In an article in the current edition of OMB Watch's Watcher, we discuss serious concerns about the extent of the wireless communications industry's influence over regulators. Following San Francisco's move to inform the public about potentially dangerous exposures to cell phone radiation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – the agency in charge of regulating cell phone radiation levels – changed its website. The FCC deleted a suggestion to consumers to seek phones with lower radiation levels (known as SAR values), and added a lot of industry-speak downplaying the legitimate concerns raised by public interest groups. Now the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is demanding to know why the FCC made the changes and what role the wireless trade association might have played.

Yesterday the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) failed to take action to protect the public, instead choosing to let millions of Americans remain at unnecessary risk of chemical disasters. The committee members chose to gut a House-passed bill that would have reduced the consequences of a terrorist attack on chemical plants and water treatment facilities. The committee also refused to consider a similar bill from Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). Both the House bill and the Lautenberg bill would have protected workers and communities by driving the adoption of safer, cost effective technologies that eliminate the threat of an intentionally released cloud of poison gas from a chemical plant.