Tech, Telecom Scholars Tell Gavin Newsom To Find His Spine

I recently noted how California's being told by the Trump administration that it can't enforce any of its own telecom consumer protection laws if it wants to receive $1.4 billion dollars Congress already earmarked for broadband expansion under the 2021 infrastructure bill.

That means if California wants money it was already supposed to receive from Congress, it can't enforce its own net neutrality law, telecom privacy law, affordability metrics, reliability targets, or effectively do anything telecom monopoly giants like AT&T and Comcast don't like for the next 14 years.

More specifically, some extremely unpopular Trump NTIA revisions to the infrastructure bill's Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program included a little something called Condition 50," which would impose a 14 year moratorium on telecom consumer protection in the state. It's just grotesque levels of corruption and regulatory capture, and it's flown largely under the radar.

Tim Wu (Columbia), Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler (Harvard), Jack Balkin (Yale), Zephyr Teachout (Fordham), and Barbara van Schewick (Stanford) have penned a joint letter to Gavin Newsom urging him to refuse to sign the state's BEAD notice of award agreement while Condition 50 is still attached. Or, better yet, legally challenge the federal government extortion:

California must decide by November 1 whether to sign the Notice of Award for its $1.42 billion BEAD grant. We urge the State not to sign while Condition 50 remains attached, with or without a side letter. The best course is to challenge Condition 50 in court before the deadline: California has strong arguments that NTIA lacked authority to impose the condition, but it has a realistic chance of winning only if it sues before signing the award. If the State decides not to sue, it should decline the award and make clear that California is ready to accept the funds as soon as the condition is removed."

(Since the letter's writing the deadline has shifted to November 2, I'm told). If California signs the letter with Condition 50 attached, the Trump NTIA will argue the challenge belongs in D.C. federal court under a very narrow standard of review, and that California knowingly accepted the condition. Such a case would be extremely difficult to win, the academics note.

Given the total collapse of federal consumer protection and regulatory integrity, AT&T, Comcast, and other giants would be free to rip off consumers - and undermine competitors - with impunity.

Public Knowledge, EFF, Free Press, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, TURN, groups representing rural and low-income Californians, leaders of the Lower Russian River Firewise Communities, the Communications Workers of America, and the California Democratic Party's Rural Caucus have also joined the calls to fight back against the Trump administration before the November 2 deadline.

It's unclear if Newsom, increasingly under fire for being too corporate-friendly to be a serious presidential contender (see: his assistance in getting Larry Ellison's media mergers approved with flimsy conditions), will take a stand here. There's a lot going on in a country being devoured by authoritarian corruption, and trying to prevent telecom monopolies from ripping off captive customers hasn't been much of a priority.

It's worth noting that every other state has signed their letter to receive their funds, in part because telecom lobbying has already neutered state autonomy over broadband in those states. Thirty-three states and D.C. bar their utility commissions from regulating broadband, and in seven more the commission has disclaimed that authority on its own" (read: AT&T told them to).

The efforts to muzzle California's consumer protection capabilities is just one of numerous extremely unpopular and corrupt changes made to the infrastructure bill program to the benefit of either massive monopolies - or Elon Musk.

I've explored at length (at several different outlets) how $42.5 billion in BEAD funding was supposed to be headed to the states to address broadband improvements. Instead, the Trump administration has hijacked the program, driven billions of dollars of those funds to Musk for inferior satellite service (he'd already planned to deploy without subsidy), and stripped the program of any requirement that these taxpayer funds be dispersed equitably or with an eye on affordability.

You know, because cheap, ultra-fast, fiber optic cable that challenges Comcast is woke.

The $42.5 billion in BEAD money states were supposed to get for broadband upgrades was already effectively cut in half after the Trump administration engaged in Elon Musk favoritism. That meant a lot of money previously slated for cheap, future-proof fiber will instead be redirected to Musk's increasingly congested Starlink Low-Earth-Orbit satellite network.

Now states are being told they won't get any money at all if they engage in policy choices big telecom giants don't like, including enforcing basic reliability and affordability protections.