Is the National Environmental Policy Act being ignored by regulators?
by Frederick Sinclair
Everywhere you turn, in the high tech world of telecommunications, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in charge. All frequencies that are used in the transmission of radio and wireless microwave signals, of all sort, are regulated and the authorized usage sold to radio and TV, telecom, military, airports, weather, short wave radio etc. The licensing and regulation of the broad electromagnetic spectrum , supports a world- wide ground and satellite based wireless data exchange infrastructure worth trillions of dollars. Routine auctions of sections of the RF spectrum (bands) are held for billions of dollars. It is estimated that over 100,000 satellites will soon be authorized frequencies that will blanket every square foot of the planet with wireless microwaves carrying everything from ‘oldies’ to facial recognition surveillance data. The scope of this technology and the allure of instant gratification (information) along with the unimaginable wealth it generates for the Telecommunications Cartel is the epitomy of a fascist technocracy.
The FCC has evolved into a powerful influence in shaping the evolution of modern communications but “the FCC is also failing to fulfill its mandatory duties under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in multiple and significant ways.” That is, according to Erica Rosenberg in an article, published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, entitled Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture. NEPA is a federal law that regulates decision-making in major federal undertakings and it requires disclosure of environmental impacts and allows for input from local government and citizens to participate in the decision making. NEPA by law requires a full environmental review process be performed on all government authorizations, projects , and decisions that may have significant impact..
Here are a few impacts that result from the FCC routinely ignoring its responsibilities under NEPA. For decades FCC has been inserting its own convenient definitions and characterizations of proposals and their impact in order to circumvent having to perform NEPA.
- The FCC is authorizing the deployment of hundreds of thousands of small cells (broadcasting antenna arrays) with little public input or full NEPA environmental review. They simply classify them as minor projects.
- Wireless infrastructure is allowed on and changes the character of historic buildings and vistas.
- Tall guy wired towers are killing millions of birds per year.
- Effects of cell towers in sensitive areas like coastal areas and wetlands are not being considered.
- Cell towers are altering and marring viewsheds across the country.
- The fact that cell towers in pristine areas can affect sensitive species and ecosystems is being ignored.
- The FCC radio frequency exposure rates have no validity. They are based on heat generated only by exposure to microwave radiation. Three years ago, the US Court of Appeals ordered FCC to revise their regulatory exposure rates. The Federal Court order has been ignored by FCC and a follow up suite has been filed by the Environmental Health Trust. (ehtrust.org.)
It is quite obvious that the FCC has been captured by and is under the control of the multi trillion dollar telecom industry it was created to regulate. FCC project reviews bypass NEPA. , FCC grants approval and the industry protects themselves claiming they are meeting the established FCC rate for allowable microwave exposure of the public. . The 1966 FCC radio frequency public exposure rates that , as of yet, ignore the US Federal Court of Appeals order to revise , are more than 1,000 times higher than documented (milli watt per square meter) exposure levels that doctors and researchers are concluding cause headaches, disrupt sleep, cause tremors and affect sperm motility and DNA. See www.bioinitiative.org/updated-research-summaries/
We cannot deny the importance of the information age in the evolution of mankind . Telecommunications is a key tool in support of access, exchange and interaction. However, when a technology becomes heavily materialistic and wielded, at the expense of balance in and with the environment, then the advantages are destined to be short lived. Laws of Creation function on balance of the material with the divine. The frenzied expansion of technology without a balancing sense of our humanity and preservation will not end well. There is still time to use tools like NEPA and laws as guidance, but it is up to an awakened populace to find, insist upon and hold that point of balance. We the people cannot leave all the eggs in the captured FCC basket.
