California, Texas, Washington Cities, Maryland County Sue FCC on Wireless Tower Siting Rules
Los Angeles was among four California cities that joined with municipalities in Texas and Washington Monday in the second lawsuit against the FCC's October wireless facilities deployment order. They told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that…
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the order’s wireless tower siting rules are unconstitutional and misinterpret the 2012 Spectrum Act. The order is “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion; and otherwise contrary to law,” the cities said in their joint petition for review. The other petitioning cities are: Bellevue, Washington; Ontario, Redwood City and San Jose, California; McAllen, Texas; and the Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues. Montgomery County, Maryland, made the same arguments in a petition for review it filed in Richmond Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuits respectively asked the D.C. Circuit and 4th Circuit to vacate the new tower siting rules and “grant such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate.” The FCC didn’t comment. Montgomery County and the cities had jointly objected to the wireless tower siting rules in a Feb. 3 FCC filing. The localities had asked the FCC to “significantly revise” the siting rules because the current set of rules would “lead to a wide range of serious problems in local communities that it is impossible to believe Congress could have intended." The FCC voted unanimously for the rules, as part of the commission’s implementation of the 2012 Spectrum Act. They were meant to speed up wireless tower siting decisions. The rules reduced the shot clock for siting approval from 90 days to 60 days in exchange for a promise from CTIA and PCIA to work with local jurisdictions on streamlining, though many localities had urged prior to the commission vote against shortening the shot clock (see 1410170048). The two groups and local government groups jointly released a model ordinance and siting application review checklist Thursday (see 1503050056). PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein responded to the Montgomery County lawsuit, saying in a statement Monday that “we hope that this lawsuit will not detract from that goal, since PCIA supports the FCC’s rationale behind its Infrastructure Order and its guidelines for implementation.” PCIA is “working closely with cities, counties, and municipalities to make the implementation of the FCC’s new wireless facility siting regulations smooth and efficient,” Adelstein said.