When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) removed net neutrality protections, the Trump administration took an unusual additional step: it made it specifically illegal for states to introduce their own net neutrality laws …
Several states ignored this and decided to act to restore net neutrality locally. New York found a workaround, withholding state contracts from violators, while Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and California decided to simply implement their own laws in defiance of the FCC ruling.
The California bill was signed into law yesterday, and the Trump administration wasted no time in seeking to overturn it, reports the WSJ.
California, however, remains defiant.
In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the federal government, not the states, should oversee the internet, and California had “enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy.”
Five other states – Hawaii, New Jersey, Montana, Rhode Island and Vermont – have followed New York’s example in partially reinstating net neutrality.
Photo of California State Capitol: David Fulmer
