Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sen. Randy Brock, a Republican from Swanton who represents Franklin County and Alburgh in the Vermont Senate. He previously served as Vermont state auditor and two terms as a member of the Senate.
[O]n Friday, the Vermont Senate gave final approval to S.289, a bill designed to preserve net neutrality in Vermont.
Net neutrality is the principle that internet access should be free and open and that internet service providers (ISPs), such as Comcast and Verizon, should be unable to discriminate among net users by charging different fees based upon content or otherwise creating fast and slow lanes for internet traffic. (Perhaps one of the best explanations of net neutrality comes from a YouTube video that describes how net neutrality could work if applied to Whoppers.) Net neutrality rules were voided recently by the Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 party-line vote, an action that several states are beginning to challenge.
The Vermont bill requires ISPs that contract with state government to agree to practice net neutrality in Vermont. ISPs that do not have state contracts are free to ignore net neutrality. The FCC order banned state and local governments from acting to preserve net neutrality within their borders.
I strongly believe in net neutrality. Without it, I am concerned that large internet providers would be incentivized to favor some content over others, especially in cases in which the ISP has an ownership interest in a service, such as a movie streaming site. Without net neutrality, startups and new internet businesses could be at a disadvantage over larger, better financed competitors.
Vermont’s plan to limit its law to contracts with state government seems like a reasonable starting point, but even that is not without legal risk, as we were advised by the Legislature’s attorneys.
But there is one major risk that the Senate ignored, despite being warned of the danger by the state’s chief information officer. In some parts of rural Vermont, particularly in the southern part of the state, there is only a single viable ISP. Today, as the internet is an essential tool for much of how state government operates, the loss of internet connectivity could cripple critical operations. The vulnerability added by this legislation is that it fails to answer the question of what we will do if an ISP declines to contract with the state because it does not wish to be net neutral, especially since it can continue to do business with its Vermont customers, just not with state government.
Prisons, state police offices, highway garages, mental health facilities, the 911 system and other critical operations all depend upon having reliable internet access, ideally from two different sources where available. I offered an amendment that would have allowed for a temporary waiver of net neutrality rules where critical government operations are at risk from the absence of a net neutral ISP. The waiver would have been carefully controlled, time-limited and would have to be approved by the Emergency Board, composed of the governor and the chairs of the Legislature’s four “money committees.”
The amendment was defeated, and as a result, I voted against the bill. Sen. Carolyn Branagan, R-Franklin, and three other senators joined me in opposition.
This is what I said in explaining my “no” vote: “I strongly support the principle of net neutrality. My ‘no’ vote is based on the absence of any effective means to mitigate an imminent threat to the continuity of critical government operations, especially when certain operations are dependent upon a single provider. I believe it would be irresponsible to pass a bill simply to ‘make a statement’.”
The bottom line is that the Senate rushed passage of an ill-conceived bill that could potentially jeopardize the life and safety of Vermonters, all in a mad dash to make Vermont the first state in the nation to enact a net neutrality law.
Here we go again.
