Lawmaker guts net neutrality bill
Measure’s author denounces last-minute amendments that weakened measure
The fate of a bill that would have given California the strongest net neutrality protections is up in the air after an unusual, tense state Assembly committee meeting Wednesday. In the meeting, the committee’s Democratic chairman called for a vote on last-minute amendments that essentially gutted the bill before any testimony was heard.
California’s bill has been called the most comprehensive state net neutrality bill introduced since the Federal Communications Commis-
sion voted to repeal the Obama-era Open Internet Rules in December. The repeal of the federal rules — which were meant to ensure that all internet traffic gets equal treatment — took effect earlier this month, and many states have now adopted or are working to adopt their own rules.
The author of the bill, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, asked Wednesday to withdraw it as amended, but the committee voted to move it forward anyway. Senate Bill 822 is scheduled for a hearing in front of a different committee next week, but Wiener said Wednesday he is unwilling to support the bill as amended.
“It’s really outrageous how it went down,” he said in a phone interview with this publication Wednesday. “This is not the right way to move legislation forward.”
Assemblyman Miguel
Santiago, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the Communications and Conveyance Committee, called for a vote first thing Wednesday morning on his amendments to SB 822, which he introduced late Tuesday night.
Wiener’s SB 822 would prohibit internet service providers from blocking or slowing traffic. It goes even further than the nowrepealed federal rules in that it also takes aim at most zero-rating practices, which exempt certain kinds of traffic from data caps.
Santiago’s amendments would allow for paid prioritization and zero rating, and would give “large corporations a huge unfair advantage over startups and small businesses,” Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, said in a statement.
In a bipartisan 8-0 vote, Democrats joined with Republicans and, as Wiener put it, “eviscerated” the measure right at the beginning of the hearing Wednesday morning.
“This committee has turned the bill into one
that doesn’t protect net neutrality,” Wiener said at the hearing. “I do not accept these amendments.”
Greer called the move unprecedented. “The level of corruption we just witnessed literally makes me sick to my stomach,” she said in a statement.
SB 822, which is backed by former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the mayors of the state’s biggest cities and advocacy groups, was passed by the state Senate at the end of May.
Still, the measure is strongly opposed by internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and others — which have spent nearly $1 million during the first quarter to lobby against SB 822 and other bills — so Wiener on Monday joined forces with state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, and his net neutrality bill, SB 460.
Amid murmurs that Santiago was considering opposing the bills’ union and watering down SB 822, U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Anna Eshoo,
D-Palo Alto, made the unusual move of sending Santiago letters this week urging him to “maintain all the comprehensive protections in SB 822,” and mentioning that a California bill could set the standard for the rest of the nation.
Santiago counts AT&T, Comcast and Verizon among his donors, and advocacy groups were quick to point that out.
“Miguel Santiago — who has cemented his legacy as California’s version of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — and other committee members prioritized AT&T and Comcast’s greed and campaign cash above the urgent need for net neutrality rules, in a shocking display of contempt for the public process that stunned even longtime Capitol observers,” Demand Progress campaign director Robert Cruickshank said in a statement Wednesday. (Pai, who was appointed chairman of the FCC by President Donald Trump, led the repeal of the federal net neutrality rules, which was decided in a 3-2 partisan vote.)
“This is the legislative
process at work,” Santiago said in a statement Wednesday. “Any suggestions of actions taken today somehow being otherwise motivated are irresponsible at best, and insulting beyond that.”
But Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a supporter of SB 822, said in a phone interview Wednesday that the committee seemed to have agreed to “destroy the bill off camera, then hold a hearing.” He added, “There was a clear intent to
destroy the bill.”
AT&T Vice President Bill Devine said at the hearing that his company opposes SB 822, both as it was originally presented and with Santiago’s amendments.
“It’s too extreme,” he said. “It is anti-consumer and will drive up the cost of internet service.”
Wiener said Wednesday that he will continue to engage in negotiations ahead of the scheduled hearing for SB 822 next week in front of the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protections Committee.