Telecommunications Act of 1996—What Constitutes Substantial Evidence?

Abstract

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave telecommunications providers and local governments certain rights and powers to govern whether and where telecommunications facilities could be located. While local governments retained and attained certain rights to regulate facilities, the Act limited the ability of the public to convince or pressure their local planning commission, city council, or other decision-making body (for simplicity, we’ll refer to these bodies as “decision makers”) into prohibiting such facilities.