In two different venues, two totally different approaches to antenna siting were on display in the nation’s capital last week. In the power corridors of Congress, the House and Senate-hounded by warring lobbyists-deliberated over a controversial appropriations provision to foster antenna siting in Rock Creek Park and on other federal lands here.
Local politicians, environmentalists and others scrambled to kill the siting measure. The wireless industry (particularly Bell Atlantic Mobile) and a group of senators, led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), fought to keep it alive.
In other words, business as usual.
Meanwhile, across town, in stylish Georgetown, the wireless industry and environmentalists sat civilized at the same table before signing a voluntary agreement to address issues-early and often-associated with siting towers on or near the National Scenic Trails.
The accord was signed by the Personal Communications Industry Association, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the American Hiking Society, the Appalachian Trail Conference and the Potomac Heritage Partnership.
Mary McDermott, senior vice president of PCIA, said perhaps Congress would not have to be dragged into siting disputes like Rock Creek if there was more cooperation like that exhibited in the National Scenic Trails Resolution.
After the strangeness of the industry-tree hugger lovefest on Tuesday, things got wonderfully weirder the next day, when the industry joined hands with federal, state and local officials to unveil legislation to simplify the messy system of local and state wireless taxation.
There, standing side by side and looking like they actually liked each other, were CTIA President Tom Wheeler, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt (chairman of the National Governors Association) and Philadelphia Councilman Brian O’Neill (immediate past president of the National League of Cities).
The siting agreement and wireless taxation bill may be more important for their symbolism than for their worthy substance.
The National Scenic Trails Resolution took two years to craft. The Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act was three years in the making. To realize the hard work that must have gone into the two initiatives is to understand why such cooperative agreements don’t happen every day. In the poisoned political culture of the day, it’s easier to throw a pile of PAC money at a lawmaker and hope he/she will champion your cause. It’s easier to demonize any one who might stand in your way.
Cooperation is tough work, not to mention a drag on big egos. It means having to trust someone who might otherwise be your adversary. Very, very difficult thing in a city where blood sport is a high art form.
The National Scenic Trails Resolution and the MTSA proved the cynics wrong last week.
