States, Tribes Oppose Carrier-Backed Plan to Ease Environmental Reviews

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2025 – Communications giants’ plan to ease construction reviews continues to meet resistance from states and Tribes concerned about the impact on the environment and historic burial grounds.

Nine Democratic state attorneys general Friday joined a group of state historic preservation offices and Tribal governments in opposing the idea.

“The Petition improperly urges the Commission to abandon long-settled and statutorily-required procedures for historic preservation review in violation of the text of the National Historic Preservation Act,” the AGs wrote. They were led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

CTIA, the main 5G industry trade group, had asked the Federal Communications Commission to initiate a proceeding and eventually find that wireless deployments for geographic spectrum licenses, the kind mobile carriers use, are not the kinds of projects that require review under NHPA and the National Environmental Policy Act. The agency asked for input on the idea, and reply comments were due Friday.

NEPA and NHPA cover federal construction projects, requiring a slate of environmental and historical reviews before one can proceed. CTIA argued that the FCC issuing licenses to use wireless frequencies in certain areas didn’t translate to federal control over the individual radio projects, citing a 2023 law that made room for agencies to narrow NEPA’s scope and an executive order from President Donald Trump rescinding existing White House guidance and asking agencies to streamline NEPA rules. 

The National Congress of American Indians and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers joined a Thursday filing opposing the plan. Tribes have to be consulted under both laws and confirm Tribal land or burial sites – which sometimes sit hundreds of miles from where a tribe currently lives – to ensure a project won’t damage them.

“The potential is that the ability of Tribal Nations to review such actions for their potential impact on sites of religious and cultural significance would be illegally obviated,” the groups wrote. 

The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers also opposed the idea in an April 30 filing. The group noted the NHPA specifically mentions projects requiring federal licenses.

“Any project or activity requiring a federal license – such as a geographic area license issued by the FCC – falls squarely within that definition,” the group wrote. “Efforts to conflate NEPA and NHPA requirements do not change this fact.”

Nine individual Tribal governments also weighed in to oppose the plan, as did eleven state historic preservation offices and a dozen cities and counties.

CTIA said in a Thursday filing that there was “strong support” for its plan and urged the FCC to move forward.

“Commenters recognize that the Commission’s existing rules are outdated and have not kept pace with changes in the law and unnecessarily burden wireless deployments, delaying the benefits of newer and faster wireless broadband services,” the group wrote. “To the extent some commenters express concerns about aspects of the Petition, they can be addressed in the requested rulemaking proceeding and in any event are misplaced.”

AT&T, T-Mobile, telecom infrastructure company Crown Castle, and multiple other broadband trade groups like WISPA and CCA submitted comments in support of the CTIA plan, calling the NEPA and NHPA review processes unnecessarily expensive and time consuming.

“Unnecessary FCC NEPA review requirements impede the modernization and expansion of T-Mobile’s network,” the carrier wrote, “requiring time and expense in assessing compliance and determining whether an exclusion might apply.”

CTIA CEO Ajit Pai, along with senior vice president Scott Bergmann, met with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and her legal advisor last Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing. The CTIA representatives discussed several of the group’s priorities, including the NEPA rulemaking.

Pai was the FCC chairman during the first Trump administration, and took numerous actions to ease wireless carriers’ deployments of 5G infrastructure. He took over at CTIA on April 1, 2025.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Pai FCC, supported his efforts to promote deployment and has said slashing regulations is a priority at the agency. The FCC earlier this year sought input on which rules companies would like to see repealed, and instituted multiple rule changes that make it easier for providers to decommission copper infrastructure.