Four lobby groups representing the broadband industry today sued California to stop the state’s new net neutrality law.
The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of California by mobile industry lobby CTIA, cable industry lobby NCTA, telco lobby USTelecom, and the American Cable Association, which represents small and mid-size cable companies. Together, these four lobby groups represent all the biggest mobile and home Internet providers in the US and hundreds of smaller ISPs. Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile US, Sprint, Cox, Frontier, and CenturyLink are among the groups’ members.
“This case presents a classic example of unconstitutional state regulation,” the complaint said. The California net neutrality law “was purposefully intended to countermand and undermine federal law by imposing on [broadband] the very same regulations that the Federal Communications Commission expressly repealed in its 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order.”
ISPs say the California law impermissibly regulates interstate commerce. “[I]t is impossible or impracticable for an Internet service provider offering [broadband] to distinguish traffic that moves only within California from traffic that crosses state borders,” the lobby groups’ complaint said.
The groups asked the court to declare that the state law “is preempted and unconstitutional, and should permanently enjoin [California] from enforcing or giving effect to it.”
California now faces two major lawsuits challenging the net neutrality law signed by Governor Jerry Brown on Sunday. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice also sued California and is seeking a preliminary injunction that would stop the law from being implemented. California’ net neutrality rules are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2019.
Multiple court cases will affect state law
Like the DOJ, broadband lobby groups argue that state net neutrality laws are preempted by the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of federal net neutrality rules. The FCC and DOJ claim that California’s net neutrality law conflicts with the federal government’s deregulatory policy for broadband. California argues that the FCC gave up its authority to regulate broadband and therefore cannot preempt states from regulating the industry.