NATOA Files Reply Comments on Petition for Reconsideration
Yesterday, NATOA was joined by
the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National
Association of Counties, the American Planning Association, and the City of
Laredo, Texas in filing Reply Comments with the FCC responding to the
opposition to our Petition for Reconsideration or Clarification. Our
Petition requested reconsideration of a specific part of the FCC’s recent “shot
clock” order. Specifically, we objected to a 30 day deadline on a local
government’s ability to toll the shot clock when an application is found to be
incomplete. We also objected to the fact that facial completeness
appeared to be the only issue that could allow a local government to toll the
shot clock.
The response to our
Petition was mostly supportive. However, opposition to our Petition was
filed by members of the wireless industry. Our Petition pointed out the
industry’s mischaracterizations of our legal assertions and also highlighted
instances of practical problems the 30 day rule would cause that were raised in
filings by local governments. A common theme in these filings, which we
highlighted in our Reply Comments, was that the 30 day rule does not reflect
the realities of the zoning application review process and would ultimately
slow down the deployment of wireless facilities.
The full text of our Reply Comments is available here.