Federal legislation preempting the rights of cities

The National League of Cities (NLC) informed us that the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings on July 25 about S. 3157, the "Streamlining The Rapid Evolution And Modernization of Leading-edge Infrastructure Necessary to Enhance (STREAMLINE) Small Cell Deployment Act." This bill introduces an unnecessary, one-size-fits-all preemption of our local efforts.

The bill will:

• Complicate existing efforts to deploy small cell infrastructure;
• Transfer public property to private companies with no public obligation; and
• Create a new unfunded mandate on local governments.

The bill goes farther by not providing for the grandfathering of existing agreements.

More than 50 Washington cities have been working with telecommunications companies to formally adopt fair permitting policies. We are hearing reports back from the telecommunications industry that through working with cities, networks are actively being installed.

AWC opposes this bill and is coordinating with NLC to let our congressional representatives know our concerns.