Critics of a bill that seeks to offer regulatory predictability to the wireless industry tacked on an amendment this week that undermines the intent of the bill, threatening to leave the sector in limbo as national companies consider where to invest their resources.
Sponsors of House Bill 1056, who have been in heated negotiations with local-government leaders who accuse the bill of usurping local control, said they will look to revamp the bill somewhat in a conference committee. But they also acknowledged that the changes made by the Senate show that they must offer more compromises to those who believe that the proposal protects telecommunications too much as the expense of other local priorities.
HB 1056, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Meghan Lukens of Steamboat Springs and Jennifer Bacon of Denver, seeks to set time limits under which local governments must consider applications to build or add onto wireless towers. Those limits, which already have been expanded as the bill has advanced through the Legislature, would be 150 days for a proposed new cell tower and 90 days for additions to existing towers — and a failure to act in that time would be deemed as approval of the permit.
The debate over speeding wireless infrastructure permitting
Supporters of the bill, both Democrats and Republicans, point to delays in permit considerations that have stretched for years on a few occasions and say they prevent buildout of a vital service needed to attract businesses and help residents. Opponents, who also cut across the aisle, say that HB 1056 would give telecommunications a leg up on all other industries that need local permits and ties the hands of already strapped city and county governments.
Colorado state Sen. Faith Winter speaks in the Senate earlier this session.
It was in that vein that Sen. Faith Winter, D-Broomfield, added an amendment near the end of Senate debate on Monday that would allow local governments to delay consideration of wireless-infrastructure permits indefinitely to deal with other pending permit applications. Those other permits, according to the amendment, include applications related to affordable housing, renewable energy, government projects or “any other project for which law establishes a timeline to review permits.”
“By putting a shot clock on telecommunications permits, we are putting those projects ahead of other permit applications,” argued Winter, a former Westminster city councilwoman. “Coming from local government, I understand how complicated local permitting can get.”
Sen. Byron Pelton, a Republican from Sterling and former Logan County commissioner, backed Winter’s effort after the Senate rejected several of his amendments to give more power to local government, and the two got enough support to tack on the change. HB 1056 then passed the Senate the next day by a vote of 28-5, sending it back to the House (which earlier passed it by a closer margin of 35-28) to concur with the amendments or take other action to remove the changes.
Why the shot clock is needed
Colorado state Rep. Matt Soper speaks in a House committee hearing in April 2024.
Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican who is co-sponsoring the bill after sitting with Lukens and Bacon on an interim committee that studied cell-phone connectivity, on Friday described the Senate amendment as “kind of a cute attempt to make the bill worthless.” By not limiting how long local governments can delay review of the wireless permit applications or even requiring that officials consider applications in the order they were submitted, it essentially eliminates the “shot clock” that the bill seeks to impose.
Soper and Lukens told The Sum & Substance they will seek to send HB 1056 to conference committee to work out differences in the House and Senate versions. But they won’t seek to nix the allowance to delay permitting while considering other applications — a provision known as “tolling” the time frames. Instead, they are discussing adding guardrails that could allow tolling for a specified amount of time to consider other applications but then require officials to resume that 150-day shot clock.
While many other states have time limits on wireless permit consideration and some allow tolling, it’s unprecedented for a state to allow tolling for an indefinite amount of time, Soper said. Industry advocates have said that many states have 30-day time limits on how long local governments can pause the shot clock.
The shot clock is so important, backers argue, because delays in putting up cellular infrastructure have left pockets of Colorado without reliable service that is necessary both for business operations and human connectivity in an age of wireless phones. That is true both for the rural areas that Lukens represents that are attempting to attract more businesses and for urban areas like Bacon’s northeast Denver district that are seeing homes go up faster than cellular companies can get the OK to put in equipment.
Wireless company investments may hang in balance
AT&T asserted in the first committee hearing for the bill last month that it added $875 million in network infrastructure in Colorado from 2019 to 2023 but needs assurances that it can plug existing holes quickly and efficiently. With wireless providers spending nearly $30 billion nationally to boost infrastructure, they have choices on where to invest, and Colorado runs the risk of getting a reputation as a state whose inconsistent regulatory framework makes it a low-priority target, bill backers said.
Federal law already requires that local governments consider permits for wireless infrastructure within 150 days, but smaller local governments often don’t know that requirement, which is rarely enforced, Soper said. Cosponsoring Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, amended HB 1056 to expand the shot clock on permitting new towers from 120 days to 150 days out of deference for local governments but said the state law is needed to make that timeframe more than “a mere suggestion.”
Colorado state Sens. Nick Hinrichsen and Dylan Roberts explain the wireless-permitting bill they are sponsoring to the Senate.
As the bill now stands with the amendment added by Winter, the 150-day time frame is no more enforceable than a suggestion, Soper said, as there are no limits on how long local governments can delay wireless permit review to consider other permits. The only parameter offered in the amendment is that the tolling period “shall not be longer than reasonably necessary to review the other pending application.”
What comes next
Soper, though, said he is optimistic that sponsors can reach a compromise with local-government advocates that allows for tolling when necessary but still sets time limits that are reasonable both for wireless companies and for city and county officials.
As proof of that, he cites a compromise made on another bill that came from the interim committee on connectivity, HB 1080, which seeks to establish incentives for the buildout of cellular and broadband infrastructure. After realizing a state tax break was infeasible this year, backers amended HB 1080 on Thursday to let local governments offer property-tax or business-personal-property-tax breaks for the siting of telecommunications infrastructure.
“To have (tolling) be unlimited, it takes us back to where the bill doesn’t exist,” Soper said. “I absolutely believe there’s a way to pull the bill back to where we can speed permitting again. That’s the whole point of the bill.”