DC Circuit Decision in RF Case

Today the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals released its Decision in Environmental Health Trust v. FCC, a challenge to the FCC’s 2019 Order that left its 25-year-old guidelines for exposure to radiofrequency radiation largely unchanged.  The Court, over a partial dissent by one judge, granted the petitions in part and remanded 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.

Here are excerpts from the decision:

“[W]e find the Commission’s order arbitrary and capricious in its failure to respond to record evidence that exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer. (As we explain below, we find that the Commission offered an adequate explanation for its determination that exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits does not cause cancer.) That failure undermines the Commission’s conclusions regarding the adequacy of its testing procedures, particularly as they relate to children, and its conclusions regarding the implications of long-term exposure to RF radiation, exposure to RF pulsation or modulation, and the implications of technological developments that have occurred since 1996, all of which depend on the premise that exposure to RF radiation at levels below its current limits causes no negative health effects. Accordingly, we find those conclusions arbitrary and capricious as well. Finally, we find the Commission’s order arbitrary and capricious in its complete failure to respond to comments concerning environmental harm caused by RF radiation.”

“For the reasons given above, 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. It must, in particular, (i) provide a reasoned explanation for its decision to retain its testing procedures for determining whether cell phones and other portable electronic devices comply with its guidelines, (ii) address the impacts of RF radiation on children, the health implications of long-term exposure to RF radiation, the ubiquity of wireless devices, and other technological developments that have occurred since the Commission last updated its guidelines, and (iii) address the impacts of RF radiation on the evironment. To be clear, we take no position in the scientific debate regarding the health and environmental effects of RF radiation—we merely conclude that the Commission’s cursory analysis of material record evidence was insufficient as a matter of law. As the dissenting opinion indicates, there may be good reasons why the various studies in the record, only some of which we have cited here, do not warrant changes to the Commission’s guidelines. But we cannot supply reasoning in the agency’s stead, see SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 87–88 (1943), and here the Commission has failed to provide any reasoning to which we may defer.”