As Washington and Oregon stamp and enact the country’s first statewide Net Neutrality laws, the battle in California, one of the biggest and most proposperous states and the Internet’s literal birthplace is just getting started.
Two bills are traveling through CA’s Legislature, SB 460 from Senator Kevin De Leon, a basic Net Neutrality declaration and contracting limitation enforced by the Department of Consumer Affairs and the state DOJ and SB 822 from Senator Scott Weiner, a more ambitious bill that limits not just contracts, but also cable franchises, broadband subsidy access funds and prohibits zero rating deals that waive data cap limits on pre-selected content.
Opposition is strong to the more comprehensive bill, which will get its first hearing in the Utilities committee in mid-April. A template opposition letter expected to be submitted by numerous AT&T-funded nonprofits can be found here.
41 organizations, including Media Alliance, have signed a letter of support that can be found below, and a number of mayors, governors and former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler have weighed in.
Our position is that while more is better, the top priority is a Net Neutrality bill in California this year, be it one or the other, be it with or without the zero-rating add-on.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://media-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/letter.coalition.CA-net-neutrality-legislation-SB822.41118.pdf”]