The California Alliance for Digital Equity and 27 other organizations sent Newsom, the state attorney general, and president of the utilities commission a letter earlier this week, saying that accepting the money “would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda.”

Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford Law School professor who helped pass the 2018 state net neutrality law, said it’s essential that the state challenge the federal program’s conditions in court before accepting the funding. She said the federal government’s terms would endanger a 2019 law created after an incident in which firefighters had to revert to using their personal devices while fighting a wildfire after Verizon reduced connection speeds. The federal program can also take back grant money to enforce its conditions.