Sean McLaughlin

In 2012, California decided to deregulate the broadband internet industry until 2020 with the aim of encouraging greater consumer choice, economic growth and innovation. Eight years later, these benefits have not materialized. Instead internet providers have taken advantage of deregulation to increase prices and evade oversight. Now internet providers are pushing Assembly Bill 1366, which would extend this disastrous policy for another decade.

[Commentary] The opinion piece by Mike Montgomery needs a reality check (“In reforming the PUC, Brown should replace commissioners”; Forum, Oct. 16). Yes, Montgomery and friends at CALinnovates, the private sector has a deep interest in how regulators perform their essential function, and you might like to name a few more of your own to the California Public Utilities Commission. But we need to remember that consumers and the wider public interest must also be at the table.

Groups like TURN (The Utility Reform Network), the Greenlining Institute, Media Alliance and others provide a necessary voice for the social contract upon which utility network operators build, and these voices must be heard. The call for replacing the reformers on the PUC in order to advance reform is simply ludicrous. If you want transparent, accountable regulation made by informed ethical regulators, Sandoval is a star performer and California is lucky to have her service.

[Sean Taketa McLaughlin is executive director of Access Humboldt based in Eureka (CA), and a board member for the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition based in Washington, D.C.]