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.”
State lawmakers in August passed the nation’s strongest net-neutrality provisions, with the support of all the legislature’s Democrats and some Republicans. The law forbids internet service providers from blocking websites, intentionally slowing down a website or app or accepting payments to make online services go faster.
The measure’s regulations resemble those adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. Now led by Ajit Pai, President Trump’s choice for the role, the FCC undid those rules last year.
Experts had expected a legal showdown over the California measure. Mr. Pai, in a recent speech, called California’s measure “illegal.” In rolling back the Obama-era rules, the FCC claimed to pre-empt any state rules.
On Sunday, Mr. Pai said in a statement that he was “pleased” the Justice Department had filed suit. He added: “The internet is inherently an interstate information service. As such, only the federal government can set policy in this area.”
Mr. Pai contends the California law also would hurt consumers and is unnecessary to protect the open internet.
In response to the Justice Department suit, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said, “While the Trump Administration continues to ignore the millions of Americans who voiced strong support for net-neutrality rules, California—home to countless start-ups, tech giants and nearly 40 million consumers—will not allow a handful of power brokers to dictate sources for information or the speed at which websites load.”
California is already fighting the Trump administration in court on a number of fronts, including environmental and immigration issues. Mr. Brown waited until the last day legally allowed to make his decision on the net-neutrality law. He didn’t issue a statement on his reasons for signing it.
Democrats in the state said the legislation was necessary to protect a competitive internet, echoing activists and many tech companies for whom the issue has become a rallying cry.
“Net neutrality, at its core, is the basic notion that we each get to decide where we go on the internet, as opposed to having that decision made for us by internet service providers,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who wrote the measure, said after Mr. Brown signed it Sunday but before the federal government lawsuit. “Today marks a true win for the internet and for an open society.”
The governors of six other states—Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Montana, Rhode Island and Vermont—have signed executive orders reinstating some net-neutrality provisions. Oregon, Vermont and Washington also have enacted net-neutrality legislation.
But the California measure would go well beyond what other states have done, industry experts say
Beyond outlawing the blocking or slowdown of access to websites, the new law also bans, in certain cases, “zero rating,” an increasingly common practice where telecom providers stream content they favor without counting it against consumers’ data usage.
The California bill also says interconnection agreements—in which an online service pays a cable or wireless provider to carry its traffic—can’t be used by media companies to circumvent the open internet rules and receive faster speeds.
Cable and wireless companies that provide Internet service lobbied aggressively against the bill in the legislature.
They and other industry groups have argued the rules represent a government overreach and could create a patchwork of regulation.