'Huge Fight' Seen as California Net Neutrality Bill Nears Senate Vote

Senators must vote on Wiener’s bill by Friday, the last day to pass bills out of their originating chamber. California bills must pass both chambers by Aug. 31 under legislative rules. SB-822 cleared its third and final Senate committee last week (see 1805250051). Oregon, Vermont and Washington state enacted net neutrality laws this year, and bills are pending in several other states, with June floor votes expected in New York and Massachusetts (see 1805240043 and 1805170041).

“This is going to be a huge fight,” with telecom and cable companies “putting their all into defeating the bill,” Wiener said Tuesday at a news conference livestreamed from Sacramento. “Ideally … this would be handled at the national level,” but the Trump administration wiped away all net neutrality rules, the state senator said. Other states should follow California’s example, said state Sen. Bill Dodd (D). The Electronic Frontier Foundation, California Labor Federation, Writers Guild of America West and others also supported the bill at the rally. EFF blogged that Californians should call state senators in support.

ISPs and business groups are lined up against SB-822. ISPs won’t block, throttle or otherwise interfere, but the Wiener bill “will result in numerous unintended consequences and will establish requirements that go well beyond those net neutrality principles to create a set of regulations that will have negative impacts on both investment and consumers,” said a May 8 letter to California Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Ricardo Lara (D) shared with us by the California Chamber of Commerce. Other signers included AT&T, Verizon, CTIA, Frontier Communications and the California Cable & Telecommunications Association.

SB-822 may be the first state bill allowing consumers to bring direct actions against ISPs and recover damages, Lichtenberg said. It “specifically addresses the question of how ISPs should address edge providers -- requiring that ISPs not require edge providers to ‘pay extra’ for better service,” the NRRI official emailed. It “allows for zero rating of traffic, as long as there is no charge, as well as for the offering of different levels of service to the provider’s customers,” she said. “This is new and appears to allow companies to offer basic default service as well as other levels of service.”

A possible complication is that senators passed another net neutrality bill in January (see 1801300025) by state Sen. Kevin de León (D), who June 5 faces off against incumbent Dianne Feinstein (D) in a primary for her U.S. Senate seat. SB-460 hasn’t budged since the Senate delivered it to the Assembly. Wiener and de León have been talking, “but any work between their bills will likely take place in the Assembly,” a Wiener spokesman emailed. De León didn’t comment.

What happens to de León in next week’s primary election could affect what bill moves forward, said Blum, a California telecom consultant for local governments. “California has a nonpartisan primary, so the top vote getters, regardless of party, go forward to the November general election,” and de León has a good shot of coming in in second place ahead of Republicans to make the cut, Blum said. If he does, de León -- not a well-known name -- “will be looking for whatever edge he can find” in the general election to attack Feinstein from the left, the consultant said. “Net neutrality is a bigger issue with her base than with his, so it's a way to pry some votes away from her.”