With FCC Chmn. Martin and Comr. Abernathy concurring, the FCC cla...

build towers got no responses from Indian tribes on whether projects would affect historic preservation lands. Carriers can file notification with the FCC after 2 failed attempts to contact a tribe, and hundreds of applications are pending at the agency, slowing siting of new antennas. The FCC clarified Thurs. that a wireless provider or other tower applicant “will have fulfilled its obligations under the NPA” 20 days after the FCC sent a latter or e-mail to the tribe asking if it wanted to participate in the proposed tower review and got no response. “If the Indian tribe or NHO [Native Hawaiian Organization] does not respond within 20 days of the FCC’s letter and/or e-mail, which will be followed up by an attempted FCC telephone contact during the same 20-day period, it will be deemed to have no interest in the review of the proposed facility,” the FCC said. Backing an FCC goal of eliminating “a significant backlog of tower referrals,” Martin and Abernathy concurred with the order. “We continue to believe that siting of towers or antennas is not a federal or federally assisted undertaking, and we would have preferred that the Commission reconsider its decision on that issue,” they said in a joint statement: “We also would have preferred an even more streamlined review process that would have allowed construction to proceed faster.” Martin and Abernathy said they support a CTIA “3-strikes” proposal backed by industry and the United South & Eastern Tribes. “While we concur in today’s ruling, we worry that this process may still add needless layers of bureaucracy to the tower siting process and lead to unnecessary delay,” they said. Comr. Copps said he supports the decision “first and foremost because it maintains the basic procedures adopted in [NPA] and continues the vitally important government-to-government relationship that guides FCC interactions” with Indian tribes and NHOs. Although the decision is “not as perfect or as rigorous as I would have preferred,” Copps said, he is “optimistic” that the new clarification “will enable the timely deployment of communications infrastructure, while, at the same time, allowing us to protect our valuable historic places.” Comr. Adelstein said the order “strikes the right balance between the Commission’s consultation obligations to Indian tribes and [NHOs] under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1996 and the need for certainty when Indian tribes and NHOs” don’t respond to industry and FCC’s requests. “The NPA can and will work,” Adelstein said: “We have taken important steps in this item, and we should continue to improve the consultation process through periodic reviews of the notification provisions of the NPA.”