FCC (12/01/2025): "Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments"

It's Federal Register Watch Season 🥳

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving marks my personal kickoff for Federal Register Watch Season. While you are enjoying family and roasting that delicious turkey, Big Daddy Gubment is busy bending us over like the useless little eaters that we are.

This year it appears that wireless radiation frying is on the menu.

YUM!

As we know, the FCC has never met a regulation it couldn’t sidestep or ignore, and that certainly won’t be changing anytime soon. Please read about the FCC👉/EPA🖕/FDA👈 circle jerk HERE.

Having state and local governments doing annoying things like having opinions and concerns has really been cramping the deployment of the wireless infrastructure in this country, and it’s high time we get rid of some cumbersome barriers.

I mean what are community rights anyway??? Just like a human, if you cut a community open, you won’t find any rights.

Who are these community assholes that think they can have an opinion about their exposure to EMF/RF/radiation in their own community? This is obviously a federal issue.

Golly gee, how can we balance national broadband goals with local interests? Hmmm, let’s see…local interests?

Let’s get this advanced, high-capacity network party started!!! These smart cities aren’t going to build themselves.

Are there health concerns? Who cares! We need streaming, AI, broadband, and next-gen applications STAT!

Speaking of health concerns…surely someone is regulating all that completely harmless (😉) EMF/RF/radiation exposure, right?

Now before we look at how eliminating barriers is going fuck build America, let’s meet the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2025 – Former regulators and policy advocates accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr of having “obliterated” the FCC’s credibility as an independent, expert regulatory body.

✋Um whoa…slow down, I’d hardly say that the FCC could be called credible, independent, expert, or regulatory prior to Carr’s appointment, but I’ll talk about that later.

Before joining the FCC, Carr worked for Wiley Rein, a BigLaw firm whose telecoms clients include Viacom, AOL Time Warner, and all four of the regional Bell telephone companies. Founded by former FCC chairman Richard E. Wiley, the law firm specializes in hiring former and future FCC commissioners to defend telecom companies in regulatory lawsuits. Recently, Wiley helped their client Nexstar Broadcasting “persuade” the Supreme Court to affirm a previous FCC decision to repeal the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule and the radio/television cross-ownership rule.

I dug up Carr’s investment portfolio and found a pretty bland mix of Fidelity mutual funds. I looked a little closer and see that the funds are littered with companies wiring up smart grids…AI-hungry data centers, real-time police surveillance networks - Quanta, Sterling, Vertiv, Cloudflare, Axon. So while Carr isn’t directly invested in the industry he regulates (as in, he didn’t personally pick these stocks), he’s not not invested in it.

Okie dokie…enough about that guy. Let’s look at how we are going to “Build America” by Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments. I took the liberty of copying and pasting a few select paragraphs below (all emphasis mine).

Build SMART Cities America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments

Introduction

With this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( NPRM), we advance the Commission’s Build America Agenda by proposing reforms that would free towers and other wireless infrastructure from regulatory burdens imposed at the state and local level. This NPRM answers President Trump’s call across the federal government to expedite, eliminate, and simplify permitting burdens that inhibit economic development, job creation, and energy production. This proceeding also builds on the Commission’s successful efforts during President Trump’s first term to streamline infrastructure rules, which helped spur significant investment and network buildout.

To ensure that mobile service providers can keep pace with consumer demands and needs, we seek to continue the success of the Commission’s prior efforts to remove regulatory barriers that would unlawfully inhibit the deployment of wireless infrastructure. This objective, which reflects a longstanding bipartisan priority, is consistent with Congress’s stated intent in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to “provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced telecommunications and information technologies to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition . . . .”

In this NPRM, we first seek to clarify and potentially expand upon the Commission’s rulings under certain permitting provisions of section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012 (Spectrum Act) that expedite state or local approval of certain modifications of existing tower and wireless base stations. In particular, in response to court remand, we seek to clarify the meaning of “concealment elements,” which are used by builders to minimize the visual impact of towers and other wireless infrastructure, and to codify these clarifications in § 1.6100 of the Commission’s rules, as described in Appendix A. We also ask for comment on other changes that the Commission should consider making to § 1.6100, such as changes related to siting conditions, to further streamline wireless permitting proceedings and facilitate the rapid buildout of wireless infrastructure.

Second, we seek comment on whether we should take further steps to ensure that state and local permitting regulations do not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the deployment of wireless infrastructure facilities pursuant to sections 253 and 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act. We recognize that some state and local governments have taken important steps to modernize their approach to siting requests. However, in recent years, a number of state and local regulations have inhibited the deployment, densification, and upgrading of wireless networks, resulting in an effective prohibition of 5G wireless services. We seek comment on such regulations, including potential preemption, particularly those that:

• Inhibit the deployment of macro cell towers and other wireless facilities;

• Impose unreasonable delays of permitting approvals;

• Assess disproportionate or otherwise unreasonable fees;

• Condition approval on aesthetic or similar criteria; and

• Impose other regulatory impediments in violation of the Telecommunications Act and Commission rules.

In the 2020 Declaratory Ruling, the Commission clarified the 2014 rules including clarifying that the term “concealment elements” means “elements of a stealth-designed facility intended to make the facility look like something other than a wireless tower or base station,” such as a tree or flag pole. The Commission clarified that, “the element must have been part of the facility that the locality approved in its prior review.” The Commission determined that a modification “defeats” a concealment element (and thus becomes ineligible for expedited local approval) where it “cause[s] a reasonable person to view the structure’s intended stealth design as no longer effective after the modification.”

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Ok, I’m going to stop here…there is plenty more though, so please do peruse it in its entire glory here.

And now I propose a more accurate name for this proposed FCC Rule:

Slashing Barriers for SMART CITIES

All the better to irradiate you with, my dear…

Here’s the strategic breakdown:

1. HIDE IT! You know what I love with my radiation? Concealment elements. Why? Because that’s how we Make American Smart Cities Great.

   👉 Clarification and codification of “concealment elements” under Section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012 enables densification of wireless infrastructure (small cells, micro-cells, repeater nodes) in urban areas without “major visual intrusion”… which is critical for smart-city sensors, IoT networks, high-bandwidth connectivity.

2. OVERRIDE IT! Preempt or limit state/local aesthetic requirements, excessive fees, or unreasonable delays that otherwise inhibit macro tower or small cell deployments.

Preempt: a doctrine in law according to which federal law supersedes state law when federal law is in conflict with a state law

3. COVER IT ALL! Expansion beyond just “small cells” includes macro towers and other larger wireless facilities or upgrades. Smart-cities need a mix of high-capacity backbone (macro towers) and dense small-cell / IoT nodes. This broad coverage helps support diverse services (transportation, utilities, public WiFi, emergency response, city-wide sensor networks).

4. ACCELERATE APPROVAL! After all, it works so well to bypass pesky regulatory processes for drugs and medical devices, might as well do it here. Required permitting processes would have shorter “shot clocks” and potential “rocket docket” dispute resolution for siting/permitting disputes.

5. OVERRIDE SOME MORE! Invitation for comment on whether local/state AI-related regulations might hamper network deployment or use of AI-driven communications/infrastructure — and whether to preempt such restrictions.

Oh look, here are some Venn diagrams I made 👇

Gosh, I wonder if SMART CITIES will make it easier or harder to fake pandemics in the future…🤔

While we are here…I’m going to repost the following section directly from my previous post I linked earlier:

The FCC’s Mission

The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.

“FCC regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.” That includes antennas, right?

SORT OF! Just depends on the flexibility of your definition of the word “regulate”…

Let’s look at the FCC FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS PAGE 👇

(headings in ALL CAPS and block quotes are directly pasted from FCC FAQ)

DOES THE FCC ROUTINELY MONITOR RADIO FREQUENCY RADIATION FROM ANTENNAS?

👉The FCC does not have the resources or the personnel to routinely monitor the exposure levels due at all of the thousands of transmitters that are subject to FCC jurisdiction. However, while there are large variations in exposure levels in the environment of fixed transmitting antennas, it is exceedingly rare for exposure levels to approach FCC public exposure limits in accessible locations. In addition, the FCC does not routinely perform RF exposure investigations unless there is a reasonable expectation that the FCC exposure limits may be exceeded.

I speak FCC…NO! FCC cannot possibly be expected to routinely monitor all the things that they monitor.

DOES THE FCC MAINTAIN A DATABASE THAT INCLUDES INFORMATION ON THE LOCATION AND TECHNICAL PARAMETERS OF ALL OF THE TRANSMITTER SITES IT REGULATES? (FCC FAQ)

👉The FCC does not have a comprehensive, transmitter-specific database for all of the services it regulates. However, the FCC does have information for some services such as radio and television broadcast stations, and many larger antenna towers are required to register with the Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) database if they meet certain criteria. In those cases, location information is generally specified in terms of degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude and longitude. In some services, licenses are allowed to utilize additional transmitters or to increase power without notifying the FCC. Other services are licensed by geographic area, such that the FCC has no knowledge concerning the actual number or location of transmitters within that geographic area.

Gah…why the hell would the Federal COMMUNICATIONS Commission keep something silly like a database for the services it regulates?

And FCC cannot be bothered to keep up with ridiculous things like numbers OR locations of all the transmitters.

Oh look, I easily found a map of the cell towers near Atlanta using only my very limited computer skills.

Only 1,792! I wonder how FCC regulates them when they don’t know how many there are or where they are located…

More from FCC FAQ…

ARE CELLULAR AND OTHER RADIO TOWERS LOCATED NEAR HOMES OR SCHOOLS SAFE FOR RESIDENTS AND STUDENTS?

Other antennas, such as those used for radio and television broadcast transmissions, use power levels that are generally much higher than those used for cellular and PCS antennas. Therefore, in some cases there could be a potential for higher levels of exposure to persons on the ground. However, all broadcast stations are required to demonstrate compliance with FCC safety guidelines, and ambient exposures to nearby persons from such stations are typically well below FCC safety limits.

“Persons on the ground” = CHILDREN in this case. And even though we don’t know how many towers there are, or where they are located, we are sure that they demonstrated compliance. It’s just innocent nearby persons CHILDREN, who BY THE WAY happen to be at increased risk for radiation damage.

CAN LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTAL BODIES ESTABLISH LIMITS FOR RF EXPOSURE? (FCC FAQ)

In the United States, some local and state jurisdictions have also enacted rules and regulations pertaining to human exposure to RF energy. However, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 contained provisions relating to federal jurisdiction to regulate human exposure to RF emissions from certain transmitting devices. In particular, Section 704 of the Act states that, “No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.” Further information on FCC policy with respect to facilities siting is available from the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (see https://www.fcc.gov/general/tower-and-antenna-siting)

If state and local governments notice that the FCC is doing a shitty job, can they step in? Absolutely not, assholes!

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THANK GOODNESS FCC is proposing this new rule to get rid of whatever remaining boundaries could possibly hinder the full throttle deployment of all things wireless.

Let’s go back to 2012 and review how safety concerns regarding mobile phones got handled (reposting from my previous post again) - I’m sure this rapid barrier slashing will handle health concerns with the utmost consideration 🤣:

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Reposted:

In 2012 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) decided that Telecommunications: Exposure and Testing Requirements for Mobile Phones Should Be Reassessed!

GAO prepared a report of its investigation into safety concerns related to mobile phones. The report concluded that further research is needed to confirm whether mobile phones are completely safe for the user.

Just kidding. Scratch the slow clap.

So the GAO recommended that the FCC reassess RF exposure limits. And FCC was like…that’s a hard no for us, bro.

Naturally I wanted to know who the Chairman of the FCC was in 2012 that basically told the Government Accountability Office to fuck off.

Julius Genachowski

Role: Chief Counsel to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt (1994–1997)
Genachowski joined the FCC in 1994, appointed by Chairman Reed Hundt, who served from 1993 to 1997 under President Bill Clinton. As Chief Counsel, Genachowski was a senior advisor, providing legal and strategic guidance on FCC policies and rulemaking during a pivotal time for telecommunications regulation.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (signed into law on February 8, 1996) was that landmark overhaul of U.S. communications law, that deregulated the telecom markets. Genachowski played a key role in translating the Act into actionable FCC regulations.

After leaving the FCC in 1997, Genachowski transitioned to the private sector, joining Barry Diller at IAC/InterActiveCorp as a senior executive.

He significantly influenced telecom deregulation, spectrum policy, and universal service—foreshadowing his role as FCC Chairman. He returned to the FCC in 2009 as Chairman where he served until 2013.

If you think that the FDA has greasy revolving door, FCC says hold my beer👇

After leaving FCC, Genachowski joined the Carlyle Group. Carlyle’s business model revolves around acquiring, managing, and growing companies, often through leveraged buyouts, and then exiting those investments for profit. Its TMT portfoliohas historically included firms reliant on telecommunications infrastructure, broadcasting, and wireless spectrum—sectors where FCC regulations play a critical role. For example, Carlyle’s acquisition of Hawaiian Telcom from Verizon in 2004 for $1.6 billion required FCC approval, as did its involvement in deals like the $27.5 billion Kinder Morgan acquisition in 2006, where telecommunications assets were part of the broader infrastructure play. The firm’s hiring of Julius Genachowski, as a managing director in 2014 further underscores its strategic interest in navigating regulated communications spaces.

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As of today, the FCC’s RF exposure limits remain those set in 1996.

In 1996 cell phones looked like this and were definitely not carried in your pocket, worn on your wrist, or surfing the internet 👇.

In 2019 RF exposure limits were briefly revisited and it was determined that the RF exposure limits set in 1996 were in no need of any updating.

Critics, including some scientists, advocacy groups, and anyone with a functional brain, argue the limits are outdated, obviously flawed, and completely evident risks (like long-term low-level exposure all day every day).

The FCC maintains that its standards, developed with input from double speaking crooks interested in lining their pockets while murdering the world “health” agencies and rooted The Science™, still protect the public adequately.

The agency continues to monitor research and could revisit the issue if new evidence emerges. And if there were any new evidence they would totally look into it.

Should we check in and see what the World “Health” Organization has to say?

World Health Organization, radiofrequency radiation and health - a hard nut to crack (Review)

In May 2011 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluated cancer risks from radiofrequency (RF) radiation. Human epidemiological studies gave evidence of increased risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma. RF radiation was classified as Group 2B, a possible human carcinogen. Further epidemiological, animal and mechanistic studies have strengthened the association. In spite of this, in most countries little or nothing has been done to reduce exposure and educate people on health hazards from RF radiation. On the contrary ambient levels have increased. In 2014 the WHO launched a draft of a Monograph on RF fields and health for public comments. It turned out that five of the six members of the Core Group in charge of the draft are affiliated with International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), an industry loyal NGO, and thus have a serious conflict of interest. Just as by ICNIRP, evaluation of non-thermal biological effects from RF radiation are dismissed as scientific evidence of adverse health effects in the Monograph. This has provoked many comments sent to the WHO. However, at a meeting on March 3, 2017 at the WHO Geneva office it was stated that the WHO has no intention to change the Core Group.

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So there you have it, friends.

Happy Thanksgiving and FedReg Watch Season!

https://ko-fi.com/conspiracysarah

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