Public Health Advocates Oppose Wisconsin Small-Cells Bill

The Wisconsin bill is “new and improved” from last year’s version that didn’t make it out of the legislature, said AB-234 sponsor Rep. Mike Kuglitsch (R). One difference is lawmakers increased maximum fees from last year’s version, he said. AB-234 caps annual fees at $250; it allows localities to charge $500 for an application with five or fewer facilities, plus $100 for each additional small cell.

It’s more generous to localities on rates and other issues than neighboring states are, said Sen. Devin LeMahieu (R), sponsor of the same bill in the Senate (SB-239), which got a hearing Wednesday in the Utilities and Housing Committee. “When not everyone is happy, it usually means it's good legislation,” he told the Assembly panel. Wisconsin localities ended up neutral on last year's bill.

“There are zero studies proving that 5G is safe,” argued Wisconsin for Safe Technology’s Elaine Unger, opposing AB-234. Small cells are bigger than supporters say and always emit radiation, hurting public health and the environment, Unger told lawmakers. “You are charged with protecting the public.” Sometimes in tears, Unger and other members of that group claimed 5G radiation can kill bees and cause cancer, infertility and other ailments.

“If I truly thought that there was a health risk with this technology, then I would not be an author,” stressed Kuglitsch, saying he has seen much misinformation. LeMahieu said there’s no difference in health risk between 5G and previous wireless generations. University of Pittsburgh professor Eric Swanson, who said he was testifying for CTIA, downplayed ill effects. Cellular radiation is “far on the safe side,” with many more studies saying so than not, he said. When another witness opposing the bill challenged Swanson’s wireless industry affiliation, Chairman Adam Neylon (R) said he didn’t know who CTIA represented.

Some committee members asked if 5G is inevitable with or without legislation. Yes, said bill sponsors and witnesses from AT&T and Verizon, but it will happen faster with streamlined rules. Wisconsin is the last state in the Midwest to pass a bill and could lose investment dollars if it doesn’t act soon, Kuglitsch said. It’s the “next arms race,” with carriers supporting the bill because they want to spend money against each other, said AT&T Wisconsin President Scott VanderSanden.

Maine’s small-cells bill goes next to Senate. LD-1517 is much shorter than other state 5G bills, with this measure requiring only that small wireless facilities are classified as permitted use within the ROW (see 1904240018).

State Bills

The Maine House voted 96-45 in a first-round vote on a broadband privacy bill (LD-946) that the Senate supported unanimously last week (see 1905240021). It was amended to extend implementation to July 2020, so it has to go back to the Senate, then get a final vote in each chamber.

The House supported a net neutrality bill (LD-1364) Tuesday after the chamber voted 92-49 for an amendment that “narrows the scope and application of the prohibition in the bill regarding committing state funds for payment to an Internet service provider.” Rather than requiring the provider to agree to conform to the FCC 2015 order as in the original bill, the ISP would have to agree not to engage in “blocking of lawful content, applications, services or devices; throttling; or paid prioritization,” it said. The bill needs a first-round vote in the Senate, then final votes in both chambers. And the House supported LD-1371 to give nondiscriminatory treatment to public, educational and governmental channels (see 1904240018). The Senate supported that bill in its first-round vote last week.

New York senators unanimously supported a municipal broadband bill at an Energy and Telecommunications Committee meeting Wednesday. S-6041 by Sen. Rachel May (D) would direct the Public Service Commission to study the feasibility of a state muni broadband program, with a report due to the governor and legislature one year after the act’s effective date. It goes next to the Finance Committee. “It has been amended to include some additional specificity in the study, including what state and federal resources may be available and what expertise each municipality would need in order to implement a municipal broadband system,” a May spokesperson said.

The Ohio House Finance Committee planned to weigh bipartisan broadband bill (HB-13) at a hearing Wednesday evening to establish a grants program for municipal corporations and townships to support projects in unserved areas. It would define broadband as having 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, and would exclude any areas that’s received or is designated to receive any other state or federal broadband grants.

Ohio’s bill stems from the sponsors' “combined decades of local government experience at the city, township and county levels, dealing firsthand with constituents struggling to access broadband and exploring options to get service extended to their households,” Rep. Michael O’Brien (R) testified last week at a Finance Committee hearing. Co-sponsor Rick Cafagna (R) also has cable industry experience, O'Brien said. “This is not a bill brought to you on behalf of an industry or organization, nor is it something borrowed from other states.” HB-13 “incentivizes true public/private partnerships and rewards cooperation across the layers of government,” Carfagna said. “By pooling resources and having all parties place some ‘skin in the game,’ the existing financial barriers become far less intimidating.”

Local governments supported the Ohio bill, in written testimony Wednesday. The “permissive” bill will help communities bring internet to cost-prohibitive areas and “allow communities to join together to provide approximately thirty percent of Ohioans with the benefits of connectivity to broadband infrastructure,” wrote Kent Scarrett and Matthew DeTemple, executive directors respectively of the Ohio Municipal League and Ohio Township Association. The County Commissioners Association of Ohio “shares the sponsors’ concern that too many Ohioans fail to realize the benefits of connectivity due to limitations of the extent of broadband infrastructure,” Policy Analyst Adam Schwiebert wrote.

In North Carolina, where muni broadband expansion is banned, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) Tuesday received S-310, passed nearly unanimously, for electric cooperatives to provide the service (see 1905280053). Cooper “has worked consistently to expand access to broadband and is reviewing this legislation,” a spokesperson emailed Wednesday. Georgia and Mississippi enacted similar measures this year, and Alabama, Colorado and Texas bills await governors’ signatures.

Chattanooga’s $400 million muni broadband hasn’t increased jobs “in any discernible way relative to its peers,” reported Phoenix Center Chief Economist George Ford Wednesday. “At least in cities where broadband is already available, the returns on such investments are not to be found in the labor market.”