CALIFORNIANS WIN, ASTRONOMERS LOSE
Astronomers Lose in Court
Last Friday, July 12, 2024, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the green light to SpaceX to keep on destroying our night sky and filling our atmosphere with metallic dust and toxic chemicals.
On December 29, 2022, the International Dark-Sky Association, representing astronomers all over the world, had appealed the decision of the Federal Communications Commission to grant SpaceX a license to launch up to 30,000 more satellites without performing an environmental review. See my newsletter of April 30, 2024 for details.
In Friday’s decision, the court ruled that satellite launches and deployment, no matter how many, “are deemed individually and cumulatively to have no significant effect on the quality of the human environment and are categorically excluded from environmental processing.”
The astronomers have 45 days to decide whether to appeal the 3-judge panel’s decision to the full 15-member Court of Appeals. Even if they do not do so, they can still appeal the panel’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court within 90 days.
AT&T Must Maintain Its Landlines in California
On July 1, 2024, Californians won their fight to keep their landline telephones.
Last November, AT&T, which is the landline telephone provider in large parts of California, applied to the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) for permission to abandon its landlines and end analog telephone service for most people in that state. Opposition to its application was overwhelming. The City and County of San Francisco, the County of San Mateo, the County of Santa Clara, the Media Alliance, Tahoe Energy Ratepayers, the Utility Reform Network, the Center for Accessible Technology, Catalina Island Connect, California Restoration LLC, and the California Farm Bureau Federation all participated in the proceeding and all opposed AT&T’s application. Even the Public Advocates Office of the CPUC opposed the application. And on June 25, 2024, the CPUC denied the application and ordered AT&T to keep maintaining its landlines.
Meanwhile, AT&T, in an attempt to go around the CPUC, lobbied the state legislature to enact a law allowing it to end landline service. On June 10, 2024, Assemblymember Tina McKinnor introduced a bill in the California legislature (AB-2797) that would have allowed every landline provider in California to abandon its landlines. But on July 1, under immense pressure from her constituents, Assemblymember McKinnor withdrew the bill.
Arthur Firstenberg
President, Cellular Phone Task Force
Author, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life
P.O. Box 6216
Santa Fe, NM 87502
USA
arthur@cellphonetaskforce.org
+1 505-471-0129
July 16, 2024
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