The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and federal lawmakers are pushing to make it easy for telecom companies to erect cell towers in communities without residents’ consent — even if the tower isn’t really needed to close a coverage gap in cell service.
If either the agency or Congress succeeds, communities will lose the right to keep unwanted towers and other wireless infrastructure away from their homes and schools, according to Miriam Eckenfels, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program.
“This is the most aggressive push we’ve ever seen to override local zoning, erase public participation, and force dense wireless infrastructure into residential areas under the guise of streamlining wireless infrastructure deployment,” Eckenfels said.
On Wednesday, the U.S House Committee on Energy and Commerce advanced H.R. 2289, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025, in a 26-24 vote along party lines, with Democrats opposing it. A floor vote has yet to be scheduled as of press time.
If passed, the bill would allow wireless companies to install towers and antennas wherever they decide, regardless of whether local residents want the equipment, Eckenfels said.
The FCC, the federal agency that oversees telecommunications, is working on its own similar strategy. On Dec. 1, the agency published a notice in the Federal Register about a proposed rule to “free towers and other wireless infrastructure from unlawful regulatory burdens.”
Eckenfels called H.R. 2289 a “legislative shortcut” for what the FCC wants to accomplish.
The FCC and lawmakers don’t want any roadblocks to installing more wireless infrastructure, said tech attorney Odette Wilkens, president and general counsel for the nonprofit Wired Broadband, Inc. “They see community input as an obstacle, and they see it as a regulatory barrier because the zoning ordinances on the local level protect the people.”
Across the country, residents have been successfully keeping new cell towers and antennas from going up next to their homes and schools.
Eckenfels said she thinks these successes prompted the FCC — which is captured by the wireless industry — and lawmakers who favor the wireless industry to push the measures.
Wilkens agreed. “The reason for HR 2289 is to prevent any further litigation and any further successes that people have had across the country in stopping cell towers,” she said.
Eckenfels called the FCC and Congress’ proposed actions an “unprecedented federal power grab” that would “strip away state and local powers, and force communities to accept more cell towers, more antennas and more industrial equipment — without meaningful review, without due process and without the ability to say no.”
Hellbound and Down 