CTIA Headed Back to Court Days Before Start of Planned Enforcement of Radiation Disclosure Law
CTIA will ask a federal judge Oct. 20 to block enforcement of a San Francisco law requiring cellphone retailers to make disclosures provided by the city about health questions concerning radiation (CD Oct 4 p18). A hearing is scheduled then before U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco on a motion for preliminary injunction that the association filed late Tuesday. It accompanied a complaint amending one that had been lodged against a previous version of the ordinance and then put on hold.
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Regulation along similar lines has been considered elsewhere, and CTIA is concerned about interest spreading, said Vice President John Walls Wednesday. “We're making such a clear stand in California” because it’s important to fight business regulation and consumer worries that lack scientific support, he said. Devra Davis of the Environmental Health Trust said, “The progressive thinking that led” to San Francisco’s disclosure requirement “should serve as an inspiration to other cities and towns around the nation as they propose similar ordinances.” She said she hopes that the ordinance “will spur the federal government to consider a national cellphone ordinance, which would allow the U.S. to adhere to the safety standards recognized by an increasing number of governments around the globe."
The court hearing is scheduled a few days before San Francisco’s Department of the Environment plans to start enforcement of requirements to put up posters, give customers leaflets and include on displays information written by the department about health questions and ways to reduce exposure to radiofrequency emissions. It’s up to the judge whether to rule at the end of the hearing or later, Walls said. “We would hope that action would be taken sooner rather than later.” The complaint contends that the ordinance infringes the First Amendment by compelling expression and violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by contradicting safety findings of the FCC and the FDA.
The department doesn’t plan to change its preparations for enforcement unless it hears otherwise from the City Attorney’s Office, said Sushma Bhatia, manager of the city’s toxics-reduction program. The deputy city attorney handling the case didn’t get back to us right away Wednesday.
CTIA has been in touch with city officials since the ordinance was signed in August, but only concerning procedural and logistical points, Walls said. Nothing short of dropping the law would have prevented the filing, he said. Walls said he doesn’t know of any efforts to bring retail interests or health organizations into the case.
The ordinance replaced a version from last year, dropping a requirement that a retailer provide customers with the Specific Absorption Rate of each phone it sells. The deputy city attorney handling the case has said this change protected the new law from successful constitutional attack. “This iteration continues to be problematic and ill-considered in a number of ways, so I didn’t think we had any problem at all with our challenge,” Walls said. Though city officials have “tried to reframe” the law, he said, “in some cases it’s even more egregious” than the predecessor -- “false and alarmist.” Walls said he was referring to some of the city’s graphics and its statements about children’s health. He wouldn’t elaborate.