157 Stop The FCC Cell Tower Fast Track

The FCC is poised to fast track cell towers by sharply limiting local government authority in a rulemaking entitled "Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments." 

Under this proposal, the FCC seeks sweeping changes that would override much of the ability of cities, towns, and counties to consider basic siting factors such as aesthetics, setbacks, concealment, and public safety. The FCC also proposes to cap local fees and impose stricter "shot clocks"—and if a locality misses these shorter deadlines, cell tower applications could be automatically approved without further review.

Taken together, these measures represent an unprecedented federal takeover of local land-use authority. 

Environmental Health Sciences has a website with more information here: The FCCs Plan to Fast-Track Cell Towers.

Three things to do:

1. Sign and share the Petition to the FCC
2. Join the letter-writing campaign to lawmakers. 
3. Stay updated on cell tower issues with EHS and Scarato by signing up with the science and policy newsletter. 

   Theodora Scarato, MSW is the Director of the Wireless and EMF Program at Environmental Health Sciences. 

Scarato has co-authored several scientific and policy papers on wireless and EMF. She also serves as a Special Expert to the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF). Having previously long served as Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust, Scarato led a landmark federal case against the FCC in which the court mandated the agency explain how its 1996 cell tower radiation exposure guidelines were adequate.  She is also a petitioner in the case and has filed numerous scientific submissions to the FCC and is involved in current efforts to get the FCC to respond to the 2021 DC Circuit Court mandate.

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Safety Limits

Keith Cutter 1:27

Welcome to the EMF Remedy Podcast. My guest today is Theodora Escarato. She's the director of Wireless and Electromagnetic Field Program at Environmental Health Sciences. Theodora, welcome to the EMF Remedy Podcast.

Theodora Scarato 1:43

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Keith Cutter 1:46

This is our first time interviewing together, so I'm really looking forward to this. And today I'm hoping you can shed some light on the legal landscape and what's going on in that area. We have something urgent that we need to talk about, but to begin with, we need to have some context. And um I think maybe the best way to establish that context is to talk about what has happened in the distant past, just for a moment, when we get people all all on the same page with So what is the problem with our exposure guidelines that we're we're using. And then we'll go from there and we'll talk about what happened back in 2021 and your role in that, and then what the urgent thing is that uh people just need to be aware of and and uh we'll we'll give them an idea of how they can participate in that. So if we could just get started with you know, we have these safety guidelines. And so people who are not living in this every day like you and I do, they may think, well, what's the problem? We have safety guidelines. So can you help people understand where these safety guidelines came from exactly, and how robust are the um studies, if there were studies done that that support them?

Theodora Scarato 3:05

So when a cell tower is being proposed near home, you know, a lot of people ask that question is what, well, is this safe? And these safety guidelines that we have, the wireless companies will say, well, we're completely compliant with FCC limits. Those are the safety guidelines. What we're not told is that those limits are from 1996, they remain unchanged since then. And not only that, but they are based on studies from the early 80s and earlier back in the 70s, where they took small animals and they microwaved them with microwave radiation, not even real cell tower radiation, which is pulsed and modulated, for under an hour. And the level at which these animals stopped pressing a lever for food as they were trained, the level of heating that those animals experienced is the level that the

How FCC Limits Were Made

Theodora Scarato 4:02

researchers at the time, mostly engineers, said that is the level of harm we're going to base our limits on those. RFC limits are based on these antiquated, outdated studies, and they assume that heating is the only harm. They're not for long-term exposure. They're not, um, they didn't come consider children's unique vulnerability, and they don't address environmental issues. They are not based on protecting you against cancer. They are based on these little studies that were done with just a few animals that were overheated.

Keith Cutter 4:39

Wow, that that's really sobering. And I'm not sure that people really understand how much different these fields are than than what is in nature. I I think that's another common thing that people believe is well, we're just looking at increases in the natural radiation. But that's not really the case, is it? It's is this is not like the fields of nature.

Theodora Scarato 5:02

No, these are artificial, pulsed, polarized fields. This is man-made electromagnetic fields. It's non-ionizing, so it's not the same as X-rays or the nuclear bomb, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't impact our bodies. And that's why we have thousands uh, you know, hundreds, sorry, thousands of studies and hundreds of scientists calling for action, saying that we should reduce, not increase our exposure. These are not natural. There's nothing natural about wireless radiation and cell tower radiation and Wi-Fi.

Keith Cutter 5:40

So not nothing natural and the um so-called safety guidelines are based on uh an assumption that if it doesn't heat, it doesn't harm. And there seems to be plenty of evidence that um that there are physiologic effects outside of that realm. And so what happened? Um, take us take us up to 2021 working with the FCC. We had a a a huge apparent victory, and you had a big part in that. So I would like people to understand exactly what was going on there and what your part was in that and and what happened as a result of that uh lawsuit.

Theodora Scarato 6:24

So going back in time, I started working on this issue around 2020. I never thought that I would be engaged in a lawsuit against the federal government, but that is where I ended up. Because when I began to learn about the issue and realized what was going on and put the puzzle

Natural Vs Man-Made Radiation

Theodora Scarato 6:42

pieces together, at the time there was not a way to have a legal action that could address these outdated antiquated limits that we have in the U.S. government. Something I should mention is that our limits are 10 to 100 times more lenient. They allow more radiation than many other countries that are have looked into this issue. So what happened was the FCC decided in 2019 that their limits from 1996 did not need to be changed. And they did that after several years of asking for comments. Should we change our limits? Do they need to be updated? Should children be protected? They asked all these questions back in 213 and they had years of comments. Um hundreds of scientific papers were filed. I and many others uh filed at the time, and the FCC still decided to keep the limits from 1996.

Keith Cutter 7:46

And just for a little bit of context, I'm sorry to interrupt, but just for a little bit of context, the time frame that you mentioned also included the ramp up to 5G and um in some instances the millimeter wave radiation, which was unprecedented for use for uh consumer communications up to that point.

Theodora Scarato 8:09

Yeah, I think one of the reasons that the FCC made its decision in 2019 is because it had to support the 5G rollout and the amping up of the densification of all of this infrastructure across the nation, for sure. But when they made that decision, it was a moment that we could take legal action. Because when you have a decision, you have a certain amount of time you can file. So I was executive director of environmental health trust at the time. I, along with many others, uh filed a lawsuit against the FCC on that decision, arguing that they had not adequately reviewed all of the science, all of the studies, all of the comments that were on the record. And it was really quite clear, actually, that they had not, because when the FCC made its decision, it didn't address all the issues. It didn't address the people who wrote in about injuries they'd experienced or impacts from the infrastructure. People wrote about stories where cell towers went up and they became sick, or people wrote about brain tumors that they had where their doctors connected it to the cell phone use. The FCC didn't address impacts of the environment like wildlife, birds, bees, and trees, and there are many studies showing impacts. They didn't address the new technology like millimeter waves and all of the new technologies since 1990. I mean, it's not just that we have more, but we have different kinds of antenna systems, different frequencies that haven't been used, modulations, and it's a whole different landscape than 1996. But yet we're using these outdated limits. So the case is Environmental Health Trust at OL versus the FCC, and we had a favorable ruling where the DC circuit, which is a federal court, ruled that the FCC had ignored extensive issues that were on the record, the issues of children's vulnerability, because we had filed about studies showing impact to brain development in children, all kinds of research about children's unique sensitivities. The American Academy of Pediatrics had a letter filed on the FCC record, which talked about how children are more vulnerable. But the FCC did not address any of those issues and only talked about how the FDA had said that there was no need to update the limits. But the FDA hadn't even submitted a report either. So the court ordered the FCC to explain itself. Kind of like show your homework, you know, in math class when you have to show how you did what you did, and they ordered

The 2021 Court Ruling Explained

Theodora Scarato 10:57

that the FCC explain how its limits are protective related to children's vulnerability, to long-term exposure, to new technologies that have we have now since 1996, to wildlife impacts on the environment, and also how its cell phone test methods, the way they test uh phones and other devices before they come on the market, were adequate. Because, of course, I hope everyone knows that phones are not tested touching the body. They are tested at a distance from the body because in the old days people used those there were these brackets you'd put on your hip hip holders for the cell phones, and people didn't put phones in their pocket. But that's what we do now. So the FCC has not responded. And it's been that the order was in 2021. There has been no response from the FCC to the court order.

Keith Cutter 11:55

Isn't that amazing? You know, you mentioned now a couple of times 1996. And of course I can't help but thinking about the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which has the effect of precluding any arguments about health, human health, or harm to the environment. And you just mentioned that they needed to explain themselves and the new safety gu or the safety guidelines. In the context of both health and um the well-being of the environment. So I can tell you champagne corks were popping metaphorically when it looked like we had that apparent victory, but that was in 2021. And crickets, you know, w we're not hearing anything. And so it's interesting to me that rather than having a response from the FCC, either updating their safety guidelines or explaining why they felt the current ones were were satisfactory, we say things like this year the the sort of delete, delete, delete activity that's going on, and I don't want to get bogged down in that, but my understanding of it in general is that they seem to be granting themselves, the FCC seem to be wanting to grant themselves the ability to streamline processes. And this I guess I should mention this is in the context of what is the uh captured agency phenomenon. So there's a publication that's freely available as a PDF on the Harvard website called Captured Agency that that talks about the fact that the FCC falls in line with an agency that's meant to protect the public but ends up serving industry, the very industry that it's meant to guard against. So I'm just making a few comments about what what happened in 96 and then bringing up the possibility that the FCC is a captured agency and then not responding since 2021. So I'll turn it over to you and let you comment on those things.

Theodora Scarato 14:04

Yeah, they're all so important, thank you, because they people ask how did well how did this happen? And the Harvard report by Norm Alster, a captured agency, really shows that what's happened, how this happened is that we're in a state of regulatory capture with this issue. So that report goes over the different heads of the FCC and how they used to be with the wireless industry, or when they leave the FCC, they then go on to lead the wireless industry, lobby groups, or major corporations. So there's this revolving door between industry and government. And we are seeing the FCC serving these companies rather than the public. And that report was published in 2015, but the issues it raises continues to this day. So now, at that time, Tom Wheeler, who was the former head of the wireless industry, was serving as the head of the FCC. Now we have Brendan Carr taking over as the head of the FCC, formerly worked for a law firm representing the wireless industry against the city of San Francisco with its cell phone right to know act. Before that, we had Ajit Pai two chairs ago, who now is going to go lead the CTIA, who left the FCC and now has taken over at the CTIA as the head. And he's replacing a woman who used to be an FCC commissioner who left the FCC and then went to go to lead the wireless industry. So this revolving door just goes on and on. And I know when I talk to people from other communities, we actually see it at the local level as well, where you see conflicts happening, conflicts of interest, and it's uh it is a serious problem that needs to get a lot of sunlight on. Because we also see it in the science, where science that's been funded by industry more often does not show effects, but studies that are funded independently more often show effects, and that's been in several

Regulatory Capture And The Revolving Door

Theodora Scarato 16:17

published papers uh over the years. So here we are, where it's 2025, and we have 1996 limits. And I want to raise something you said about the Telecom Act because it's very important. So, Section 704 of the Telecom Act, which has a um a piece in there about how so long as the level of radiation is compliant with FCC limits, communities can't use environmental concerns in the sighting of a tower. And what that ends up being is you have a tower cell tower proposed near home. Let's say it's you know a wonderful 200 feet, which is like the absolute worst place you want to tower near your home. And you're saying, Well, wait, this this can affect my families, and you go and you talk to your elected officials, and they say, Oh no, I can't talk to you about health. I'm not allowed to talk about health because of Section 704 of the Telecom Act. And if we do, then we can get sued. And the industry does sue about this very issue. So it's a gag order. But the thing is, how does it make sense that we can't raise health concerns when the U.S. government has outdated limits regarding health? And not only that, but there are no federal agencies. Like there is no federal agency that has looked at all the science and said, is it safe or is it not, or are our limits safe? There is no federal report. So on the one hand, we're told we can't talk about health, but on the other hand, we have no federal health and safety agencies with you know, those who have environmental or biological expertise doing the research to ensure safety. It's outrageous.

Keith Cutter 18:07

Yeah, I agree. It it really is outrageous. Because at its core, what we're talking about, and w we haven't said these words yet, what we're talking about is involuntary exposures to a type of radiation that really has never been shown to be without physiologic effect. It's never been demonstrated to be without physiologic effect. So when you begin to think in those terms, you know, I I think at least speaking for myself, when I was working in industry in the eighties and nineties, I thought cell phones were great. And I wanted to be in a place that had good cell phone signal. And I I didn't realize that that meant one day when I be it may I realized it was making me sick and I needed to get away from it. It's hard to get away from it. You have to build a special home or or go very far away. And so we're we're talking about involuntary or forced uh exposures to everyone in the environment. And as you just brought up, we can't use any kind of an argument about health or about the environment. And you know, one more thing I guess I would say before we move on, and we're gonna get to the urgent we need to take action now thing in a moment. We need to think about the fact that the only agency and you kind of alluded to this is the FCC. So people might think that the FDA or the EPA are looking into this issue and they're weighing in from a medical perspective or from an environmental perspective. And there's a history here, you know, the EPA tried to get involved years ago, but um, as far as I know, there is no other part of the government other than the FCC looking after the placement of these uh producers of involuntary exposure, these these wireless facilities. Your comments on that.

Theodora Scarato 20:03

Yeah, so it's the it's the wolf watching the hen house, really, because the FCC is not a health and safety agency. They say this in their

Telecom Act 704 And Local Gag Rules

Theodora Scarato 20:12

filings. But let me go back to the EPA, and I have a paper coming out on this. The EPA was tasked with developing safety standards for the American public several times back in the 80s, again in the 90s. In fact, they issued recommendations on what they might do, and it's just this whole story of an agency trying and then drafts coming out, getting rewritten and rewritten, and nothing ever happening. And the FCC was ultimately fully defunded on this issue. And a letter from the EPA was pivotal in our lawsuit where I asked the EPA, what research have you done on wireless radiation? And uh, what about birds and bees? And I asked all kinds of questions, and the EPA basically took the same line and cut and pasted it after most of my questions and said, We have no funded mandate, we're not studying this. Our last report on this was 1984, um, five, sorry. And that's the last time they looked at all the biological effects. So for me, when I first learned about this, and I was not working in the field of wireless radiation, like many of you probably on the call, you know, you whatever your life was, it was not what it is now. And I I really believed that somewhere in the federal government was a report that would tell me the answers I had to my questions. And I actually spent many months trying to find out, well, where's the report by the U.S. government on what level is safe? And I contacted the EPA, I contacted all these agencies, and I realized that there was no report because there was no research going on. This was way back, like a decade ago, and that's what that's when I really got engaged on this issue and went from working clinically with families and children to working at the policy level to try to shift this issue to get some meaningful change. It's really outrageous. We have this escalating exposure and no oversight or accountability.

Keith Cutter 22:18

And I think people make the assumption, I mean, I did anyway, at least when I was younger, that if I could go to the store and I could buy something, that somebody had looked at it and somebody had made sure that it was it was going to be okay to use. But um to understand that the safety guidelines were produced originally with one-hour tests on rodents to a level of radiation that the thing would actually stop eating. Really it doesn't touch the complexity of you know, our neurological function within our body, which is electrically based, our cardiac rhythms, which are electrically based. So yeah, really kind of an egregious situation. So then we get to 2025 and the whole delete, delete, delete thing. Uh, do you want to say any words about that before we move on to the the more pressing opportunity that we have in front of us?

Theodora Scarato 23:16

Sure. So the FCC is basically on a it's like a cell tower blitz. It's a deregulatory blitz, and in there is fast track of cell towers. So with delete, delete, delete, the FCC was asking, what should we delete of our regulations? And basically, all of this is in service to the wireless industry. The wireless industry has a wish list and it's getting all that it wished with FCC chair Brendan Carr. So while some companies filed with delete, delete saying, well, we should delete the fees, the regulations, the requirements that localities are putting towards us, I filed and many others filed saying we should delete, delete, delete the limits that we have and update them with modern science-based limits. But the FCC right now, which is three unelected people, is really just working hard to strip away protections that we've had. Before there was delete, delete, delete. There's also NEPA looking at decreasing the ability and eviscerating environmental review for cell towers. And there's a lot of environmental issues, not even related to radiation when it comes to cell towers or commercial

EPA’s Retreat And Missing Health Oversight

Theodora Scarato 24:37

wireless infrastructure where you're digging and building and ruining landscapes and putting a big hundred or taller towers up. There's impacts to our environment that the FCC really is talking about removing after the wireless industry actually requested and did a petition on that. So now here we are where the FCC is proposing, they put out a new proposal. Do you could I talk about that now?

Keith Cutter 25:04

Or let's do it. Let's do it.

Theodora Scarato 25:06

You know, I'm okay. So what the FCC is now proposing on the heels of delete, delete, delete, is new rules that would strip away local, city, state, and county control for cell towers. It's part of this Build America plan where Brendan Carr, FCC chair, is saying we want to fast track cell tower deployment across the United States. In order to do that, he's talking about tightening shot clocks. That's the time from when a tower gets proposed to where the community needs to, or whatever authority it is, needs to say yes or no or make some decisions about it, reducing fees. So many communities have fees that you have to pay as a company so that they can do proper review and so that they can pay not the taxpayers for processing the application. The FCC is taking aim at those fees, redefining how aesthetics is defined, narrowing the way that uh concealment is defined, which would mean that communities can't require towers blend into their surroundings. Not that that helps with the radiation, but then there's, gosh, uh, AI. The FCC is actually asking, I mean, I can't even believe this. I couldn't believe it. I read it, you know, so many times and I'm still rereading it over because I'm writing a blog on it. But the FCC says, well, should we preempt state and local requirements around AI if it inhibits wireless are to wireless deployment? So now it's preempting the powers of our elected officials and the communities that know what you know, we who live in the community should have a say in where this infrastructure goes and how it goes up. And if the FCC has its way and it looks poised to do so, we are going to be preempted. And this is it's massive. I don't think people realize the impact this is gonna have. And what's crazy is that as soon as this proposal is published in the Federal Register, which could be any day, we will have 30 days to file comments on something so important.

Keith Cutter 28:19

If I had to take a guess, I I might guess they would start the clock the day before Thanksgiving holiday and run it through the holidays where people's minds will be elsewhere, but I hate to be cynical.

Theodora Scarato 28:32

This is what we this is exactly what I think.

Keith Cutter 28:37

Yeah, so um there is so much wrong here. There is an opportunity, though, for for people to attempt to make their voices heard, but let's We'll talk about that in a minute, but let's just talk about how really egregious this is. They've already got with the 1996 Act the ability to ignore any health issues. Even for people who have been recognized as medically recognized as needing to be in a radiation-free environment, you can still place a cell phone tower in their backyard figuratively. And um no arguments about the environment, and now they want to go even further. Faster. And so it's just crazy. And you sort of alluded to, but we didn't enumerate there can be toxic materials that are stored in uh cell phone utilities, there can be pesticides used to clear the area around it that you really wouldn't want to have in your environment. You can have the fall issue, which you know, if the tower ever fails structurally and falls over, there's you know, a certain radius around it. All of these things are are meant to go away under this this kind of proposal. And a question I have for you, because I don't know the answer to this, is this going to allow the deployment of small cell facilities atop uh telephone poles and and that type of infrastructure, or is that is that something separate?

Theodora Scarato 30:17

So this proposal is doing everything while there's a focus on cell towers and macro towers specifically, um, because uh just a few years ago in 2018 and 19, the FCC actually already passed rules preempting related to 5G towers, which are the short under 30-foot ones. But then in this proposal, they wrap everything up in a really large way. It's pretty unprecedented, and they say macro towers and wireless facilities. So now they've grabbed a bunch of other types of equipment and thrown that into this in various places in the proposal. So it's really a both and. They want to fast track cell towers, and they also are talking about 5G and small cells as well. So, you know, you brought up some really important things though,

The “Delete, Delete, Delete” Push

Theodora Scarato 31:12

related to fire risk, hazardous materials on site, which are part of actually, we have at Environmental Health Sciences, we have a webpage called the top 10 health safety and issues related to cell towers near schools and homes. And we talk about all the issues you talked about, like spraying pesticides. Sometimes they even put fire retardant down on the pad and and around where a cell tower is built. So there is a lot more than just radiation in terms of hazardous materials, the diesel, these diesel generators and the lead acid batteries and so forth, all of which really should not be near schools or right near your home. So yeah, there's a lot in there in the FCC proposal. A lot.

Keith Cutter 32:04

And I think one of the things that uh people may not know is that while it sounds diminutive, if you have a small cell placed near your home because of something called the inverse square law, those things that are closest to you have a disproportionate effect in terms of the intensity of the radiation exposures. So I would rather have a cell phone tower far away than a little tiny cell phone tower near my house for sure. And so we're really talking about creating more uninhabitable places for those people who either want to take a precautionary approach to their personal or familial exposures, or for people who have already been harmed and they're just looking for a place to be able to endure.

Theodora Scarato 32:51

Yes. It's just they're adding more and more and more, and studies have shown that the levels are increasing, the levels we're exposed to, and especially when you're in close proximity, when you're close to either a tower or a small cell. There's nothing small about a small cell.

Keith Cutter 33:10

Certainly not the radiation emissions if you're nearby. So how can people take action? What can they do now?

Theodora Scarato 33:18

Yeah, this is an all hands-on deck moment. So we have a couple things going on in environmental health sciences. We have a petition that we put forward that we're hoping to get thousands of signatures on. So we just rolled that out. Hope you can put links somewhere in the notes of this talk. We also have a web page at ehsciences.org on the wireless and EMF program site on the FCC's plan to fast track cell towers. So you can go to each sciences.org, go to our FCC Cell Tower Fast Track page, and you'll see the petition. There's a way to write letters to your local elected officials and more information about this proposal. I hope that you will take the information, educate your community, talk to your neighbors, and talk to your elected officials about this because we need every locality to be commenting on this. Everyone should have a say. If there are no comments to the FCC, then the FCC does not have to address them. So if you look at our lawsuit, the one from 2021, what was really important is that on the record were comments that said various things, and then those were ignored. So we need on the record of the FCC related to these Celtic Tower fast track rules, on that record needs to be comments from the public and elected officials. So stay in touch with us, sign up for our newsletter to learn more. We are hoping to get thousands of people signing on to our petition, and we really need local officials to be educated on this and to be submitting comments because they are our elected officials who should be giving a voice to the community at the federal level. So there's a lot that people can do, and we think this is an all-hands-on-deck moment. It's an unprecedented

New FCC Plan To Preempt Local Control

Theodora Scarato 35:13

power move by the FCC to preempt local government power when it comes to cell towers. So please go to each sciences.org to learn more about it.

Keith Cutter 35:25

Any last um last words or last thoughts, Theodora?

Theodora Scarato 35:29

Yeah, so I guess what I want to say is that we can all do something on this issue. I know sometimes it feels overwhelming, this issue of wireless, and you know, every week I'm learning of something new that the federal government is doing or that is happening where our rights, our health is at risk. But there is a lot that we can do to fix it. And if everyone does something, we can really get there. I mean, I have infinite hope on this issue. And I hope if you're listening and you felt uh you know down about this or or hope less, know that there is so much happening and that we can fix this, but we really all need to work together.

Keith Cutter 36:14

Right. Yeah, so we want to remain optimistic and we want to take action. So, Theodora, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate your longstanding efforts in trying to save this entire nation from itself with regard to the reckless spread of harmful man-made electromagnetic radiation. Thank you.

Theodora Scarato 36:35

Thank you so much.

Announcement 36:45

The EMF Remedy Podcast is a project of EMF Remedy LLC. We'd like to be your trusted guide for achieving a better EMF environment in your home. The contents on this podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are not intended to substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to be, nor does it constitute healthcare or medical advice. Opinions of guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the EMF Remedy Podcast.