California AG reaches deal that puts litigation against the state on hold, as court considers whether FCC net neutrality order can preempt state rules.
California will not enforce its net neutrality law until after a court decides whether the FCC’s net neutrality order can preempt state laws.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Friday reached a deal with the Department of Justice and the cable and internet service provider industries that puts litigation against the state on hold, pending the court decision on the preemption question.
The appeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s order ending federal net neutrality regulations is pending in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Oral arguments in that case are set to begin Feb. 1, court filings show.
The deal makes sense to Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which supports SB 822.
“It could’ve been a big waste of time,” Falcon said Friday. What this agreement does is put a temporary hold on litigation that’s sure to start back up in a few months, he said.
SB 822 author Scott Wiener, the state senator from San Francisco, said in a statement Friday: “Of course, I very much want to see California’s net neutrality law go into effect immediately, in order to protect access to the internet. Yet, I also understand and support the Attorney General’s rationale for allowing the DC Circuit appeal to be resolved before we move forward to defend our net neutrality law in court.”
California’s net neutrality law was set to take effect Jan. 1.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai took the opportunity to express confidence that his agency’s order would be upheld, and called the development a “substantial concession” on the part of California.
“The Internet is inherently an interstate information service, as the Supreme Court has recognized, which means that only the federal government can set policy in this area,” Pai said in a statement Friday.
Meanwhile, broadband industry group USTelecom on Friday again called for “Congress to resolve this issue by passing a national framework to protect that principle for all Americans.”
The FCC repealed the Open Internet Order, which established net neutrality regulations in 2015, in a partisan vote last year. The repeal, which took effect this summer, has had states scrambling to establish rules to keep internet providers from throttling, blocking or treating online traffic differently. California’s net neutrality law, which passed this summer and was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September, is considered the most comprehensive of the states’ rules.
