By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 1-12-21
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and a baker’s dozen Democratic members of the California congressional delegation have called on attorney general nominee Merrick Garland to make net neutrality one of his first orders of business in the new post.
Garland has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has principal oversight of FCC decisions like the elimination of net neutrality rules.
Specifically, the legislators want Garland to withdraw the government’s lawsuit against California’s net neutrality law ASAP when he takes over after Inauguration Day.
The law was passed after the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) order scrapped its net neutrality rules banning blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. The FCC’s RIF deregulation of Internet access included a preemption of state regs that conflicted with that decision. But in 2018, California passed its own tough net neutrality rules anyway to fill what it saw as a regulatory void. » Read More