The head of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) ...

historic preservation officials failed by an FCC target date to reach agreement on several outstanding issues connected to the tower siting pact (CD Feb 20 p3). The FCC last month gave participants until Feb. 19 to work out remaining differences, delaying a vote on the item until its March agenda meeting. The FCC’s approach to finalizing the agreement “has placed us in a most untenable position and hampered our efforts to bring all the consulting parties to consensus on an effective PA,” ACHP Executive Dir. John Fowler wrote last week to Jeffrey Steinberg, deputy chief of the FCC’s Commercial Wireless Div. Fowler’s letter accompanied proposed changes the Council made to earlier draft versions of the PA. Fowler said the Council hadn’t anticipated the FCC would “unilaterally revise” the agreement after receiving comments on a draft from a June notice of proposed rulemaking. “It was our understanding that the consultation process prescribed in the Section 106 regulations for developing the PA was suspended, not concluded, when FCC published the draft PA for public comment,” Fowler wrote. The pending PA would streamline tower siting reviews under Sec. 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Sec. 106 requires federal agencies to consider the effects of an “undertaking,” including tower construction, on historic properties. Last week, an industry coalition told the FCC it had concerns over recent changes to the PA presented by the ACHP. The group of carriers and tower companies said it was concerned the scope of changes proposed by the Council would change certain “foundational” terms in the PA. Fowler said in the Feb. 19 letter that the Council had expected the signatories to the PA -- including the FCC, the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers and the Council -- would need to consult further with representatives from industry, preservation organizations and tribes to finalize the terms of the agreement after public comments were received. “FCC’s decision to move forward with a rulemaking to embody the terms of the PA imposed severe restrictions on the access of non-signatories, in particular industry and the tribal representatives, to the revised PA, further impeding consultation on the entire document,” Fowler said. He also voiced frustration at the timetable the FCC had set for Commission consideration. While the FCC agreed to postpone action from the Feb. meeting, Fowler said participants had run up against a deadline set by the FCC to consider the item at the March open meeting. “While we are honoring FCC’s mandated deadline, I cannot emphasize too strongly how difficult and frustrating this process has been,” Fowler wrote. “The constraints placed on the consultation have prevented us from reaching a consensus, due in large part to the lack of time for industry representatives to seek input from their members.”