USA: Grassroots Opposition Sinks Bill to Limit Local Control Over Cell Towers – for Now – Le Vaud sans antennes

CHD by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. 20apr2026.

After facing opposition from local governments and health freedom advocates, and failing to garner enough support from Republican representatives, the House Committee on Rules postponed today’s scheduled vote on a bill intended to strip local governments of the authority to reject the installation of unwanted cell towers near homes, schools and parks in their communities.

Grassroots Opposition Sinks Bill Limiting Local Control Over Cell Towers

Federal lawmakers today delayed voting on a bill that would have largely stripped local governments of the authority to reject the installation of unwanted cell towers near homes, schools and parks in their communities.

After facing opposition from local governments and health freedom advocates, and failing to garner enough support from Republican representatives, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules postponed today’s scheduled vote on H.R. 2289, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025.

The proposed bill included language stating that local governments “may not deny, and shall approve” applications for most cell towers and antennas. The bill would have allowed antennas to be installed on practically any structure, including homes, schools and utility poles, overriding local zoning laws.

Miriam Eckenfels, director of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, credited “grassroots advocacy groups, local governments, and MAHA leaders” with helping to pause the bill.

A Rules Committee vote is largely procedural. The committee can reconsider the bill and prepare for a floor vote, but legislative experts told “The Defender” that without sufficient Republican support, the bill is unlikely to proceed in the Republican-led House.

“We sincerely hope they will abandon this misguided effort for good and work with their constituents on finding a way forward that works for all. Stripping away local control and individual rights to hand more power to big industry will never be an acceptable solution,” Eckenfels said.

Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News, first broke the news in a post on X earlier today.

CHD opposed the bill, along with MAHA Action and a coalition of health freedom advocates and organizations representing local government, including the National Association of Counties, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.

A coalition of telecommunications industry lobbying groups supported the bill, urging House members to support it in a letter last week.

Eckenfels said CHD opposed the bill since it was first introduced last year.

“We firmly believe that communities, not bureaucrats at the FCC and the telecom industry, should decide where cell towers are placed in our neighborhoods,” Eckenfels said. “This bill would have stripped away all remaining community rights to fight unwanted cell towers, on top of an already restrictive federal framework.”

In an action alert today, CHD called the bill “a federal power grab” and an example of “federal overreach.”

Attorney W. Scott McCollough, CHD’s chief litigator for EMR cases, called H.R. 2289 a “bad bill” that should not proceed to the House floor “without significant changes.”

McCollough said the bill would have left the public with “no impact over placement, including towers right next to their homes and schools even though the towers reduce property values, increase home insurance costs, lead to involuntary exposure to a known toxin, one that is especially harmful to children.”

According to MAHA Action, a nonprofit supporting U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, the bill “strips parents, cities, and school boards of any meaningful authority to decide where cell towers and wireless antennas are placed.”

This loss of local control would have consequences for children’s health, MAHA Action warned:

“The long-term health effects of electromagnetic radiation exposure on children have never been adequately studied, especially in the places kids spend their days: classrooms, playgrounds, and youth sports fields. Until the science catches up, communities must retain the right to apply caution near schools and children’s outdoor spaces. “This bill removes that right and eliminates informed consent for millions of families.”

Fourteen Republicans, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), co-sponsored the bill.

FCC hasn’t updated wireless safety standards since 1996, concealed risks

Advocates opposing the bill argued that it violates states’ rights and fails to protect public health — particularly children’s health.

In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sunday, Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, urged Johnson to oppose the bill.

Lyons wrote that what “began as a narrow, one-page proposal has expanded into a roughly 100-page omnibus bill that would strip state and local governments of meaningful control over wireless infrastructure,” transferring that authority to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and private industry.

His letter suggested the bill violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — which protects states’ rights — and would have eroded local accountability and used federal taxpayer funds to subsidize the continued buildout of mobile infrastructure across the U.S.

Lyons told Johnson that rejecting the bill would preserve states’ rights and protect property rights by allowing property owners to challenge the development of mobile infrastructure in their area.

Rejecting the bill would also protect public health, Lyons argued. He noted that the FCC has not updated its radiation exposure guidelines since 1996. Although a 2021 federal court ruling found that the FCC’s refusal to update those guidelines was “arbitrary and capricious, the FCC continues to defy the ruling.

According to data obtained in 2024 by the Environmental Health Trust via Freedom of Information Act requests, the FCC knew for years that certain popular smartphones exceeded the agency’s safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation when held close to the body.

Rather than going public with the testing results, the FCC concealed them — even when important lawsuits concerning cellphone radiation’s impact on people’s health were underway.

“H.R. 2289 would accelerate buildout under guidelines a federal court has already found inadequately justified,” Lyons wrote.

A rule the FCC proposed last year is aimed at “eliminating barriers to wireless deployments” by silencing local communities. The rules target communities that attempt to resist efforts by telecom companies to build new cell towers next to homes and schools. CHD opposed the proposal in comments filed in December 2025.

Eckenfels said:

“We simply know too much about the damage cell towers can do to people living close by, as reports of people being harmed pile up from across the nation. Unless and until the FCC complies with the 2021 court order to revise its outdated radiation exposure standards, we call on all federal leaders to use precaution as a matter of policy and oppose any acceleration or expansion of wireless infrastructure. Our children’s health is at stake, and we’ll do anything we can to protect them.”

In November 2025, CHD filed a motion with the FCC asking it to comply with the 2021 ruling.