WASHINGTON-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the politician whose fight to retain local and state oversight of antenna siting and whose small Northeast state is leading the grassroots revolt against federal pre-emption of that authority, could challenge Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.
While he has yet to officially announce his intentions, the Associated Press, citing a presidential aide and political sources here and in Vermont, reported that Dean has informed Gore of his presidential plans.
Dean, a doctor and head of the Democratic Governors’ Association, joins House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), chairman of the Senatorial Campaign Committee, as early declared foes of the embattled vice president for the right to represent the Democratic Party in the 2000 presidential campaign.
Dean has written President Clinton, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Bill Kennard and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt to urge against federal pre-emption of local and state antenna siting regulations.
“I cannot overstate the importance land use planning plays in a state, like Vermont, with a small-town culture and landscape,” Dean told Kennard in a Dec. 2 letter.
“To lose control of our landscape is to lose a large piece of our social fabric,” Dean added. “I view this attempt to regulate land use planning by the federal government as a violation of the plan of convention between the several states and the federal government.”
Dean’s entry in the presidential sweepstakes is significant beyond the fact that he would give a national voice to voters in the United States who oppose the proliferation of mobile phone antennas because of aesthetic, property value and health concerns.
Already, there is said to be general concern in Democratic circles that Gore will feel compelled to move left of center to fend off the Gephardt challenge. This worries the administration because Clinton’s legacy depends in part on how Gore carries out policies begun under Clinton.
If Gore tries to appease the liberal wing of the party, the environmentally sensitive vice president might be willing to depart from the pro-industry siting position of the Clinton administration and move closer to anti-tower activists in order to neutralize Dean.
However, Steve Crowley, an aide to Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Dean’s impact will be marginal if the antenna siting issue is resolved before next year’s midterm election; that is, before the presidential race.
Kennard recently told Sanders in a telephone conversation the FCC will settle the federal pre-emption siting controversy sometime after the first quarter next year and certainly before the end of 1998. But given the high-pitched level of the debate and intense lobbying likely to accompany anti-pre-emption legislation, the controversy could still be percolating come 2000.
Early into his administration, Kennard said federal pre-emption should be considered only as a last resort. The FCC chairman is expected to visit Vermont soon to discuss the issue with politicians.
Bills introduced before Congress adjourned for the year would repeal the health-effects siting pre-emption provision of the 1996 telecom act and return full siting jurisdiction to local and state regulators. The measures are co-sponsored in the House by Sanders and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and in the Senate by James Jeffords (R-Vt.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
The legislation, to be taken up in the second session of the 105th Congress early next year, puts the wireless industry on the defensive on an issue they once appeared to control.
For much of this year, the industry lobbied Congress and the FCC for new laws and regulations to remove nearly all siting jurisdiction from state and local regulators.
Pointing to hundreds of siting moratoria and excessive taxation of wireless facilities, the wireless industry claims that without a strong national siting policy, the rollout of new personal communications services systems, the expansion of existing cellular systems and the promise of robust competition all are threatened.
