one last committee, the Assembly Appropriations Committee. If passed there, it would head to the full Assembly, which must vote on it by the end of August.