Please Oppose AB 965 and AB 1065 (Preserve community input)

Please Oppose AB 965 and AB 1065 (Preserve community input in decisions about cell tower proliferation)

From our friends at FACTS:

Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxics Safety

   Please join the many individuals and organizations signing on to this letter (see below) to oppose two terrible telecom bills in Sacramento. Every group’s sign-on counts. These bills are being opposed by many groups including Environmental Working Group, The California League of Cities and Americans for Responsible Technology. You can find more details here (https://www.americansforresponsibletech.org/california). Please sign on no later than June 13th.  To sign on, please respond with the name and title of someone authorized to make this sign-on, your organization and your logo. (We don’t need a scanned signature.) Thank you. See example below:

Sincerely,

Lendri Purcell, Director
Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxics Safety

FACTS Families Advocating for Chemical & Toxics Safety

Background:

California’s wireless providers are back in Sacramento, trying to push through two industry-friendly bills that will drastically curtail the ability of local governments to exercise control over the deployment of wireless infrastructure in their communities.

AB-965 allows WIRELESS companies to submit large “batches” of complex applications at a time (as many as 50), requiring local agencies to process and approve them within established FCC shot clocks, or else be automatically deemed approved!
No time for public hearings. No time for ample consideration of safety or environmental factors.
AB-1065 will use our already designated federal funds for wireless rather than superior energy efficient, safe fiber (WIRED) broadband.

  • The digital divide is no accident; it’s an economic choice made by telecoms. In actuality, unserved/underserved areas remain without reliable internet access because they are deemed by the ISPs to have inadequate Return on Investment (ROI).

  • Wireless broadband connectivity has a significant negative impact on energy consumption vs. wired fiber to the premises.

Reinventing Wires – The Future of Landlines and Networks, states:
“The excess energy needed to move data wirelessly through the air via wireless access networks is clearly the biggest and most inefficient consumer of energy in the cloud environment.”

“The Power of Wireless Cloud” exposes the following:

  • Explosion in electricity consumption up 460%

  • An increase in carbon footprint from 6 megatons of CO2 in 2012 to 30 megatons in 2015.

  • Up to 90% of this carbon footprint comes from wireless access network technologies, page 83 – Reinventing Wires.

  • Energy consumption is growing at an unsustainable rate, possibly doubling every two years.

  • Greenhouse emissions are accelerating exponentially due to wireless access demands.

  • Wireless transmissions are easier for hackers to penetrate compared to more secure WIRED connections. Malicious actors could also introduce device vulnerabilities into the 5G supply chain to compromise unsecured wireless systems and exfiltrate critical infrastructure data.” Link to full testimony here. Aberdeen Cyber Security, a leading security firm, “Wired networks perform better than wireless networks and are more secure than wireless networks.”

  • Small wireless facilities (and other wireless infrastructure) can catch fire with potentially catastrophic results. Three recent major California wildfires have been linked to telecommunications equipment. These include:

  • Malibu Canyon Fire (2007) – Hundreds of millions in property damage

  • Woolsey Fire (2018) –$6 billion in damages in Malibu & throughout Los Angeles County.

  • Silverado Fire (2020) – merged with a second fire in Irvine and caused the evacuation of 130,000 people with significant property loss.

  • Increasing exposure to this documented public health risk is going against the tide of science, which continues to show increasing biological harm from WIRELESS exposure. Especially concerning is the increased risk to children and pregnant women.

  • Insurance policy Electromagnetic Fields Exclusions are standard for RFR emitting wireless antennas leaving cities and counties possibly liable.
    In its 2019 New Emerging Risks SONAR Report, Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, classified 5G as a “high impact liability” risk. The report stated, “Existing concerns regarding potential negative health effects from electromagnetic fields (EMF) are only likely to increase.”

  • A major $25 million study by the U.S. National Toxicology Program of the NIH found “clear evidence” of cancer and increased incidence of DNA damage. The largest long-term study ever performed on the health effects of RFR from antennas was conducted by the Ramazzini Institute, which is partially funded by grants from the NIH. The study reported an increase in the incidence of tumors of the brain and heart which were consistent with and reinforce the results of the NIH study.


  • There is a growing body of research suggesting that EMFs from wireless technologies disrupt pollinator populations. More research is needed before a new statewide proliferation occurs.

 AB 965 will codify wireless companies with permission to submit up to 50 antenna applications (batched) at the same time, and the local authorities will be under strict deadlines to approve them. If the approval is not given in the allotted time, the applications will all be  automatically approved.  No time for public hearings. No time for ample consideration of safety or environmental factors. Just ram it through so the wireless companies can make more money.  The State Broadband plan date (funded by the legislature and drafted with public input) emphasizes using fiber optic cable NOT wireless. One of the options for broadband is “batching” wireless and fiber applications, this bill codifies priority for wireless and is unnecessary. It will saddle communities with inferior service and exacerbate the digital divide.

AB 1065 allows wireless companies to compete with fiber-optic companies for $2 billion from the Federal Funding Account (FFA) that is designated by the CPUC exclusively for fiber. It’s a sneaky bill – two little sentences inserted into existing law that will un-level the playing field (wireless has cheaper upfront costs than fiber), result in more antennas in more communities, and leave a legacy of slow, expensive, unreliable and low-quality wireless service for millions of Californians.

Please add your organization to the four sign on letters to the two committees (Sen Gov & Finance and Sen Energy Utilities and Communication). We hope you will join us in asking California legislators to vote no on these pro-corporate telecom wireless broadband bills using public dollars!