FCC Dodges Their Issue 1

The FCC’s move to speed up municipal processing of cell tower applications completely dodged the facts behind most objections to cell tower permits.

Fact: people believe they haven’t been given all the facts. Many are convinced high-frequency emissions from cell towers might have long-term health effects. The FCC set emissions standards for wireless facilities years ago, but no study has taken into account the massive signal blanketing required for the FCC’s current goal of universal mobile broadband access. Meanwhile, other countries and prominent researchers here and abroad have called for applying the “precautionary principle” to cell phone and cell tower exposure.

Fact: this issue isn’t going away. Yesterday’s LA Times describes parent concern about a T-Mobile cell tower just installed next to an elementary school:

What worries them, Renn and others said, are studies that suggest long-term radiation exposure might be dangerous and the residents’ lack of trust in the company’s concern for their well-being. It didn’t help, Renn said, that residents didn’t know that the tower was being installed until it was already under construction.

Fact: The FCC set radiofrequency emission limits for wireless facilities and is now requiring municipalities to rush around citizen concerns with those emissions. The last two paragraphs of its declaratory ruling, referencing a petition submitted by the EMR Policy Institute (EMRPI), make it clear the commission doesn’t wish to revisit the issue:

69. Radiofrequency (RF) Emissions. Several commenters argue that we should deny CTIA’s Petition in order to protect local citizens against the health hazards that these commenters attribute to RF emissions.212 Section 332(c)(7)(B)(iv) of the Act 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 the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.”213 To the extent commenters argue that State and local governments require flexibility to deny personal wireless service facility siting applications or delay action on such applications based on the perceived health effects of RF emissions, this authority is denied by statute under Section 332(c)(7)(B)(iv). Accordingly, such arguments are outside the scope of this proceeding.

70. In its Comments and Cross-Petition, EMRPI contends that in light of additional data that has been compiled since 1996, the RF safety regulations that the Commission adopted at that time are no longer adequate.214 EMRPI is asking us to revisit the Commission’s previous decision that the scientific evidence did not support the establishment of guidelines to address the non-thermal effects of RF emissions.215 This request is also outside the scope of the current proceeding, and we therefore dismiss EMRPI’s Cross-Petition.