December 5, 2000

Contact: Janet Newton

Citizens take case to the United States Supreme Court to safeguard the public health and restore local control of siting of cellular towers. Municipalities and lawmakers join citizens groups by filing friends of the court (amicus) briefs in support.

Mr. Whitney North Seymour, Jr., Esquire, of Landy & Seymour, New York, has filed a Writ for Certiorari on behalf of Concerned Citizens for the Appropriate Placement of Telecommunications Facilities (CCAPTF)and thirty-two individual petitioners and citizens groups. This petition follows an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit challenging the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the FCC regulations regarding emissions from wireless telecommunications facilities and the decision of that court to affirm the FCC rules.

The petition asks two questions:

“Whether Congress by requiring local zoning boards to approve the construction of cellular phone towers without regard to the health impact of high frequency radiation, has commandeered legislative processes of the states to administer a federal program, in violation of the Tenth Amendment as interpreted by this Court…”

and:

“Where Congress has failed to fund continuing Federal research into potential adverse health effects of radiation emissions from cellular phone towers, does Congress have the power to prohibit State and local governments from protecting the health of their citizens by taking into account available research and official standards from other countries in regulating the placement of cellular phone towers?”

Mr. Seymour states in the petition: “As Congress recognized, there were obvious tensions between the federal policy to encourage proliferation of cellular telephone facilities and state and local governments’ desire to maintain control over local land use regulation. A clash between the two was inevitable…”

That clash ensued as telecommunications companies began to apply to local boards for permits to erect cellular towers in communities across the country, where citizens had read the recent scientific research from around the world on microwave technology, which showed alterations of human cells, various cancers and other diseases, and were rightly concerned about their well being, and the well being of their neighbors. Local officials were caught in the middle.

The petition goes on to state that if successful, “The major change will be that local tower siting decisions will be made by local elected officials familiar with local conditions who will be sensitive to the placement of towers close to schools, playgrounds, recreation areas, nursing homes, hospitals, residential areas, and will exercise judgment based on these local conditions in light of current research into potential health effects of RF emissions.”

The constitutional questions, as presented by Mr. Seymour in this petition, ring clearly in the hearts and minds of American citizens grappling with this issue, very close to home, for the past three and one half years: “The Constitutional question concerns the proper relationship between the Federal government and the states - or more precisely, state-created local zoning boards. Therefore, under the Constitution, “Congress is bound to treat the states in a manner consistent with their status as residuary sovereigns and joint participants in the governance of the Nations,” Alden, 527 U.S. at 749. An attribute of such inviolable sovereignty is the duty to ensure that citizens are not left unprotected in the face of potentially lethal threats to their lives, health and safety. This is not merely the State’s right, it is arguably the most fundamental obligation of government and the cornerstone of the social compact as understood by the Framers (of the Constitution) themselves.