CTIA Tones Down Promise to Resume Lawsuit Against San Francisco Radiation Ordinance
CTIA is no longer saying flatly that it will revive a legal challenge in response to a new version of a San Francisco ordinance requiring disclosures about cellphone radiation. The association is continuing to study the legal arguments, and a decision may not be made for several weeks, said John Walls, the vice president of public affairs.
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"There’s a strong likelihood that we will challenge this in court,” Walls said Tuesday. When Mayor Ed Lee approved the ordinance this month, CTIA General Counsel Michael Altschul said simply that the group planned “to resume the litigation,” which it had put on hold (CD Aug 5 p7). Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria replied that the new version of the ordinance undercut any basis for the lawsuit to continue (CD Aug 9 p7).
Chhabria said his understanding from CTIA remains that it plans -- in September, after the city nails down the disclosure’s wording -- to file a motion for preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the requirement. “I've received no indication that they are reconsidering their challenging the ordinance,” he said.
CTIA hasn’t changed its position and doesn’t think the changes in the ordinance have narrowed the organization’s grounds for pursuing the case, Walls said. The association intends to proceed, as it had announced, he said. Particular possible arguments are still “under review,” but “we have great confidence in the grounds on which we're going to do this,” he said.
The new ordinance dropped the previous version’s requirement to disclose the Specific Absorption Rate of each handset for sale, in favor of mandatory disclosure of general information about health questions concerning cellphone radiation and about reducing exposure. Chhabria has said the change from the original law, enacted last year, removes any risk of misleading of consumers about health risks and with it any basis for legal challenge.
CTIA hasn’t discussed taking its annual West Coast show back to San Francisco, where it was held most of the past several years, Walls said. The show left the city partly because of the original radiation ordinance, he said. It’s booked this year and next in San Diego, Walls said. The 2011 event is in October. CTIA and those who attend love San Francisco, and “we'd like to have it as a possible site down the road,” he said.