With the Industrial Revolution and electrification, rules and regulations began to prioritize tech developments and corporate profits over public or ecosystem health.
In 1886, lawyers representing corporate interests used the Fourteenth Amendment (created at the Civil Wars end to grant rights to freed slaves) to extend personhood rights to businesses and corporations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are "persons" who hold the same protections held by natural persons. (Until 1886, corporations were considered "artificial persons" and subject to significant regulations.) Since 1886, U.S. laws have prevented natural people from significantly regulating corporate behavior.
In 1934, the FCC defined harmful interference as anything that interferes with existing radio, TV or (now) Internet broadcasts. Nearly 100 years later, no agency defines biological harm (to people or wildlife) from transformers or broadcasting equipment that emit electromagnetic radiation.
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 makes it unlawful to take (harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect) any endangered species of fish or wildlife within the United States . However, if an applicant (wanting to drill oil or mine lithium or deploy wind turbines, for examples) submits a habitat conservation plan and the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) finds that the projects harm to endangered species will be incidental, will be mitigated, and will not appreciably reduce the survival of the species in the wild, then FWS and NMFS will issue a permit for the corporation to conduct business.
Section 704 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act prohibits a municipality from denying a telecom corporations request to install radiation-emitting antennas based on environmental concerns. After this laws passage, at city council meetings and judicial hearings about cell-site deployments, I saw legislators (scared that a telecom corporation might sue their city) warn citizens not to speak about the health effects of living near a cellular antenna. When I showed my state senators an image of a cell site in front of a California house, one asked an AT&T lobbyist, What could I do if you install a cellular antenna in my yard? The lobbyist said, You could make a commentand the legislator joined his colleagues in voting to permit the telecom corporation-supporting rule.
I began to wonder: realistically, legally and ecologically, what can we control?
MANUFACTURING REALITIES
More rapidly than answers came to that question, I received reports about industrial manufacturing (of computers, refrigerators, air conditioners, gas-powered cars, EVs, solar panels, you name it). Manufacturing these goods (and data centers, access networks and battery energy storage systems) requires electricity, mining, smelting, chemicals, fossil fuels and international shippingwhich wreak havoc on ecosystems and public health. While most products toxic waste is generated during manufacturing, at the end-of-life, electronics do not biodegrade.
Then, like rats, cell sites, solar PV facilities (not farms), wind turbines, battery energy storage systems, EVs and data storage centers (for AI) started infesting urban and rural neighborhoods. People nearby these facilities reported power outages, no water or dirty water at their tap, and doubled utility bills. They wondered how to restore local authority.
THE NEW RULES & REGS
Meanwhile, the FCC and others serving corporate interests presented lots of new bills in Congress.
The Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA, S.1462) would fast-track large-scale logging, including in mature and old-growth forests, by gutting core environmental laws like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. It would expand industry loopholes, block public oversight, and allow commercial logging under vague emergency declarations.
Several states have banned the Rights of Nature.
The Trump Administration EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers announced The Polluted Water Rule\. If enacted, it would further restrict The Clean Water Acts ability to protect water bodies from pollution and destruction. This rulewould let polluters dump in and destroy more waters all across the country than any time in the last fifty years.Upon publication in the Federal Register, there will be a 45 day comment period. For more info, see The Clean Water for All Coalitions toolkit.
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