Democrats love talking about infrastructure investment/spending, while Republicans tout deregulation. But what do those policies look like in the modern economy? Are we just talking about repairing roads and bridges? Does regulatory reform involve more than just peeling back parts of Dodd Frank and opening more areas for drilling?

One economic goal that involves both infrastructure and deregulation is increasing broadband speed and reach while also expanding choice for consumers who currently may have little to none. That’s where 5G, the next generation wireless system, comes in. Widespread deployment of these systems will not only increase the capabilities of mobile communication — creating an alternative to fixed broadband — but also boost technologies such as autonomous vehicles, the internet of things, and virtual reality applications. So we are talking digital infrastructure here, which like all infrastructure faces regulatory hurdles.

Which is where the Federal Communications Commission comes in. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr just released a deregulation plan to boost 5G deployment, and it sounds pretty interesting:

– Our federal historic and environmental review procedures are not suited to support 5G deployments, which can be smaller than a backpack and attach to existing structures.

– The fees associated with these procedures have risen dramatically in recent years, spiking by as much as 2,500% in parts of the country and needlessly costing millions of dollars that could have been put toward infrastructure deployment. This threatens our 5G leadership.

The Plan:

– Exclude small wireless facilities from the environmental and historic review procedures that were designed for large, macrocell deployments by determining that they are neither “federal undertakings” nor “major federal actions.” This is projected to reduce the regulatory costs of small cell deployment by 80%, cut deployment timelines in half, and expand 5G deployments.

– Streamline the historic review procedures that will continue applying to larger wireless deployments by updating the Section 106 Tribal consultation process to address up-front fees, clarify the consultation process, and adopt a clear timeline within which deployments can commence when a Tribe does not respond. These reforms will only apply to deployments located off of Tribal lands and outside of reservation boundaries.

– Revise the FCC’s approach to environmental reviews by adopting a shot clock for the FCC’s own processing of Environmental Assessments (EAs) and, for deployments in floodplains, clarifying that EAs need not be filed for deployments one foot above the base flood elevation.

Who is frowning at this plan? From Axios:

These steps are priorities for the telecom providers, like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, that are investing billions in rolling out 5G technologies. But state and city governments are worried about losing a say over where hundreds of thousands of new cell sites will be installed on their streets. And net neutrality proponents dispute the claim that net neutrality reduced private sector investment in broadband networks generally.