Numerous Commenters Oppose FCC's Proposed Changes to Wireless Siting Rules
The FCC closed out the comment cycle last week for an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules, with support from industry and continuing opposition from RF safety advocates and many local government groups (see 2601150043). Reply comments were due Thursday (docket 25-276) in response to the item, which commissioners approved 3-0 in September (see 2511250075), and there were still no signs of agreement among the different sides.
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The Wireless Infrastructure Association said in comments posted Friday that the changes proposed in the NPRM have broad support. The record demonstrates “a clear prevalence of procedural and regulatory barriers that exceed reasonable health and safety concerns which should be addressed by the Commission.” Too few local communities are working with industry to promote wireless expansion, the group said. “Setting a nationwide framework … is crucial to ensuring the rapid deployment of connectivity everywhere.”
CTIA called for “common sense guardrails, and other reasonable and legitimate steps” that the FCC can take to promote wireless deployments. Many of the comments “document the harms that regulatory barriers can cause to wireless deployment and [the] myriad public benefits -- underscoring the need for Commission action.”
The Competitive Carriers Association noted the importance of streamlining site reviews and cutting costs for its members, who must deal “with a plethora of different fees to complete project work in a variety of jurisdictions.” The group noted that “oftentimes” the fees aren’t “directly related to costs.” It pointed to the example of a $1,500 fee “even when project work is located on state- or privately-owned land.” Aesthetic conditions for new deployments mean increased costs and “tend to increase project complexity,” the association added.
RF Safety Issues
A larger number of comments continued to focus on RF safety issues, amid news that the Trump administration is launching a study of whether cellphones are safe (see 2601160039).
Children’s Health Defense said the NPRM would turn the FCC “into a national zoning board for wireless infrastructure.” The proposals in the NPRM “wholly ignore the practical realities of the state and local processes that are essential for safe and effective siting and hosting of wireless infrastructure,” the group said. The proposed rules and actions are “bad policy, and probably illegal,” and it’s “no surprise that among thousands of comments, the only comments supporting the NPRM agenda are those submitted by the industry and a handful of industry cheerleaders.”
The Center for Electrosmog Prevention said the FCC's RF guidelines are based on old studies. “There are few to no studies conducting a proper evaluation of the cumulative, total effects of cell towers, smart meters, 5G, etc. on the environment and the population, particularly the vulnerable.”
State and Local Governments
The California Public Utilities Commission said the record refutes claims “that safety-based regulation has slowed deployment.” For disaster-prone states, “safety is not ancillary to deployment -- it is a precondition for it,” the CPUC said. Industry groups instead want the FCC “to elevate deployment speed above all other considerations and to treat any state or local requirement that increases cost or complexity as presumptively unlawful.”
The League of Oregon Cities argued that the “legal landscape” has changed since the FCC approved its small-cell order and shot-clock decisions during the first Trump administration. The jurisprudence has “undergone a significant shift, abandoning the deference to agency decisions that supported past Commission actions on which this docket seeks to build” and requiring lower courts “to independently interpret statutes even where the Commission’s interpretation has been upheld by a Court of Appeals under the Hobbs Act.”
A group of 19 states slammed language in the NPRM on the preemption of state and local laws related to the deployment of AI-enabled technologies. It “reaches far beyond the FCC’s authority and, in any event, fails to provide meaningful notice of the scope of the FCC’s potential preemption of state law,” they said. “States across the political spectrum are legitimately concerned about how businesses using AI may harm their citizens and/or interfere with their own core responsibilities.” The filing was signed by California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center similarly said the FCC doesn’t have the authority to preempt state and local AI regulations “even if some state … regulations could have implications for telecommunications service providers.”