Witness urges extension of Section 248A, calls for PUC workshop to fix tower and small-cell problems

Will Dodge, managing partner at Downs Rockland Martin, told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Jan. 28 that he supports H.527' bill to avoid the expiration of Vermont Section 248A—ecause, he said, the statute provides predictable, expert review of most telecommunications siting cases. "I support avoiding expiration of section 248A as envisioned by H.527," Dodge said, noting his 25 years of practice in Vermont and New Hampshire on telecom siting.

Dodge told the committee that most Section 248A petitions proceed without controversy and that, in his view, roughly "85 to 90 percent" of cases resolve smoothly; he offered an illustrative estimate of about "87.5 percent." He urged lawmakers to focus reforms on the smaller share of cases that involve brand-new towers, full tower replacements or small-cell attachments to utility poles, which he said account for about "12.5 percent" of petitions and generate most conflict.

Dodge argued the State Public Utility Commission and the Department of Public Service bring specialized technical expertise (for example, reviewing RF exposure calculations and structural reports) that Act 250 and many municipal reviewers typically lack. "Act 250 is limited to consideration of environmental impacts ... without consideration of public benefits such as improved coverage or safety," he said, and added that municipal boards and volunteers often lack the bandwidth to handle the volume and technical detail of modern telecom filings.

To illustrate the flexibility Section 248A can offer, Dodge recounted two settlement-style outcomes: a Thetford tower sited partly on town forest with a land-grant preservation condition, and a Stowe downtown solution where lines were undergrounded and a decorative monopole was built to match village aesthetics. He said such negotiated outcomes are harder to achieve under a purely municipal or Act 250 regime.

On health concerns, Dodge told the committee that federal law limits local governments from setting their own RF-health standards but allows them to require applicants to show compliance with existing Federal Communications Commission guidelines. "A state or local government can't set its own standard ... but what it can do is require the applicant to demonstrate that they are meeting the FCC's guidelines," he said, noting that typical filings include a "maximum permissible exposure analysis" and that exposures he recalls seeing are often only a small fraction of the permissible limit.

Dodge urged the PUC to convene a stakeholder workshop (the PUC held a Section 248A workshop around 2009, he said) as a practical first step to identify changes that would fix the friction in the small share of cases that now perform poorly. He said a workshop followed by targeted rulemaking would be faster and more constructive than a wholesale reversion of siting to Act 250 or municipal zoning.

The committee asked Dodge several follow-up questions, including about New Hampshire system, municipal setback ordinances, and whether municipalities could adequately administer modern telecommunications review. Dodge said New Hampshire

wholly local permitting system—an produce greater variability and more litigation, and he warned that many town ordinances predate smartphones and small-cell technology.

Dodge offered to provide the committee and the PUC with a prioritized list of specific items for review and to consult with clients before doing so. The committee recessed for a short break at the end of his testimony; no formal vote on H.527 occurred during the session.