SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

This is a summary of the Commission's document ( Public Notice), DA 26-997, in ET Docket No. 13-84, released on September 17, 2026. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and can be downloaded at: docs.fcc.gov/​public/​attachments/​DA-26-997A1.pdf or by using the search function for ET Docket No. 13-84 on the Commission's ECFS web page at www.fcc.gov/​ecfs.

Synopsis

Since the birth of the American wireless industry, the Federal Communications Commission has been entrusted to develop spectrum policies that bring economic prosperity, unleash innovation and investment, and promote national security as well as safety of life. Spectrum-based connectivity enabled by Commission policies has brought billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury, created millions of jobs, served as an essential platform for U.S. tech innovation, bolstered America's geopolitical leadership, and driven down prices for consumers. Looking ahead, the U.S. government has determined that leading the world in 5G and 6G will require the Commission to auction large amounts of licensed spectrum and enable large swaths of unlicensed and satellite spectrum for next-generation services.

The Communications Act establishes the Commission's primacy over commercial spectrum policymaking, and the Working Families and Tax Cut Act, signed by President Trump in July 2025, directed the Commission to repurpose and auction 800 megahertz of spectrum, including 500 megahertz of federal spectrum for “full-power commercial licensed use cases[.]” Along the way, courts have repeatedly affirmed that when the Commission “foster[s] innovative methods of exploiting the spectrum” in its role “as a policymaker,” it is “accorded the ( printed page 60129) greatest deference by a reviewing court.”

As an essential component of this policymaking function, Congress entrusted the Commission in 1996 to adopt rules regarding human exposure to RF energy emitted by Commission-regulated transmitters and facilities. The Commission's RF exposure rules are continuously evaluated and based on gold-standard research from entities with specialized expertise in health and safety issues, including the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), a congressionally chartered organization, as well as guidelines promulgated by the American National Standards Institute and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), internationally recognized standard-setting organizations. Courts have consistently upheld the reasonableness of the Commission's RF human-safety requirements when challenged in 2000, 2004, and 2021.

Most recently, the Commission terminated a nearly six-year inquiry in December 2019, which had sought comment on whether the agency's RF safety rules should be reevaluated. Upon consideration of nearly 1,000 submissions, the Commission “conclude[d] that the best available evidence . . . supports maintaining [its] current RF exposure standards.” The D.C. Circuit's 2021 decision in Environmental Health Trust v. FCC upheld the majority of the Commission's findings, including its determination that RF exposure at levels below the current limits does not cause cancer. The panel also rejected arguments that the Commission had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by “fail[ing] to respond to various `additional legal considerations'” and that it had violated NEPA by failing to conduct an environmental review regarding its decision to terminate the Notice of Inquiry.

The panel maintained the legal force of the Commission's RF safety rules, which remain effective today and have allowed Americans to benefit from world-leading networks. At the same time, the panel remanded for 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.” The panel specifically directed the Commission to address three targeted issues: (1) “its decision to retain its testing procedures for determining whether cell phones and other portable electronic devices comply with its guidelines”; (2) “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 (3) “the impacts of RF radiation on the environment.” Importantly, the panel did not vacate the 2019 decision—it merely directed the Commission to provide further explanation to justify its findings as to these specific issues.

By this Public Notice, the Commission seeks to refresh the record on these targeted issues to discharge its obligations in response to the Court's remand in Environmental Health Trust. In all cases, the Commission found in 2019 that the nearly six-year record failed to justify a change to the Commission's rules. The Commission seeks comment on that finding. The Commission emphasizes that, in light of the limited scope of the court's remand, the Commission does not seek comment here on any other aspects of the 2019 decision that were upheld in Environmental Health Trust or portions of the record that were not properly before the court.

The panel's opinion in Environmental Health Trust took “no position in the scientific debate regarding the health and environmental effects of RF radiation.” Rather, it pointed to submissions and studies in the record that the Commission did not address in consideration of the specific issues identified above. The panel did not endorse those submissions, whereas the dissent specifically determined that many of them were insufficient to warrant the Commission's explicit analysis. The panel did, however, acknowledge “that there may be good reasons” why those submissions “do not warrant changes to the Commission's guidelines.” The panel further noted that “if those six sources fairly represented the credible record evidence seeking a change in Commission policy,” then the criticisms of those sources in the dissenting opinion “would have sufficed” as reasoned decision-making. The Commission seeks comment on the submissions specifically cited and discussed in the Environmental Health Trust opinion. Are they representative of record evidence seeking a change in the Commission's rules? Do they demonstrate sufficient indicia of quality, reliability, or rigor to justify a change in the Commission's rules?

The panel's remand—both as to the Commission's decision to maintain its existing testing procedures, and the Commission's determination that its RF exposure limits did not pose adverse health effects to children—flowed from the Commission's purported failure to provide sufficient justification for its finding that “exposure to RF radiation at levels below its current limits does not cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer.” In so finding, the panel pointed largely to five articles that the Commission did not discuss regarding the putative non-cancerous effects of RF exposure below the prescribed levels.

The Commission seeks comment on whether “the five articles on which the majority opinion relie[d] . . . do not challenge a fundamental premise of the Commission's order” and asks the same question as to any record information that the panel identified in arriving at its holding.

• One such article, the dissenting opinion noted, purported to present evidence of non-cancerous “oxidative effects” but conceded that it “[did] not provide conclusive evidence of causal effects and should be interpreted with caution until confirmed in other population.”
• Another meta-analysis, the dissent observed, summarized the results of human studies on the behavioral effects of RF radiation and identified “31 studies that showed no significant behavioral effects compared to 20 studies that showed behavioral effects,” including “four [that] found behavioral improvements, not negative health effects.”
• Yet another, according to the dissent, failed to “address the critical issue—whether RF radiation below the Commission's current limits can cause negative health effects” because it examined the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection's (ICNIRP) recommended RF exposure limit, which “is significantly higher than the Commission's current limit—0.08 W/kg averaged over the whole body and a peak spatial-average of 1.6 W/kg over any 1 gram of tissue.”
• And yet another, the dissent noted, acknowledged that “the health effects of [exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs)] are still unknown . . . [and] to date studies addressing this topic have produced inconsistent results.”
• Still another, according to the dissent, “found decreases in figural memory” but acknowledged that “some experimental and epidemiological studies on RF-EMF found improvements in working memory performance.”
• And a final study, the dissenting opinion remarked, was “hardly worth discussing because the self-published ( printed page 60130) report has been widely discredited as a biased review of the science.”

The Commission seeks comment on the foregoing discussion regarding the credibility and probative value of these studies.

With respect to environmental considerations, the panel faulted the Commission for not discussing a 2014 letter from the Department of Interior on the impact of communications towers to migratory birds. As the dissent noted, the Department of Interior's letter found that “no independent, third-party field studies have been conducted in North America on impacts of tower electromagnetic radiation on migratory birds.” The Commission seeks comment on the probative value of the Department of Interior's letter.

Beyond the submissions discussed in Environmental Health Trust, the Commission seeks comment on whether other record evidence properly before the court—namely, submissions filed after our 2013 Notice of Inquiry and before our 2019 decision to terminate the Notice of Inquiry —warrants the Commission revisiting its RF exposure rules on the specific issues subject to remand identified above. The Commission also seeks comment on whether record evidence affirmatively supports our rules or casts doubt on the reliability of submissions to the contrary.

As with our prior efforts, the Commission intends to give particular weight to submissions that reflect specialized experience in health and safety issues on RF exposure. In prioritizing the quality of submissions over their quantity, the Commission does not anticipate affording such scientific weight to meta-analyses that simply compile studies marked by wide ranges in scientific rigor and differing and sometimes contradictory conclusions. Nor does the Commission anticipate affording such weight to unverifiable or repetitive testimonial submissions that purport to assert the existence or absence of adverse health effects. Probative value will be accorded to parties who have demonstrated a capacity to interpret the biological research necessary to assess the health impact of RF emissions and determine what exposure levels are considered safe for humans, and who can do so with sufficient detail and persuasiveness to overcome the failings that the court identified when the Commission last attempted to rely on the expertise of expert agencies.

For instance, on potential environmental impact from RF, the Commission encourages input from science-based standard-setting organizations and other interested parties and request that commenters describe their relevant qualifications and subject-matter expertise, and provide sufficient supporting information so that the Commission may evaluate the methodological rigor underpinning their views and claims. The Commission notes the work of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), who “finds good quality studies show no effect from radio waves on plants and animals,” and the ongoing work of the ICNIRP Project Group on Environmental EMF Protection tasked to “draft a statement on environmental effects of EMFs on the basis of qualitatively reliable scientific papers.” The Commission also invites comment on our testing procedures for determining whether cell phones and other portable electronic devices comply with our guidelines. As stated in Commission rules, guidance regarding applicable measurement techniques for the evaluation of compliance for portable devices can be found in the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) Laboratory Division Knowledge Database (KDB).

In particular, the Commission asks that parties addressing the its past findings that “[t]he weight of scientific evidence has not linked cell phones with any health problems,” that “the current safety limits for cell phones are acceptable for protecting the public health,” that the “totality of the available scientific evidence continues to not support adverse health effects in humans caused by exposures at or under the current radiofrequency energy exposure limits,” and that “no changes to the current standards are warranted at this time,” clearly articulate the factual bases for their positions. Commenters who choose to address the body of scientific studies regarding the issues on remand, including the alleged existence of adverse effects to humans from low-level RF exposure, potential impacts on children, and potential 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, should clearly describe their specialized experience and subject-matter expertise that makes them well qualified to address such matters.

As the Commission considers how much weight to give to submissions or studies that purport to cast doubt on our RF exposure rules on the issues encompassed by the court's remand, the Commission seeks comment on their methodological rigor. What is the scope of such studies, do they properly bear on the remanded issues, and do they come with any acknowledged caveats? Does the record provide evidence that such studies have been replicated? Do such studies provide longitudinal evidence of non-cancerous adverse health effects or environmental harms? Does the record contain epidemiologic evidence that considers the ubiquitous saturation of cell phones in the American population over time? Do any such studies establish a demonstrated biological mechanism or marker through which such adverse effects are known to occur? If they purport to establish proxies such as oxidative effects, to what extent do those proxies establish adverse health effects? If they purport to show adverse health effects on humans, do they properly distinguish correlation from causation? If they purport to be based on literature review, are the reviews based on weight of scientific evidence? Are they based on self-reported data? Do they measure RF exposure through properly calibrated instruments and accepted scientific methods? Is dosimetry properly controlled, evaluated and documented? Are multiple exposure levels studied to establish a dose-response relationship, and do they substantiate an adverse health effect in humans at exposure levels below Commission limits? Do they control for confounding factors? Are proper controls and blinding procedures implemented in the study design? Are they based on representative sample sets? Are statistical analyses properly performed and sample sets of sufficient size to support conclusions? If they are based on experiments or testing in controlled environments, do those environments credibly resemble realistic deployment scenarios in the United States? If such studies are based on animal-based experiments, to what extent do they properly establish adverse health effects on humans?

While the scope of issues the Commission invites comment on is narrowly confined to record evidence that was properly before the court in Environmental Health Trust, the Commission invites the broadest range of commenters to participate, including local, state, federal, and international health and safety agencies, science-based standard-setting organizations that are active in this area, and other interested parties. These include, but are not limited to, NCRP, IEEE, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and parties directly engaged with other competent bodies that are involved in ( printed page 60131) this area. These entities have published standards, articles, or information related to RF exposure that may assist in responding to the court's remand.

Procedural Matters

Interested parties may file comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS).

Electronic Filers: Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: www.fcc.gov/​ecfs.

Paper Filers: Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554.

People with Disabilities: To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530.

Ex Parte Rules. The proceeding this Notice initiates shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's ex parte rules. Persons making ex parte presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral ex parte presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the ex parte presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during ex parte meetings are deemed to be written ex parte presentations and must be filed consistent with rule 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written ex parte presentations and memoranda summarizing oral ex parte presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( e.g.,.docx, .xml, .pptx, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's ex parte rules.

91 FR 60128