The petitioners in the January 2021 lawsuit included scientific think tank Environmental Health Trust (EHT), Children's Health Defense (CHD), Consumers for Safer Phones and some other individuals. The landmark suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeks to order the FCC to update its RFR exposure guidelines that are now more than two decades old.
The FCC last scrutinized its RFR guidelines in 2013, following a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) the previous year. The GAO report states that the FCC's exposure limits that time may not reflect current science, thus warranting a review. Peer-reviewed studies submitted by scientists support the GAO's call to update the RFR guidelines.
Based on the studies submitted to the FCC, RFR is harmful to both people and the environment. It is also linked to cancer, reproductive issues and other problems in humans, animals and plants. However, the FCC released an order in December 2019 saying that the existing RFR guidelines "are adequate now and for the future" and that "nothing needed to be done" about them.
EHT Founder and President Devra Davis says: "The FCC has ignored our extensive submissions … over the years, which clearly document harm [from RFR]. As the legacies of lead, asbestos and tobacco teach us, this issue deserves the immediate attention of our federal government in order to protect our children's healthy future." (Related: FCC faces historic legal challenge for failing to protect the public from wireless technology radiation.)
The FCC continues to deny the dangers of RFR
In their lawsuit, the petitioners allege that the FCC violated numerous laws in the course of its refusal to update its RFR exposure guidelines.
First, FCC has violated the Administrative Procedure Act due to its 2019 order failing to provide a record of a reasoned decision making. The petitioners claim that the agency's decision to maintain RFR exposure guidelines is "capricious, arbitrary and not evidence-based."
Second, the petitioners argue that the FCC violated the National Environmental Policy Act for failing to consider the environmental impacts of its decision.
Third, the FCC has purportedly violated the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for failing to consider the consequences of its decision on public health and safety.
Fourth, the petitioners also note that the inadequate FCC guidelines are used to deny accommodation – contravening the Americans with Disability Act.
CHD is named as a petitioner in EHT's January 2021 lawsuit. However, the group led by lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. filed a brief back in June 2020 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Similar to the 2021 filing, the earlier brief challenges the FCC's refusal to review and revise its "obsolete" RFR guidelines. Incidentally, the June 2020 brief also names EHT as a co-petitioner.
Scientist and public health expert Dr. David Carpenter is among the petitioners in CHD's 2020 lawsuit. The director of the University of Albany's Institute for Health and Environment says: "The scientific consensus that the FCC guidelines have no validity and are causing widespread illness and death." (Related: Untested 5G radiation linked to adverse health effects, warn UK researchers.)
CHD Director of 5G and Wireless Harms Project Dafna Tachover says: "The most important evidence is the human evidence. Those who have been injured and died because of the FCC's abuse of power have been invisible to the FCC like the wireless radiation that harms them. The purpose of our case is to make this invisible problem visible."
Kennedy, who serves as CHD's chairman and chief legal counsel, meanwhile says that his group is "committed to protecting children from toxic exposure." He adds: "This case seeks justice for parents of kids who have suffered from health impacts from wireless radiation. We are committed to making our government accountable and giving a voice to injured children, their parents and doctors and the scientists who have spoken out for justice on this issue."
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