FCC Seeks End to Environmental Safety Reviews for Cell Tower Projects

Written by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. on September 30, 2025. Posted in Current News

The Federal Communications Commission wants to “streamline” its environmental review process to “promote efficiency and certainty” for telecommunication developers seeking to build wireless infrastructures.

Safe technology advocates say the agency should expand and strengthen, not reduce, its environmental review.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is eyeing a regulatory change that would make it easier for telecommunications companies to install cell towers and other wireless infrastructure without considering the environmental safety of the project.

The agency announced in the Federal Register on Aug. 19 that it was eliciting public comments for a proposed regulation change to “streamline” and “modernize” the agency’s environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).

The proposed changes would exempt certain wireless projects from NEPA review requirements. According to Broadband Breakfast, the types of projects that would be exempt under the change include cell towers under 200 feet that don’t require antenna structure registration, small cell installations and 5G buildouts in rural areas authorized under geographic licenses.

Other possible changes include limiting the types of FCC projects that require review under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA). NEPA and NHPA both legislate the quality of local human environments.

The FCC said the changes are necessary to “promote efficiency and certainty” for telecommunications developers and “encourage deployment of infrastructure, which in turn will result in more competition and technological innovation in the marketplace.”

Miriam Eckenfels, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, criticized the move. She said:

“NEPA and NHPA reviews are an inconvenience to the wireless industry. The FCC’s rulemaking is a part of a larger effort to remove barriers for industry — at the expense of people’s say about their environment and health.”

“Rulemaking” is how federal agencies change their regulations. The process involves notifying the public of a proposed change, allowing time for comments and replies, and issuing a final rule.

Since NEPA is about protecting the human environment, the law also protects people’s health, Eckenfels said. “NEPA is one of the few safeguards against unchecked industry expansion.”

Dozens of safe tech groups and advocates submitted collective comments to the FCC on Sept. 18. They wrote, “FCC should be expanding and strengthening its review procedures under NEPA, not reducing them.”

Reply comments on the FCC’s proposed changes are due Oct. 3, according to the Federal Register.

Technology attorney Odette Wilkens, who submitted the comments on the advocates’ behalf, told The Defender:

“The FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking to ‘modernize’ NEPA is a sarcastic reference because its purpose is to diminish environmental review — and historic preservation review — on the incorrect rationale that these reviews are delaying the rapid deployment of 5G.”

FCC’s move is ‘true example’ of industry capture

Eckenfels called the FCC a “true example” of an industry-captured agency that serves the interests of the companies that it is supposed to regulate.

She pointed out that Ajit Pai, who chaired the FCC during the first Trump administration, recently became the president and CEO of the U.S. wireless industry lobby group, CTIA.

“Unsurprisingly, Pai praised the FCC’s plan to reduce its NEPA reviews,” Eckenfels said.

In a statement, Pai said the move would expand access to 5G by accelerating the buildout of wireless infrastructure.

Regulatory capture at the FCC is “nothing new,” said W. Scott McCollough, lead litigator for CHD’s EMR & Wireless cases. Over a dozen former FCC leaders, dating back to the early 1990s, had industry affiliations, according to a list provided by McCollough.

Attorney Robert Berg cited similar evidence of regulatory capture, saying the FCC has for decades pushed for deploying wireless communications infrastructure “as widely and quickly as possible — and the environment, national historic structures, Native American sacred sites, and anything else in the way be damned.”

“Yet even this utterly lax application of the NEPA regulations … is too much regulation for the FCC’s current chairman, Brendan Carr,” Berg said.

Carr, a former telecom lawyer who joined the FCC in 2012, was tapped by President Donald Trump in late 2024 to head the agency. Axios called Carr, the FCC’s “5G crusader.”

According to Carr, the FCC’s proposed NEPA changes are “to expedite and simplify permitting processes and clear the way for new infrastructure builds.”

What wireless projects should require an environmental review?

Under NEPA law, federal agencies must consider the environmental impact of every “major federal action.”

Most wireless infrastructures are considered “major federal actions” because the FCC regulates their construction and grants permits for their use. That means they are subject to environmental impact review.

Under Carr’s leadership and at the request of many wireless industries, the FCC is looking to narrow the definition of what constitutes a “major federal action.”

The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, which held a roundtable discussion with stakeholders about the FCC’s proposal, wrote in a comment to the agency:

“NEPA reviews should only be triggered when there is construction that is supported by the federal government, not merely when an agency permits a small business to utilize spectrum over an area.”

Safe tech advocates, including Wilkens, argued in their collective comments for a broader definition. They said environmental reviews should be required for any wireless project “that results in a substantial densification of radiofrequency across a geographic area (for example across a metropolitan area).”

Joe Sandri, president and general counsel at Environmental Health Trust, said he wasn’t surprised the FCC is proposing to limit its environmental reviews.

“The industry has long requested that the government, including the FCC, water down critical mechanisms necessary to clearly discern environmental harms, let alone ensure environmental protections,” he said.

‘FCC is treating NEPA as though compliance is optional’

When NEPA was enacted in 1970, it established the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to ensure that federal agencies meet their NEPA obligations.

Earlier this year, Trump told CEQ in an executive order to rescind its NEPA regulations in a bid to strip away “burdensome” regulations that have “impeded” the development of the country’s natural resources and energy sources.

Carr cited Trump’s order in a press release about why the FCC had proposed limiting environmental reviews.

But Trump’s order didn’t pertain to telecommunications companies, Eckenfels said. “The order addressed the U.S. energy sector.”

Carr said the proposed changes were warranted in light of a move by Congress in 2023 to cut certain NEPA reviews and accelerate others, and a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that curbed NEPA’s scope.

According to Wilkens, “The FCC is treating NEPA as though compliance is optional.”

Wilkens is president and general counsel for Wired Broadband Inc., a nonprofit that advocates for hard-wired high-speed internet — such as fiber optics — as a “superior technology compared to wireless communications.”

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Program in 2021 issued guidelines on cell tower placement, stating that cell tower developers should avoid wetlands and waterways to protect nests and migratory birds.

It is unclear what, if anything, is being done to ensure that cell tower developers follow those guidelines.

source  childrenshealthdefense.org

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