Erica Rosenberg, formerly Assistant Chief of the Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division at the Federal Communications Commission states the FCC has failed to protect the environment and the public. Since leaving the FCC, she has documented numerous ways that the FCC has failed to fulfill its mandatory duties related to environmental review regarding telecommunications infrastructure deployment. Watch EHT’s interview with Erica Rosenberg.
Her article entitled Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. Read her blog post below about the FCC has failed to protect the public.
How the FCC Fails to Follow Environmental Laws and Fails the Public
by Erica Rosenberg
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates radio, TV, satellite, cable, and wire and wireline communications, plays a critical role in providing universal broadband and telecommunications access and authorizing associated deployments and facilities—millions of miles of wires, countless large communications towers, and hundreds of thousands of small cell antennas and associated poles.
Like all federal agencies, the FCC must also follow environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires it to assess the potential environmental impacts of its actions before it authorizes, funds, or licenses projects such as towers, antennas, and other communications infrastructure, and to consider the concerns of communities and citizens in the process.
Yet the FCC fails to comply with NEPA in a myriad of ways:
These inadequate NEPA practices lead to a slew of environmental impacts. A representative but tiny sampling of violations and their impacts include:
Given the FCC’s lack of oversight and failure to comply with environmental laws, violations such as these represent a fraction of the environmental harms that occur under the agency’s watch. The result of the FCC’s lack of accountability is cumulative and incalculable environmental damage: views of protected landscapes and historic sites ruined, wetlands filled, endangered species habitat cleared, sacred sites desecrated, burial mounds and archaeological sites disturbed, and fragile underwater environments degraded. Equally important, citizens and localities are left with little or no voice in siting decisions affecting them and their communities. As wireless technologies continue to proliferate, the impacts will multiply.
Over the years, PEER and other NGOs have tried to improve agency accountability and NEPA compliance, with PEER most recently doing so by submitting comments on impacts of satellites that warranted EAs. Unfortunately, these efforts have been largely unsuccessful due to FCC intransigence. However, by September 2023, Federal agencies must revise their NEPA rules (40 CFR § 1507.3.). Hopefully, the Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees NEPA compliance, will hold the FCC to a higher standard for NEPA compliance.
Erica Rosenberg is an environmental attorney with Congressional, NGO, academia, and agency experience, she worked in the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau for seven years until 2021 and was formerly Assistant Chief of the Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division at the Federal Communications Commission. Read her article entitled Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development.
Theodora Scarato, Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust interviewed Erica Rosenberg about her work at the FCC and the critical environmental issues she is now raising. Environmental Health Trust sued the FCC regarding its lack of proper review for its regulations and human exposure limits for wireless radiation. In 2021, the US Appeals Court, DC Circuit ruled in EHT’s case Environmental Health Trust et al v. The Federal Communications Commission that the FCC had acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when it decided not to update its exposure limits. The FCC was found to have “ignored” extensive evidence on the record indicating environmental effects as well as health effects such as impacts to memory and reproduction, children’s unique vulnerability and effects of long term exposure.
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https://ehtrust.org/former-fcc-attorney-how-the-fcc-fails-to-follow-environmental-laws-and-fails-the-public/ Source: Environmental Health Trust
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