GROUPS WANT FCC TO REVIEW ORDER DENYING STANDING IN TOWER CASES
Concerned about ruling that they lack standing to challenge proposed wireless towers, environmental groups plan to ask FCC to reconsider dismissal Fri. of 29 petitions to deny applications for antenna sites, said John Talberth, dir.-conservation for Forest Conservation Council. Order issued by deputy chief of FCC’s Commercial Wireless Div. dismissed petitions filed by Friends of the Earth and Forest Conservation Council, saying groups lacked standing. “This is an absurd cop-out to try to dodge a serious discussion of the merits of the issue,” Talberth told us Mon.: “Apparently nobody has standing to challenge cell towers unless a cell tower is being built on top of one’s house.” Order said groups failed to show direct link between alleged harm and proposed wireless antenna structures and lacked information such as letters from nearby residents who would be directly affected. On weekly basis between Feb. 23 and April 6, 2001, groups had filed petitions on 40 applications to register antenna structures, urging FCC to conduct more detailed environmental review of impact of wireless towers.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Groups asked FCC not to approve future wireless towers until agency conducted environmental assessment of its antenna licensing program. Agency’s order: (1) Didn’t speak to merits of those claims, but dismissed petitions based on lack of standing. Order said petitions didn’t contain letters from residents of communities where proposed antenna sites actually would be located. (2) Said groups used same cover letter for each challenge, merely changing names of applicants and file numbers. Friends of the Earth and Forest Conservation Council had wanted FCC to conduct environmental impact statement for its entire antenna registration program. (3) Noted that to establish standing, FCC had “required that parties challenging an application [to] allege sufficient facts to demonstrate that grant of the application would cause the petitioner to suffer a direct injury.” That means, it said, that petitioner has to show “causal link” between injury that’s claimed and action that’s challenged. (4) Said hundreds of antenna applications that Commission processed annually included environmental assessments. “In order that we may process these applications efficiently and with full consideration of the merits, however, a petitioner must demonstrate with specificity how the grant of the application would affect its interests, aggrieve or injure the petitioner,” order said. Environmental groups filing petitions to deny instead filed “global petitions” against every application that appeared on consecutive public notices for 7 weeks, FCC said. Petitions rely “on speculative, general allegations and argue that antenna structures kill migratory birds,” order said, but filings didn’t lay out “any traceable injury.”
“The petitioners do not show a direct link between the individual antenna structures and how the organization or its members will be aggrieved by the antenna structure,” order said. Agency said that in previous cases where environmental assessment had been challenged, petitioner had been member of community and had shown how proposed antenna structure would harm individual.
“It’s our intent to take this to the next level at the FCC,” Talberth said. Order itself is “narrowly constructed and absurd. We doubt it would hold up in the courts,” he said. Similar standing issues haven’t emerged for group when regulatory decisions are challenged at other federal agencies such as U.S. Forest Service and Fish & Wildlife Service, Talberth said. “I think it’s reasonable for federal agencies to ask that you demonstrate that you are harmed,” he said. “The FCC burden is so high that no one would be able to meet it unless” they showed that challenged structure was being built over their house. Petitions by environmental groups had covered towers proposed by American Tower, Crown Castle, SBC and others. They criticized lack of detail from tower constructors on potential environmental impacts such as effects on migratory bird travel.