RF Safety Rules Remanded to FCC for Further Work

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit remanded to the FCC for further explanation its 2019 RF safety rules, which largely upheld the old rules, while making a few tweaks. Judges had appeared skeptical of the FCC’s defense in January argument in Environmental Health Trust v. FCC. “We grant the petitions in part and remand to the Commission to provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its guidelines adequately protect against harmful effects of exposure to radiofrequency radiation unrelated to cancer,” said a Friday opinion by Judge Robert Wilkins, joined by Judge Patricia Millett, who both expressed skepticism in January. Judge Karen Henderson partially dissented. “It is important to emphasize how deferential our standard of review is here -- where, first, an agency’s decision to terminate a notice of inquiry without initiating a rulemaking occurred after the agency opened the inquiry on its own and, second, the inquiry involves a highly technical subject matter at the frontier of science,” she wrote. The FCC and CTIA didn’t immediately comment.