The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates radio, TV, satellite, cable, and wireless and wireline communications. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the agency, like all federal agencies, is supposed to both follow legal requirements to assess the environmental impacts of new towers and other communications infrastructure, and consider the concerns of communities and citizens. It has historically done neither. [1]
With impacts to public health, wildlife, and the environment, the results of this failure are evident across the nation: views of protected landscapes and historic sites ruined, wetlands filled, endangered species habitat cleared, sacred sites desecrated, burial mounds and archaeological sites disturbed, and fragile underwater environments degraded. Equally important, the voices of communities and citizens are suppressed and ignored. (Over the years, PEER has challenged the FCC’s weak and non-compliant NEPA rules–unfortunately, with no success.)
Now, using the pretext of a changed legal landscape and in response to industry requests to cut “regulatory red tape,” the FCC is on the verge of promulgating NEPA rules that would further weaken its already skeletal NEPA rules and further exempt itself from NEPA obligations. [2]
The FCC already has one of the least burdensome and least rigorous NEPA procedures of any agency. For example, with no oversight or record, it delegates much of the preliminary environmental review to industry; its NEPA rule is structured with an overly broad categorical exclusion, with the result that few of its authorized activities undergo either industry or agency environmental review, and few environmental effects are considered. Also, its notice and comment procedures are designed to exclude the public; unlike most agencies, it currently has no webpage devoted to NEPA compliance and documents. Unsurprisingly then, FCC has almost never enforced NEPA against industry violators.
Given the FCC’s dismal record on NEPA compliance, NEPA has been neither a burden on industry nor a brake on deployment, despite the claims of the agency and the industry. On the contrary, FCC’s unusual rule structure already excludes most deployments from review, as demonstrated by the deployment of tens of thousands of satellites as well as of 4G, 5G and other infrastructure. Industry, for its part, has prepared very few environmental assessments over the past years, while the FCC has never produced a more exhaustive environmental impact statement.
Alleging that “modernizing “and “streamlining” its NEPA procedures is necessary to facilitate wireless broadband deployment across the country, the FCC now proposes to:
- Redefine which actions trigger NEPA review so that even fewer actions are supposed to be reviewed for potential environmental effects; it proposes to eliminate substantive NEPA review for all deployments built pursuant to geographic licenses, for registered towers, and for any deployments built with FCC funds (the last of which the FCC has, probably illegally, never considered as a NEPA review-triggering action).
- Further eliminate public input and notice. It aims to further reduce transparency and public involvement by making the few environmental documents that will be submitted under this new scheme even less comprehensive in terms of analysis of effects, even less available to the public for review and comment, and even more burdensome on the public to establish at a given site an effect that warrants further consideration. The FCC even goes so far as to propose deleting the one provision in its rules that allows the public to raise an effect not considered or inadequately considered and eliminating the minimal court-ordered environmental notification requirements.
- Exempt space-based operations (satellite launches and licensing) from environmental review, because it alleges that NEPA does not apply or that they have no effects, despite adverse effects of, for example, artificial lighting on migrating birds, pollinating insects, and human enjoyment of night skies.
- Through elimination of review of the majority of deployments, eliminate applicability of rules governing human exposure to radiofrequency emissions.
As wireless technologies proliferate—and presumably soon with even less environmental review—the environmental impacts, already widely recognized, will only multiply. Taken together, these proposals if codified will eviscerate an already streamlined, bare-bones, and weak NEPA process and make the FCC even less transparent and accountable to the public.
To augment this effort, the FCC is also working on another rule—also reflecting the wireless industry wish list—that would preempt state and local siting authority based on a slew of “impediments” such as “unreasonable” fees or processing delays, and aesthetic criteria. With almost 30 bills introduced on accelerating broadband siting this session (see., e.g., HR 2564), Congress too is doing its part to dismantle NEPA and trample on local rights. Any and all of these radical new frameworks will hand industry a carte blanche to deploy infrastructure that runs roughshod over local, state and public interests, as well as the environment.
[1] For background, see Elkind, Peter, “The FCC is Supposed to Protect the Environment. It Doesn’t.” Pro Publica, May 5, 2023, and Rosenberg, Erica, “Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture” Environment, October/December 2022.
[2] See Modernizing the Commissions’ National Environmental Policy Act Rules. 90 Fed Reg 40, 295 (Aug 19, 2025) (NPRM).
Erica Rosenberg is an environmental attorney with Congressional, NGO, academia, and agency experience, she worked in the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau for seven years until 2021. For more details, see: Rosenberg, E. (2022) Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development.
