The federal government is selling us out and endangering our health on wireless radiation. Why? To make life easier for the telecoms industry. Action Alert!
THE TOPLINE
- The FCC’s current Notice of Proposed Rulemaking offers a critical opportunity to demand transparency, modern safety standards, and accountability in how wireless technology is deployed.
- The public has no access to key data about what frequencies, power levels, or waveforms are being emitted by small-cell and large-tower installations—making meaningful, independent risk assessment impossible.
- FCC exposure guidelines are decades old and do not reflect modern patterns of continuous, low-level EMF exposure from 5G, AI, and the expanding Internet of Things
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to further restrict the ability of towns and cities to control how 5G infrastructure gets deployed. The basic message is: if you don’t like how we’re building cell towers, small cells, and wireless antennas, then…too bad!
The federal government is again putting its substantial power and resources at the disposal of special interests rather than the public interest. Like the backsliding on PFAS regulations we’ve seen from the Trump Administration’s EPA, it is another concerning example of the contradictions of the current moment. We have RFK Jr. leading the charge on a powerful “Make America Healthy Again” movement that seeks to address the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic—the MAHA Strategy report included research initiatives aimed at the dangers of electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation. Yet in its actions, the federal government is moving in the opposite direction. We need a strong grassroots response to oppose this blatant cronyism.
The stated purpose of the FCC’s NPRM is to “free towers and other wireless infrastructure from regulatory burdens imposed at the state and local level” and to “remove regulatory barriers that would unlawfully inhibit the deployment of wireless infrastructure.” In a nutshell, the goal is to short-circuit the ability of local governments to exercise any control over whether and how 5G infrastructure gets installed.
Adding insult to injury, there’s almost no transparency about what’s being emitted from these small-cell and large-tower installations. What part of the electromagnetic spectrum is being used? What’s the amplitude, the waveform? This information is simply not in the public domain.In the NPRM, the FCC boasts about “110% growth in small cells and a 24% growth in total cell sites since 2018.” It’s as if the authors are completely unaware of, or just don’t care about, the substantial scientific literature pointing to the health dangers of this explosion in human exposure to EMF radiation (see our article here and here for more information on these dangers).
We’re told by the very agency that has revolving doors with the telecoms industry that these systems comply with FCC exposure guidelines. These guidelines were drafted decades ago, long before the kinds of exposures created by today’s “Internet of Everything” or tomorrow’s AI- and sensor-driven “Internet of Senses.” Without this information, independent scientists and the public are forced into in an information desert where informed consent or informed avoidance just aren’t an option.
If public policy ever caught up with the science, we’d treat wireless radiation the way we treat environmental chemicals. Imagine a chemical company setting up shop in your town but refusing to say what substances it’s producing or whether they’re safe. That would never fly. Yet with EMF emissions, that is the norm. We are, collectively, EMF illiterate. Most people grasp that certain chemicals can be unsafe—and we’ve built systems of regulation and transparency around that understanding. But with EMFs, industry wants us to remain in the dark.
The FCC must bring its oversight into the 21st century by requiring full disclosure of emission characteristics, revisiting outdated exposure limits, and acknowledging the growing body of science showing biological effects far below current thresholds. Just as we demand transparency around chemicals in our air, food, and water, we must now demand electromagnetic transparency in our communities.
