Infrastructure Advocates Hope Trump Administration Makes Permitting Changes
ISPs are hopeful that the new Trump administration will focus on streamlining federal permitting once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, experts said Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Stephen Keegan, senior counsel-government and legal affairs at the Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the group also is eager that the next FCC will build on wireless infrastructure siting work started during the previous Trump administration. “There’s obviously much more ground disruption when you’re putting up a new 200-foot tower” versus adding antennas to an existing site, he said.
Permitting on federal land is key to BEAD and other deployments but remains a “particularly thorny” matter, Keegan said. “There’s still more work to be done” and “we’re hopeful the new administration will take this on.”
WIA also is seeking more congressional direction, Keegan said. With the end of Chevron deference (see 2406280043), “getting Congress to speak clearly on this is more important than ever."
Federal permitting remains “difficult,” especially in the western U.S., said Ryan Kudera, manager-client services at Finley Engineering and a former state broadband director in Wyoming. “We’ve had projects that we’ve gotten started, got several hundred thousand dollars in the ground, and been stopped because of a change of mindset at an agency,” he said.
Government officials are working with fewer resources than in the past and dealing with broader areas, Keegan noted. He added that NTIA has done a good job of trying to ensure permitting is done ahead of the release of BEAD dollars.
Keegan said it’s helpful that the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP) updated its 2017 program comment in March, aimed at speeding the approval of 5G and other deployments under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (see 2403140061). “That was notable for being applicable to all federally funded programs -- that was a big expansion.”
Also helpful is a Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 requirement that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) review its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements, Keegan said. “That has been playing out -- the CEQ has an ongoing process.” The FRA also allowed agencies to adopt existing categorical exclusions to the NEPA, which can be “a huge boon for trying to get projects.”
The Biden administration has had a mixed record, Kudera said. While the administration took some steps that have helped, others have prompted “more individualistic interpretations out in the field,” he said. That has “created some bottlenecks and some issues.”
Kudera noted that what constitutes a historical site is up for interpretation. He cited as an example the Old Lincoln Highway, which he said has been buried under sagebrush for decades in parts of the west. The roadbed is flat and would be a good place to deploy infrastructure, “but I would really hesitate to stick a plow in the road base … because that would be considered historic preservation,” he said.
Added Keegan, “Ultimately, it’s all about proportionality and making sure the rules are doing what they’re meant to do and not creating new obstacles to wireless.”