2023 BBILAN Annual Report
2023 BBILAN ANNUAL REPORT
December 31, 2023
The mission of the BBILAN project is to establish legal precedents through administrative actions and litigation concerning aspects of local, state, national, and international wireless telecommunications infrastructure (including satellites) that raise serious public issues of harms to human health, environment, privacy from surveillance and conversion of personal information, integrity of scientific research, and national security.
The following activities were initiated or continued in 2023:
a) Legal and Administrative Cases
In 2023, in collaboration with Law Offices of Mitchell Tsai (local counsel), and Children’s Health Defense (Scott McCollough), BBILAN made several court appearances to negotiate and certify the evidentiary record in this case. During the fall of 2023, we also commenced our preparations of plaintiffs’ brief for trial which is currently scheduled for March 15, 2024. The central issues in the case involve whether the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (“BOS”) by enacted ordinances enabling wireless cell tower permitting can: strip away the public’s right to be heard, exempt itself from fundamental legal obligations under the California Environmental Quality Act(CEQA), and illegally delegate legislative powers and authority to the County’s Planning Department. The Planning Department has itself openly admitted that it has no expertise on the environmental, engineering, and legal issues at stake.
Analysis
Impact and assessment—This important case is being closely monitored by the state and local authorities in California. Details can be found here. A favorable outcome to plaintiffs of the case will establish the continued relevance and application of CEQA by ordering the BOS to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and stopping the enforcement of all permits that have been illegally granted pursuant to the defective ordinances that are the focus of this case. A favorable decision will also reaffirm the principles of due process, and will cancel the attempt by the BOS and its Regional Planning Office to circumvent public notice and hearings under an ministerial process that effectively cuts the public out of decisions that will critically affect the lives of millions of Los Angeles County residents. An unfavorable decision in 2024 will signal to every other county in California that the wireless industry has prevailed, and most other counties will accede to the wireless industry’s largely false representations and directives. An adverse precedent will also likely be rapidly followed in other states.
Challenges: Local Vulnerability/National Security—This blog published on BBILAN’s website explains how the accelerated adoption of a wireless infrastructure in the largest county in the U.S. will not only undermine local resilience, but also jeopardize national security. As noted, local communities are already the target of massive cyberattacks. Wireless infrastructure is inherently cyber-insecure, whereas a viable alternative— optical fiber to the home and workplace—offers a cybersecure, safe, energy-efficient, and climate change-friendly solution with ample federal and state funding available to support it. The case also represents a last hope for minority communities in Los Angeles, many of which are dependent on subsidized affordable housing. These minority families have no viable means of escape from increasing exposure to EMF radiation in their homes, schools, daycare centers, etc. They are being asked to shoulder all the risks without any insurance or administrative programs for relief. The wireless industry wields extraordinary financial, advertising, and political power, and BBILAN believes it has compromised the members of the BOS. For poor and minority communities in Los Angeles, this litigation is their last hope.
2. Protecting Lake Tahoe—Eisenstecken et al. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA)
The wireless telecom companies are implementing a plan to blanket the entire Lake Tahoe Region with small cell and macro cell towers. This case, currently before the Federal District Court in Sacramento, seeks to require the TRPA to comply with its responsibilities under the California-Nevada Interstate Compact. The Compact was established in 1980 by Congress to oversee a Public Trust for the Lake Tahoe Region. Plaintiffs are challenging TRPA’s refusal to comply with Article VII and other provisions of the Compact that require TRPA to prepare a comprehensive, programmatic environmental impact statement. Plaintiffs include various local groups, one national organization, Environmental Health Trust, and individual plaintiffs.
Related administrative actions: During the course of this case, we have discovered that Verizon and other telecom companies are erecting faux monopine macro cell towers to create a “positive” aesthetic effect in order to comply with municipal permitting regulations. A single tower can contain 10,000 pounds of plastics which fragment and degrade (especially in Tahoe’s harsh winter environment), depositing toxic microplastic industrial waste into the watershed, eventually leading to Lake Tahoe. Microplastics have been identified in human lung and blood tissue, and contain known carcinogens like lead and Poly-Vinyl-Chlorides. Lake Tahoe is the principal drinking water supply for residents in the Tahoe Basin and along the Truckee River as far as Reno, Nevada. We have challenged this action before the Lahontan Water Quality Control Board in 2022, and appealed to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. The Lahontan Board investigated and issued an entirely unsatisfactory order to clean up this waste twice per year, which we have challenged in our appeal to the Regional Board.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—The future of the Lake Tahoe Region, a national treasure, is at stake in this case. Lake Tahoe will be blanketed with small cell and macro cell towers emitting EMF radiation (in some instances in playgrounds and ski areas). This case will determine whether toxic monopine waste shed from faux macro towers will continue to be discharged into Lake Tahoe in direct violation of California’s water quality laws. BBILAN has assembled a legal team that is collaborating effectively with local citizens groups. We are the only legal group in the world challenging the illegal actions of a industry-captured agency, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) that is deferring to the wireless industry by issuing as many cell tower permits as applied for. The central legal question is whether the TRPA must comply and uphold the California-Nevada Interstate Compact that was enacted in 1980 to safeguard this national and international treasure. Article VII of the Compact makes clear that the TRPA must prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (similar to that required by the National Environmental Policy Act) and other environmental protections. A decision in the case is likely within the next six months. (A new federal judge was assigned the case about eight months ago.) Other Interstate Compacts will be influenced by this decision, which as noted, will literally determine whether this national treasure will be irreversibly damaged and its pristine qualities lost.
Challenges—As in the FFLA v. Los Angeles County BOS case discussed above, the principal challenge is the financial and political power of the wireless industry and its capture and compromise of public decision makers. Not one California politician, beginning with the late Senator Diane Feinstein and present Governor Gavin Newsom, has lifted a finger to intercede to protect Lake Tahoe, despite our significant efforts to reach out and provide briefings through staff on the present situation.
b) International Administrative Advocacy Actions
1. International Declaration for the Human Rights of Children in the Digital Age
BBILAN conceived and prepared early drafts of this important international action, which has then been refined by contributions from Americans for Responsible Technology (“ART”), and others concerned with the plight of children especially from: a. screen time addiction, b. EMF radiation exposure, and c. commercial exploitation due to conversion of private and personal information . Over 2,000 prominent professionals and related organizations have signed the Declaration as of this report, and the number is increasing. The Declaration has been translated into 10 languages, and various actions to implement it are currently taking place in the U.S. Europe, Japan, and Australia. ART has submitted the Declaration to the U.N.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—The intention of the Children’s Declaration was to affirm the human rights of children everywhere—as a matter of international customary law—to be protected from screen time addiction, radiation from electronic devices, and commercial exploitation. In itself, the Declaration is a legal innovation, because international custom is one of the bases of international law. In some countries, it is self-executing, which means that additional implementing legislation is not necessary.
Challenges—The main challenge is to support national initiatives, especially legal initiatives, to implement the spirit and terms of the Declaration, which can include administrative appeals and petitions, drafting laws and local ordinances, further appeals to the U.N. and international bodies like the Japanese Parliament and the European Commission, and litigation. There is now an increasing number of cases being filed in the U.S. on behalf of parents of children who are being injured from screen time exposure. The burden of proof in these cases is greatly alleviated because the social media software algorithms are being precisely designed to harm these children by addicting them—for the sole objective of increasing the profits of social media companies. The legal nature of the situation is such that legal theories, evidence, witnesses, and other essentials are applicable across international boundaries. In other words, the field is transnational so that legal precedents in one country can rapidly be applied in another. The principal challenge now is to carry out the implementation of the Declaration, building on the momentum of the very positive response thus far received.
c) National Administrative Actions
1. Risks of the FCC’s Program to Accelerate Blanket Licensing of Satellite Constellations and Supporting Earth Stations—BBILAN Collaboration with the GAO and Correspondence with Senators Brian Schatz and Tammy Duckworth
In 2022-2023 BBILAN followed up on our 2021 Opposition and Petition for Rulemaking before the FCC to require the agency to conduct comprehensive systemic risk assessment on eight fundamental domains of risks, noted in these legal actions. Our actions had a part in achieving three milestones: a. The GAO issued two useful reports on the environmental risks of the Satellite Experiment, b. The FCC cancelled an $886 million rural broadband subsidy to SpaceX on the grounds that it was unable to fulfill its promises (as we pointed out in our March 21, 2021 Citizens Petition), c. NASA, the UN, and Scientific American are all publishing reports on the risks of debris and collisions in Space.
Notwithstanding these milestones, the FCC, in response to pressure from the satellite industry, has adopted a policy to accelerate and streamline satellite constellation applications and permits of earth and base stations. BBILAN in collaboration with other legal and advocacy groups has taken several actions:
It has opened a productive dialogue with the GAO Directors that authored a professional study assessing the risks of satellite debris.
BBILAN published a White Paper based on findings from this dialogue and setting out practical next steps.
BBILAN has opened a dialogue with the two senators who requested the GAO to conduct its reports in the first place.
The present status of these negotiations is described in a blog posted in November on the BBILAN website.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—After some initial milestones by BBILAN, the satellite industry has intensified its lobbying to a compliant FCC, and is succeeding in streamlining satellite constellation permitting, in many ways tossing off the clearly stated and documented concerns expressed in the GAO Reports of September and November 2022.
Challenges—The odds against the public are almost overwhelming because the satellite companies have succeeded in aligning themselves with the military, using the threat of a war with China in Space as a major argument to subordinate all other interests and concerns. However, this argument has many fundamental flaws which, if effectively argued, can broaden the ambit of powerful interest groups that may weigh in for a more balanced policy. The fact is the huge bias in favor of, and causing a dependence and primary reliance on, wireless infrastructure renders the entire Satellite Experiment far more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, greatly enhanced by AI. BBILAN has confirmed in its interviews with cyber experts that a hacker can today gain operational control and weaponize a satellite in a matter of minutes. The bureaucrats in the FCC who are compliant with the demands of the satellite companies are either ignorant or indifferent to this significant risk. BBILAN will continue its efforts as one of the very few public interest legal organizations in the world that is advocating some reasonable balance between the commercial and military interests of Space exploitation, and prudent assessment of risks of cybersecurity, environmental, food and health security, and ultimately national security. As urged in BBILAN’s administrative actions, White Paper, and other publications, the most effective indicated action is a coordinated comprehensive risk assessment involving the industry and public representatives, the FCC and other concerned agencies, followed by Congressional Hearings.
2. FDA Imminent Hazard Petition
This administrative filing requested the FDA to remove false and misleading images and statements on its website suggesting that using cell phones close to the ear presented no medical risks to teenagers. The FDA has removed two of these images, left one, and refused to change the text confirming that safety was not an issue. In collaboration with Americans for Responsible Technology in 2023 we submitted another Petition requesting that the FDA provide a full report on how it was complying with the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act 1968 which requires the agency to address the hazards of non-ionizing radiation from electronic products, which we contend includes non-medical products.
On November 13, 2023, Americans for Responsible Technology received an equivocal reply from the FDA indicating that it was continuing to “study” and “assess” the issue of whether it believes it has a legal duty to comply with the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968 (“RCHSA”). The Act clearly specifies all electronic products, not simply as the FDA is implying, only some medical electronic products and those of its own choosing.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—The case will decide whether: a. the FDA can pick and choose arbitrarily which products it will regulate, in open defiance of the will of Congress in enacting the RCHSA, b. the public will continue to be exposed continuously and cumulatively to high levels of risks from non-ionizing radiation being emitted from a host of electronic products that the preponderance of independent and noncompromised scientific studies confirm is highly dangerous, especially for children, pregnant women and fetuses, disabled persons, those with chronic illnesses, and poor and minority communities which are prime targets of such exposure (see NYC project below).
Challenges—Like the FCC, the FDA is a captive agency of the wireless industry. Moreover, it is highly biased, as evidenced by the fact that it has disavowed the 10 year, $30 million study of its own sister agency, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) under the National Institute for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS), which confirmed identical cancerous tumors in rats, as found in humans when continuously exposed to EMF radiation.
3. National Call—HR 3557 and Related Bills Before the U.S. Congress
There is now a blitzkrieg of over 50 wireless industry sponsored bills before the U.S. Congress, including a hazardous proposal, HR3557. In collaboration with the Wired Broadband Institute’s (“WBI”) National Call, BBILAN has prepared a four part legal analysis available on the BBILAN website of the central problems of the main bills from the perspective of the fundamental shift in the relationship of the federal government to the states, abridgement of civil liberties and fundamental Constitutional guarantees, repeal by implication of important federal laws such as NEPA, the National Historic Sites Preservation Act, as well as risks to cybersecurity.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—If HR3557 passes, whether in its present form, or disguised and incorporated within an appropriations bill (which is a not uncommon practice), the impact could be devastating. BBILAN is supporting a national effort which includes the National League of Cities that is opposing this preemptive strike by the wireless industry. The fate of HR3557 and many of these other bills is at present unclear.
Challenges—WBI and others in the National Coalition have mounted a concerted lobbying effort before Congress with the support of professional lobbyists. (BBILAN is constrained as a 501(c)(3) to avoid the perception of engaging in lobbying, and therefore has limited its role to legal analysis.) The National Coalition is at a great disadvantage both because of the access and financial power of the wireless industry that controls most members of Congress, as well as the principal environmental and public health organizations, and the mainstream press. Not a single main stream media organization will cover this story. Notwithstanding, the potential devastating impact of these bills is a fact. BBILAN is doing whatever it can to provide professional legal advice to those who are on the front lines of this struggle.
4. BBILAN Opposition to California AB965
BBILAN provided similar legal support to opponents of CA AB965, which is intended to streamline the permitting process of cell towers in local communities, with all the attendant risks described above. Governor Newsom signed AB965 which is now the law of California. This law could work at cross purposes if the Los Angeles Superior Court rules in our favor and stops all permitted activities under the challenged ordinances until such time as the BOS complies with CEQA and other state laws and regulations.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—AB965 will affirm a practice of ministerial review of wireless tower permits that has already been adopted in many municipalities and counties of California. It will encourage batching of applications and allowing a “deemed approval” for many of these batches. BBILAN is developing a countervailing strategy as described briefly below.
Challenges—The principal challenge is to countervail the worst effects of AB965, which BBILAN is currently doing in collaboration with some of the top attorneys in the U.S. who are specialists in this field.
5. National Ordinance Initiative
In close collaboration with the other experienced attorneys in the field who are close colleagues (Andrew Campanelli, Scott McCollough, Ariel Strauss, and Odette Wilkens), BBILAN has organized a project to create a template of legal provisions that effectively address the principal weaknesses of all the municipal ordinances currently in place, anticipating the passage of some of the present federal wireless-friendly bills and copycat bills of AB965. These templates will be posted on a public website and made freely available along with educational programs to any municipality and its counsel who want to assert local government’s Tenth Amendment and other rights to protect public and environmental health and resilience.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—The effect of this collaborative effort will be to neutralize the worst effects of the new laws being passed to favor the wireless industry that will harm millions of local residents, in particular poor and minority communities.
Challenges—This is an anticipatory strategy to build local resilience in the likely event that some of these dangerous federal bills following the precedent of AB965 will pass.
6. National Registry for the Relief of Victims of EMF Radiation Pollution
This project is designed to address the likelihood that up to 50% of the U.S. population is currently being injured by continuous and cumulative exposure to EMF radiation, and the federal and state public health agencies, beginning with the NIH, CDC, and the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, are not even recognizing the problem. BBILAN took the initiative to prepare and send a letter signed by a number of prominent attorneys, scientists, and grassroots advocates to the directors of these agencies setting out the problem and proposing a public/private partnership to establish a National Registry. As these agencies failed to respond to the letter, the focus of attention has moved to Massachusetts where the State Legislature will vote in February on a similar proposal. BBILAN has recently published a blog on this initiative.
Analysis
Impact and Assessment—A Registry taking account of those suffering from EMF radiation related illnesses, whether at the national or state levels, is an essential first step. First, it provides a forum for millions of people in the U.S. who are suffering from EMF radiation related illnesses and syndromes. Second, it raises awareness within the federal and state governments and the Congress on the severity of the problem. Experience from other countries and in the U.S. with the Superfund and other pollution relief programs confirms that once a public Registry is established, the problem is soon recognized as far more serious than previously thought. Third, the Registry sets a foundation for both relief and preventative measures, and becomes an essential resource for legislators, administrators, and the general public.
Challenges—The major challenge is, people are busy and a Registry is not regarded as a high priority in an presidential election year. There is also a deeper issue that administrators and certainly the industry really doesn’t want to know about the extent of human suffering it has caused, and are doing whatever they can to ignore and even suppress recognition of the problem.
d) Other Advisory Actions
1. Support for Wired Broadband Institute (“WBI”) in Challenging New York City Wireless Cell Tower Permit Acceleration
BBILAN has provided ongoing advice and support to Odette Wilkens, head of WBI, in her efforts to alert NYC to the hazards of wireless cell tower densification. The important and stark alert from this advisory work is the extent to which the wireless industry and a compliant NYC administration are willing to distort the truth to accomplish their ends: the industry and NYC government is actually promoting cell tower densification within African American and other minority communities on the claim that these dangerous towers will close the Digital Divide. In fact, the wireless industry has played a significant role in creating the Digital Divide in the first place. Optical fiber to the home and workplace offers a vastly superior long-term solution supported by significant available federal funding. WBI with BBILAN is widely challenging this false and intentionally misleading claim.
e) Public Interest Educational Programs
In 2023 BBILAN continued to offer educational programs through collaborating on a number of webinars and podcasts. Here are links to some of these programs:
The Children's Declaration with Julian Gresser (Declaration portion starts about 10:00)
Town Hall on Federal Bills—Losing Control Over Wireless Permitting
Turning Down the Dial on Wireless Radiation in NC Schools; Science & Solutions
f) Preparation for 2024 Programs
1. Evolutionary Values and Conversations
In May 2023 Julian Gresser published his autobiography, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots— Evolutionary Values for an Age in Crisis. As noted in this Report, the question of what values will guide critical decisions at all levels will determine whether we will respond resiliently to a host of unprecedented challenges. All the cases currently being handled by BBILAN as an organization and in collaboration with other lawyers and grassroots organizations raise the fundamental question of choices. The wireless industry favors describing these in binary or “tragic terms,” i.e. densifying cell towers in minority communities is essential to close the Digital Divide. But here as most everywhere else, these are false choices, masquerading as tragic choices. All BBILAN’s efforts are directed to helping communities to discover balanced and wise pathways forward.
2. Resilient Communities
Resilient Communities: Regenerative Careers in the Fourth Sector Economy—Essential Skills, Tools, and Metrics. The central challenge facing local communities is integral resilience, the capacity to adapt from a holistic perspective, or to become integrally resilient at all levels. The intention of the wireless purveyors is to cripple the capacity of local communities to respond resiliently. As referenced above, this is not only a local issue, it presents a significant national security risk. This 12-week online pilot course will be offered in March 2024. Enabling thousands of inhabitants in these threatened communities to become integrally resilient is one important component of BBILAN’s mission to empower local communities to respond effectively to 21st century challenges.
g) Evaluation and Lessons Learned
One important lesson learned is that effective collaboration is essential. The wireless industry is very well coordinated in its successful lobbying for laws and regulations that its lawyers primarily author. By and large, grassroots organizations are poorly organized and compete for scarce funding sources that will allow them to level the playing field.
BBILAN has been successful in bringing its expertise in strategic alliances to encourage effective collaboration among lawyers and grassroots organizations in all our cases. For example, in the current FFLA et al. v. Los Angeles Board of Supervisors we are fortunate in assembling a first class legal team with outstanding local counsel, the Law Firm of Mitchell Tsai, and our collaboration with Scott McCollough, a nationally recognized expert on telecommunications litigation, and Children’s Health Defense (CHD), which is defraying the costs of Mr. McCollough’s and the Tsai Law Firm’s legal services.
BBILAN has applied the same principles in negotiating multi-party collaborations in our litigation against the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, our constructive dialogue with the GAO, our proposals for a National Registry, our collaborative legal analysis of over 50 wireless industry bills currently before the U.S. Congress, and our development of model ordinance templates.
A second important insight, not generally appreciated, is how the increasing reliance and dependence of local municipalities on wireless infrastructure, imposed by statutes like AB965 and Congressional bills like HR3557, will expose these communities to increased cyberattacks. Decreasing resilience will also impair the ability of these communities to respond effectively to a broad range of complex challenges relating to climate turbulence, energy and food security. This insight has strengthened BBILAN’s mission to be a powerful advocate for reasonable balance.
A third important area at the core of all of BBILAN’s practice is the importance of adopting a whole systems approach. One reaffirmed lesson is the danger of “piecemealing,” or the agency practice of issuing permits, one by one, without examining their cumulative impacts. The practice is inconsistent with, and undermines, regional plans that call for careful integrated environmental consideration. Just as allowing piecemealing in Lake Tahoe will sacrifice a national treasure, piecemealing of mega-constellation satellite permits will endanger national and international security. The antidote urged by BBILAN is comprehensive programmatic risk assessments, public transparency and engagement with the goal of strengthening integral resilience at all levels.
Summary
BBILAN has been able to contribute rigorous research, scientific accuracy, and legal analysis in critical policy forums and litigation settings and through public education. Each of these actions raises the level of scrutiny to which industry must respond; and this continual pressure on many fronts is moving the wireless industry toward having to face the hard questions about its cavalier attitude toward safety that it has been avoiding. This is shown not just by our programs, but by the adoption of our work by other domestic and international advocates for public and environmental health. The greatest challenge we have faced is limited resources. With additional funding to grow our staff, and gain leverage through effective collaborations, BBILAN will be able to multiply our impact through our direct efforts and those of organizations using our services.