WASHINGTON-In a big blow to the wireless telecommunications industry, the Pentagon has decided not to take a high-profile stand against expected changes to radio frequency radiation exposure guidelines backed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
For weeks, it had been anticipated the Pentagon would urge the Federal Communications Commission not to adopt a hybrid RF safety exposure guideline combining the 1992 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers/American National Standards Institute standard and National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement limits endorsed by EPA.
DOD, which filed comments supporting the ’92 IEEE/ANSI standard in 1993, said at this time it did not plan to file ex parte comments with the FCC.
“The DOD position has not changed,” said Lt. Col. Nancy Burt. “Our position has been documented in our 1993 comments and we have been assured by FCC officials that it will be thoroughly reviewed and carefully considered before a decision on the new policy is made.”
The big fight at the FCC, which is under congressional mandate to rule by Aug. 8, has yet to be fought. While the agency’s Office of Engineering and Technology appears headed toward a hybrid RF guideline, it is unclear whether there’s enough support to adopt such a bureau recommendation.
FCC Commissioners Rachelle Chong and Susan Ness, according to their aides, are comfortable with ’92 IEEE/ANSI. Hundt appears to be leaning toward a hybrid standard. Commissioner James Quello’s position on the issue is unclear, making his vote perhaps the most crucial.
Jon Klauenberg, an RF bioeffects researcher with Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, said Pentagon top brass were ready to oppose the hybrid RF exposure guideline believed to be in the works at the FCC, but abruptly pulled back.
Now, Klauenberg said a somewhat autonomous group of scientists from the Army, Navy and Air Force on the Tri-Service Electromagnetic Radiation Panel will file an ex parte with the FCC urging it to stick with its 1993 proposal to adopt ’92 IEEE-ANSI guidelines.
But that filing won’t carry the same weight as a DOD protest would have.
The ’92 IEEE/ANSI standard is stricter than the 1982 standard that all wireless services-with the exception of personal communications services, which is subject to the ’92 guideline-have to adhere to.
The telecommunications industry, which developed the ’92 IEEE/ANSI guideline, has been lobbying the FCC aggressively in recent months not to veer from its 1993 proposal to adopt the standard.
There is speculation within the military that Sherry Goodman, deputy undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security (the highest office in the Pentagon involved in RF bioeffects), refused to send an ex parte letter to the FCC urging it against a hybrid guideline because it might cause election-year trouble for EPA head Carol Browner. Goodman, according to military sources, is believed to be a close friend of Browner’s.
George Siebert, who serves under Goodman and who signed DOD’s 1993 comments in support of the updated IEEE/ANSI RF safety standard, appears to be the one that was in line to sign the ex parte.
“It’s not true,” said David Cohen, an EPA spokesman. “It does not make sense on its face.”
Cohen said the relationship between Browner and Goodman “is cordial but professional.” He said the two women did not discuss the matter.
Goodman was unavailable for comment.
Some in the telecommunications industry already suspect that politics have overwhelmed science in this debate, believing FCC Chairman Hundt and Browner, both Democratic appointees of Clinton with close ties to environmentally minded Vice President Gore, have joined forces to support a hybrid RF exposure guideline even though the majority of comments (mostly industry), with the varied exception of federal health and safety agencies, embrace the 1992 IEEE/ANSI standard.
