Free Speech Curtailed in the Federal Communications Act of 1996 2

Local neighbors met recently to discuss how to stop T-Mobile’s planned installation of a cellular antenna near the intersection of Cumberland Road and Pacific Avenue (earlier post on the subject here). I thought our city council would be able to consider and pass along every citizen’s concern about this proposed tower. But it turns out that lobbyists working for telecommunications companies have limited both our free speech and the speech of our municipal representatives!

During the neighborhood meeting, I heard that federal law prohibited any protest of cellular antenna installation on the basis of possible health effects. I’ve since searched for the background on this matter and found it on a central New Jersey blog dedicated to blocking a T-Mobile antenna in its residential neighborhood. From Mobile Impact:

Among other things, Section 332(c)(7) provides that
“[n]o State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with [FCC’s] regulations concerning such emissions.” The full text of Section 332(c)(7) is set forth in Appendix C.

There is much more text in the document, but I want to point out the two bold sections. The second passage basically says that as long as a transmitter falls below FCC safety limits, no state or local government may challenge an installation on the basis of environmental effects. This is the portion of the FCA that corporations use to push installations through and is the provision that our local government is hiding behind. However, the first statement says that the state and local authority over decisions regarding placement, construction and modification of wireless transmitters is preserved. This is the check and balance system at work.

This effectively shuts out any community protest to local governments citing possible health effects from cellular antenna radiation. The post continues:

According to Common Cause, a nonprofit advocacy organization:

“Since 1997, just eight of the country’s largest and most powerful media and telecommunications companies, their corporate parents, and three of their trade groups, have spent more than $400 million on political contributions and lobbying in Washington, according to an analysis of federal records. All this investment once again gives radio and television broadcasters, telephone companies, long-distance providers, cable systems and Internet companies a huge advantage over average citizens.”

None of this prevents a local government challenge to the placement of antennas. The deck is stacked against the local citizens and their representatives, but it is not the sure thing that the bluster of the telecom corporations or their legal representation would have you believe.

In fact, we were told that many municipalities don’t challenge telecom corporation requests because they believe they will be sued. Just recently, however, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the City of San Diego, who lost a lower court suit Sprint filed against it for restricting construction of its antennas. More from the Coalition to Regulate Antennae Siting:

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld San Diego
County’s limits on the placement, size and design of towers and poles that
are needed for companies to provide cell phone service and wireless Internet
connections. The court also voted 11-0 to discard a standard it had
established in 2001 that barred local governments from adopting any
restrictions that “may have the effect of prohibiting” wireless services.

Federal courts in the nine-state circuit have relied on the 2001 ruling to
overturn restrictions on telecommunications structures in several
communities, including San Francisco and Berkeley. The court said Thursday
that it had misinterpreted federal law when it issued the earlier ruling,
and that local governments can regulate wireless towers and poles as long as
they don’t actually prohibit wireless service within their borders or create
a “significant gap in service coverage.”

Best wishes to our coalition, which is benefiting from the documented experiences of local activitists throughout the nation and from the guidance established by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. If you want that portion of the Federal Communications Act of 1996 overturned, write your representative in Congress, as the blogger at Mobile Impact urged.