ACTION ITEMS:
Next, as some of you may know, a
trillion dollar federal infrastructure bill was signed into law in November giving billions of dollars towards unchecked wireless expansion across the US. Several groups are putting together campaigns in response to different parts of the broadband portion of this bill.
American's for Responsible Technology (ART) is running a campaign to “Fix the 5G Mistake” regarding language in a specific section of this bill. ART is encouraging people to call their Washington reps and demand the language be changed
so that not all broadband projects have to support the deployment of 5G.
Here is an excerpt from ART's email which was sent out last week regarding this change:
"As written, Sec. 60102 (a)(2)I(ii)(II) requires that all broadband projects must "support the deployment of 5G" to be eligible for federal funding. So, for instance, projects that provide low-cost wired community broadband connections can't be funded....everyone knows that wired broadband connections are faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable, less susceptible to hacking and much more energy efficient than wireless. Wired broadband is how we fix the digital divide for
good!
So we need to fix the law. The fourth word from the end of that section needs to be changed from 'and' to 'or.' "
Finally, another effort ART just released is a “Smart Planning Advisory” which answers those public officials who claim their hands are tied regarding 5G antennas. The document sets out the legal constraints imposed by the 1996 TCA and explains that the right of local governments to control deployment of 5G has been preserved, but not
granted, by the TCA. In order to have those powers, local governments need to act. We encourage you to download and circulate the advisory linked
HERE.
Ok, that's it for now. We hope to see you Friday!
Sincerely,
Jenny DeMarco
Virginians for Safe Technology
VirginiansforSafeTech@protonmail.com
Odette Wilkens
Wired Broadband, Inc.
