{"id":8393,"date":"2018-04-18T19:45:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T02:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=8393"},"modified":"2018-04-18T19:45:39","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T02:45:39","slug":"california-net-neutrality-bill-passes-state-senate-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/04\/18\/california-net-neutrality-bill-passes-state-senate-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"California net neutrality bill passes state senate committee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Benny Evangelista<\/a>\u00a0(SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n

April 17, 2018<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

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Photo: Carolyn Kaster \/ Associated Press<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
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A protester holds a sign that advocating for resistance to the Federal Communications Commission\u2019s repeal of the Obama administration\u2019s net neutrality rules. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, is hoping to pass legislation that would in effect restore the net neutrality rules in California.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A bill to create California\u2019s version of expiring national net neutrality regulation passed its first major test Tuesday by getting through the state Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.<\/p>\n

The committee voted 8-3 to send the bill authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to the Senate Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

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The bill, however, still has a long road ahead before gaining approval by both houses of the Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornians want to protect net neutrality, and this is not a partisan issue,\u201d Wiener said during the hearing.<\/p>\n

Still, the bill is highly political, and the Democrat-dominated committee voted along party lines. Under the Trump administration, the Federal Communications Commission voted in December to rescind rules that forced Internet service providers to adhere to the principles of net neutrality. The rules were meant to ensure companies that provide Internet service to treat all Web traffic fairly and evenly. The net neutrality repeal is scheduled to go into effect April 23.<\/p>\n

Wiener called the FCC\u2019s action \u201coutrageous\u201d and said it reversed \u201cmore than 15 years of careful bipartisan work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, the energy committee chairman, went a step further, opening his comments about the bill by saying \u201ctotalitarian dictatorships and monarchies are not very popular\u201d and \u201cat the very core of what we do not support in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn this case in particular, the president overstepped his bounds,\u201d Heuso said. The state needed to take action \u201cin absence of our federal government that refuses to do its job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the Obama administration, the FCC adopted net neutrality rules in 2015 to prevent the biggest Internet providers from favoring certain websites over others by blocking or slowing down service for some customers or charging not to do so.<\/p>\n

But under Trump, the Republican-dominated commission voted in December to return to a \u201clight touch\u201d set of regulations that Chairman Ajit\u00a0<\/em>Pai said had allowed the Internet industry to prosper.<\/p>\n

The FCC\u2019s December decision was supported by the largest telecommunications companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, which strongly oppose Wiener\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not block websites, we do not censor Internet content, we do not degrade Internet access,\u201d Bill Devine, an AT&T vice president, told the state Senate committee. \u201cThis bill is built upon speculation that somebody, somewhere, sometime in the future might violate net neutrality rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiener\u2019s bill goes far beyond the FCC\u2019s 2015 order and contains confusing language that could stifle investment in Internet infrastructure, Devine said.<\/p>\n

Wiener hopes to use California\u2019s sheer market size to force the biggest Internet providers to adhere to net neutrality policies throughout the country. Proponents and opponents nationwide had their eyes fixed on this bill because it was the most comprehensive bill introduced in any state so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the only state level bill that fully restores all of the 2015 net neutrality protections,\u201d Weiner said.<\/p>\n

Carolyn McIntyre, California Cable & Telecommunications Association president, said the bill \u201cwould shift increased costs to consumers\u201d and subject Internet companies to \u201ca patchwork of potentially conflicting requirements both within and outside of California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faith Bautista, president of the nonprofit home counseling agency National Asian American Coalition, said the real problem was solving the digital divide and providing cheap online access for seniors and immigrants.<\/p>\n

With the bill, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to solve a problem that\u2019s not a problem,\u201d Bautista said. \u201cWho will be the winners? The lawyers. We all want an open Internet, but we are all opposed to SB822.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents of the bill feared the committee would gut it of consumer protection measures, but Wiener said in a statement that amendments to the bill approved in the committee \u201cmaintain all the key provisions of the bill intact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee removed a proposal to make the state Public Utilities Commission in charge of net neutrality rules. It also clarified how the state attorney general\u2019s office would enforce issues such as whether an Internet service company was improperly connecting companies to the Internet or not offering equal access to services competing for consumers.<\/p>\n

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra submitted a letter supporting the bill on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:\u00a0bevangelista@sfchronicle.com<\/a>\u00a0Twitter:\u00a0@ChronicleBenny<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Benny<\/em><\/p>\n

Benny Evangelista<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

Business and Technology Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Benny Evangelista\u00a0(SFChronicle.com) April 17, 2018\u00a0 Photo: Carolyn Kaster \/ Associated Press A protester holds a sign that advocating for resistance to the Federal Communications Commission\u2019s repeal of the Obama administration\u2019s net neutrality rules. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, is hoping to pass legislation that would in effect restore the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8394,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions\/8394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}