Drumbeat Continues Against Changes to Wireless Infrastructure Rules
The FCC continues to receive dozens of short filings on a daily basis opposing changes in a wireless infrastructure NPRM that commissioners approved at September's meeting (see 2511250075). The FCC has logged nearly 2,300 comments as of Wednesday in docket 25-276. Most list the commenter's name with no other identifying information.
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“This initiative is not about ‘building America’ -- it is about stripping away local rights, eliminating public participation, and giving the wireless industry near-total control over the placement of cell towers,” Jessica McCormick said in a typical filing this week. These proposed rules "would allow towers to be placed virtually anywhere, with no say from the people who must live with them," she said.
Theodora Scarato, director of the wireless radiation and electromagnetic fields program at Environmental Health Sciences, has been the most prolific filer, flooding the docket with studies on the health effects of RF exposure. The current regulatory framework governing non-ionizing RF radiation "used in all wireless technology is outdated and lacks adequate protection, oversight, and enforcement,” Scarato said in a recent paper filed this week at the FCC. “Human exposure limits are designed to protect against short-term high-intensity effects, not today’s long-term chronic low-intensity exposures,” the paper said.