Take Action to Oppose Thomas E. Wheeler for FCC Chairman

May 20, 2013 - The Wheeler confirmation hearing at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation will likely be held the first week of June.

Step One - Send an e-mail NOW to all the Members of the Senate Commerce Committee to voice your opposition to the Wheeler nomination. Your e-mail should be sent to the Telecommunications staff person for each Committee member. This Commerce Committee e-mail list provides all the information you will need.

See The EMRadiation Policy Institute’s opposition letter for Mr. Wheeler’s history as the principal lobbyist for the wireless industry from 1992-2004 and the influence he had on provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Scientists from the BioInitiative Working Group have sent a letter to the members of Commerce Committee asking them to reject Mr. Wheeler’s nomination.

Step Two – Send an e-mail after June 1st to all Senators’ Telecommunications Staff person. Should Mr. Wheeler’s nomination be approved by the Commerce Committee, it must still be approved by the entire Senate. We will send you a reminder of that date. This e-mail list of all Senators’ telecom staff provides all of those e-mail addresses.

Should you prefer to call the Senate offices, this list provides the telephone number for each Senator’s office in Washington DC.

Feb. 23, 2013 - See "Instructions and Background" below for filing REPLY in FCC Proceedings ET Docket No. 03-137 and WT Docket No. 12-357. Take this opportunity to officially inform the FCC of your “desire to change the RF standards” because “the Commission’s RF safety rules are inadequate because the rules are based on physics rather than biological studies.”

FCC page where you can send your comments electronically to the FCC.

Don’t wait until the last minute. Try to submit your Reply by Wednesday morning March 6, 2013.

Instructions and Background:
Submit your Reply in FCC Proceedings ET Docket No. 03-137 and WT Docket No. 12-357. See explanation in this excerpt of WT Docket No. 12-357 at paragraph 53 and footnote 95 on the 3rd page of this excerpt.

Complete text of FCC 12-152

These proceedings allow the public to inform the FCC why it must update its RF safety guidelines in order to comply with its proposal “to amend its rules to 'ensure that the public is appropriately protected from any potential adverse effects from RF exposure.’” For example, FCC’s current RF safety guidelines do not take into account published research on the bioloigcal effects brought on by the ability of RF signals to communicate with living tissue.

Webpage where you can submit your FCC Reply electronically.

Using this webpage submission form requires that you attach your Reply either in WORD or PDF. To do so, be sure you use this template for the first page of your Reply. PDF is the most secure form as no one can make changes to your Reply after you submit it.

A Reply from an individual has the greatest impact when filed in the form of an Affidavit. Page 2 of the template gives you the format for an affidavit.

• First fill in the box for the Proceeding Number with 03-137. Then click on the link <Add Another Proceeding> as you also type in 12-357.

• In the Contact Info section type in your name in the <Name of Filer> box and your e-mail address in the <Email Address> Box.

• In the Details section ignore Exparte Presentation. For <Type of Filing> choose REPLY. In the File Number box type – 12-152. Ignore the Report Number and Bureau ID Number boxes.

• In the Address section you want <Address for: Filer>. Most of you will also want <Address Type: US Address>. Then type in your own address information in the remaining boxes in this section.

• In the Document(s) section click on the Browse button and find the name of your document where you have saved it on your computer in your own Folders. Click on the name of your document. If you have addition information that you wish to submit such as some kind of Exhibit, click on the <Add Another Attachment> link and follow the same procedure.

• If you have made an error, click on <Reset> at the bottom of the page to clear the form and start over.

• Lastly click on the <Continue> button at the bottom of the page to review your submittal and to finish the process.

• Print out the confirmation page so that you have a record of the number assigned to your submittal.

July 1, 2009 - (Action Date extended to Thursday July 9, 2009.)

The FCC has extended the date for submitting Reply Comment in its
Notice Of Inquiry 09-51 A National Broadband Plan for Our Future.

You can submit an affidavit in the Reply Comment round for FCC GC Docket No. 09-51 A National Broadband plan for our Future. The EMR Policy Institute’s initial Comment is posted at: EMR Regulations – United States.

Check the Table of Exhibits that were sent to us in time to file in the Comment Round. If yours is not there, you can file one now.

Over 1,500 Comments were submitted in the initial Comment Round from companies and individuals throughout the US. The majority are pushing for wireless broadband access. We need to balance the scale and provide the FCC with counter arguments. Fiberoptic is the best choice for both technical and environmental reasons. Your voice is important.

The States represented in the Comment round are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

Add your state to the list. It would be significant to have at least one statement from each of our 50 states.

We will accept Affidavits ONLY until Thursday July 9, 2009.

Action Alert:
Five Steps to help you write an affidavit to be submitted as part of The EMR Policy Institute Reply Comment that will be filed in FCC 09-31 Notice of Inquiry - A National Broadband Plan for Our Future GN Docket No. 09-51.


1. Read first in its entirety Helpful Tips for Composing An Affidavit.

2. Then modify the Generic Affidavit to your specific situation. As our attorney advises:
As advocates, we may not put words in peoples' mouths -- especially sworn statements, which must contain the person's own words -- which is why it will be extremely important that this is not a 'cookie-cutter' type affidavit, but a form that can easily be modified by each individual.

3. Staple all the pages of your document together and take it to a Notary Public and have it
notarized.

4. Unstaple your document and FAX it by Thursday, July 9, 2009 to: 304-932-0022.

5. Additional step this time - E-mail us the WORD document of your affidavit. It will greatly cut down the time it takes us to prepare the EMR Policy Institute Reply Comment document if we can copy/paste from your statement and not have to retype everything from your FAX. If you wrote your statement by hand, don’t worry about this Step.

Thank you for taking the time to participate. It is crucial that you make your voice heard. The FCC needs citizen input to compel it to address the serious public health problems that will accompany a nationwide wireless buildout. In FCC Acting Chairman Michael Copps’ formal statement on this Notice of Inquiry he said:

This Commission has never, I believe, received a more serious charge than the one to spearhead development of a national broadband plan. Congress has made it crystal clear that it expects the best thinking and recommendations we can put together by next February. If we do our job well, this will be the most formative—indeed transformative—proceeding ever in the Commission’s history. . .

. . .It will endeavor to better understand, and hopefully build upon, the cross-cutting nature of what broadband encompasses, beginning with an appreciation that it brings opportunities to just about every sphere of our national life. And it can also consider, in addition to the many opportunity-generating characteristics of broadband, how to deal with any problems, threats or vulnerabilities that seem almost inevitably to accompany new technologies. Ensuring broadband openness, avoiding invasions of people’s privacy, and ensuring cybersecurity are three such challenges that come immediately to mind. We have never in history seen so dynamic and potentially-liberating a technology as this—but history tells us that no major technology transformation is ever a total, unmixed, problem-less blessing.

Sign on to the on-line petition to endorse the recommendations of The BioInitiative Report.
The EMR Policy Institute is putting forward this petition to endorse the recommendations of the BioInitiative Working Group Report. We are seeking support from other organizations whose missions call for responsible public health policy for children, for workers and for the general public both where they work and where they reside. We are also seeking the endorsement of individuals to call for tougher EMR safety policy globally as spelled out in the report: BioInitiative Report: A Rationale for a Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard for Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF). BioInitiative Petition French translation

Submit your comment by September 29, 2008 as an individual citizen to oppose the wireless industry’s Petition at the FCC to further limit local zoning authority over antenna siting decisions. You can submit your comment as an individual who has an opinion on the need to protect the rights of your local government to decide where wireless transmitters sites should be placed in your community.

The law firm of Miller and Van Eaton in Washington DC provides the full background (Choose the link on the right under "Hot Topics" entitled "FCC Issues Two-Week Extension of Dates for Comments on CTIA Petition for Regulation of Local Tower Zoning Decisions.") on this action by the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA) including CTIA’s Petition. Miller and Van Eaton summarizes the crucial importance of opposing this CTIA proposal in these terms:

If the FCC grants the CTIA petition, the careful balance in federal law respecting local zoning authority will be destroyed. It is incompatible with responsible zoning to impose a presumption of a right to construct, regardless of the local community values embodied in local zoning. Opposing this erroneous and disruptive attack by CTIA is essential to the welfare of local government zoning authority.

CTIA’s Petition appears to exaggerate the problem. From CTIA’s Petition pages 12 and 15:

  • There are 3,300 pending site applications, 760 of which have been pending for more than 1 year and 180 of which have been pending for more than 3 years.
  • At the same time CTIA states that in 1996 there were 22,663 sites and by 2007 there were 213,299 sites. Sites increased at the rate of 17,330 per year totally 190,636 new site approvals in 11 years. That’s prolific growth!
  • If only one set of antennas is located at each approved site, the delayed applications represent 0.4% of all antenna applications in the past 11 years. Typically more than one set of antennas are located at each site, especially in urban settings. If a site has on average 3 co-located antenna sets, in excess of 500,000 antennas have been approved in this time compared to 760 applications that have been delayed. In that case the delayed applications represent 0.15% of all antenna applications.

This CTIA Petition is “deja-vu all over again.” In the fall of 1997 the broadcast and cell phone industries attempted a similar effort at the FCC. The 1998 Governing Magazine article "National Zoning Nanny" gives the history.

Citizens across the US held FCC Comment Writing parties and comments flooded in to FCC. The FCC did not grant the industries their preemption at that time.

The same effort is needed now. Submit your Comment by September 29, 2008. In - Box 1. Proceeding - type 08-165. Fill out the rest of the form as it applies to you as an individual. You can attach your Comment as a PDF document, or you can type your comment directly into the box art the bottom of that page.

In addition, as Miller and Van Eaton advises, urge your local municipal officers to participate in the joint filing that MVE is preparing:

It appears that CTIA senses a void in local government concerns and hopes it can get the FCC to act before local governments can mount an effective defense. We recommend immediate action to oppose CTIA’s petition. Local government needs a cogent and comprehensive response to the FCC. Please contact MVE if your community will participate in a coalition effort to fight this CTIA attack on local zoning.

Urge your local municipal officers to contact:
Jim Hobson jhobson@millervaneaton.com or Rick Ellrod fellrod@millervaneaton.com or by phone at: 202-785-0600.

Action Alert March 19, 2008: Please FAX staff members of House Committees responsible for health research and policy. Your request is for the chairmen and ranking members of those committees to join Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont in calling for federal action on electromagnetic and radiofrequency radiation health research.

E-mail us at info@emrpolicy.org the let us know you have sent your letters so we can follow up.

Click on each link below. Add your name, your address and the date to each of these letters. Print each one out. FAX to the number given at the top of each letter.

Each letter will be distributed to the necessary staff members who will forward your request to the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittees for which they work.

 

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