WASHINGTON-Federal regulators and the wireless telecommunications industry appear close to a compromise on a hybrid radiofrequency radiation exposure guideline, marking a major policy and lobbying shift that sources attribute to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The hybrid RF standard the Federal Communications Commission plans to approve in three weeks appears to pose little problem for paging, cellular, specialized mobile radio and personal communications services carriers, but some satellite systems and emerging wireless technologies under development at higher frequencies could be adversely affected by stricter RF safety limits.
Having abandoned outright opposition to a hybrid RF standard, the wireless industry now is focussed on style over substance insofar as the tone and wording of next month’s ruling goes.
Because that decision is likely to entail a variation of the 1993 proposed adoption of 1992 RF safety guidelines crafted and embraced by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the American National Standards Institute, respectively, the wireless industry is worried the public and local governing bodies that oversee antenna siting may interpret the change as an admission that existing RF exposure limits are unsafe.
For that reason, the wireless industry wants the FCC to emphasize that most wireless equipment in compliance with today’s RF radiation exposure guidelines will meet the new hybrid and is safe for consumers.
“Our concern is just to make sure the new rules retain public confidence in the safety of our systems and technology,” said Candy Castle, a spokesperson for AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in Kirkland, Wash.
The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, which is expected to send a draft recommendation to the four FCC commissioners this week or next, has been working with industry and other government agencies for months to find common ground.
“I feel very confident we are very close,” said Richard Smith, chief of OET. Smith noted that the controversy surrounding the RF exposure issue has given way to major progress in recent weeks.
The EPA, and to a lesser extent other health and safety federal agencies, are opposed to the wholesale adoption of the 1992 IEEE/ANSI standard by the FCC. The ’92 standard, which is tougher than the 1982 IEEE/ANSI guideline that covers all wireless except PCS, is overwhelmingly supported by the wireless industry. Three of the four FCC commissioners are comfortable with the 1992 IEEE/ANSI standard as well.
But FCC Chairman Reed Hundt apparently is giving great weight to EPA’s position that the 1992 industry standard may not adequately protect the public and individuals in the workplace against possible RF-related health risks.
There have been legal claims that pocket telephones cause brain cancer, but to date no legal judgments have been made against any cellular carrier or manufacturer. A congressional query in 1994 found that while federal regulators have not felt compelled to take wireless products off the market, the existing body of science does not rule in or out whether pocket telephones pose a public health risk.
An industry-sponsored five-year, $25 million research program that’s into its fourth year has yet to produce any cell culture or animal studies that might shed new light on the issue.
EPA favors RF exposure guidelines published in the mid-1980s by the non-profit, congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement. EPA Chief Carol Browner, like Hundt a Clinton-appointed Democrat with close ties to Vice President Gore, has refused to back down.
The NCRP guideline allows for uncertainty regarding possible bioeffects from the use of low power RF devices, like pocket telephones, over a long duration. The IEEE/ANSI standard does not.
As such, the wireless industry did not want a new-albeit different-RF safety exposure standard that local government officials could point to as justification for delaying or denying approval of antenna siting requests by wireless carriers.
While the federal antenna siting policy in the new telecommunications law forbids localities from withholding authorization if wireless facilities meet FCC emission guidelines, arbitration of disputes over the safety issue could take time and further disrupt the roll out of new PCS systems.
The wireless industry’s decision to negotiate a hybrid RF guideline, according to lobbyists, was made reluctantly. FCC officials, like OET’s Smith, were blunt about telling the industry the RF proceeding was as much about politics as about science.
“It would be very bad for industry if one or more of the government agencies disagreed with the [RF] standard adopted,” Smith said he told industry representatives.
That the FCC has accorded EPA so much deference, despite strong support for the 1992 IEEE/ANSI standard, angers some in industry and the scientific community.
“They (EPA) have very little experience,” said Ronald Peterson, manager of Radiation Protection and Product Safety for Lucent Technologies Inc. He said EPA wants to return to the RF health debate, having given up on the issue in the 1980s because of budgetary and policy reasons.
