6/12/25 MA Smart Meter Bill Testimonies: 17-year-old Amelia Coco Gilardi, Courtney Gilardi, Helen Walker of MACI Mass. Asso. for the Chemically Injured

Before the MA Legislature’s Joint Committee for Telecom, Utilities, and Energy.

Note that each speaker was given 3 minutes to speak to the MA Legislature’s Joint Committee for Telecom, Utilities, and Energy. The committee graciously allowed speakers with EMR-S/EHS to be heard first; gratitude for the accommodation.

You can still support these efforts, details at end.

Also, join the community for World EHS Day - details also below for upcoming events.

S. 2306 & H. 3551 Kid Support Amelia Coco Gilardi

Esteemed legislators, my name is Amelia, I am 17 years old and have a medical diagnosis of electromagnetic sensitivity. I become ill and develop symptoms in the presence of wireless radiation, which is what digital meters emit 24/7, and unlike a cell phone or Wi-Fi router, there is no off switch, no airplane mode and no ability to use it less as it is on all the time, day and night.

I am here today to support S. 2306 and H. 3551 to support the notification of digital meters, the removal of digital meters and a no fee opt out for digital meters that does not punish those who get sick from RF radiation, or impose additional fees on the EMF disabled; a condition that requires us to have a safe environment free from RF radiation.

I am asking you to pass these bills because when people are injured by a toxin and emission placed on their own home that they cannot turn off and they do not consent to, they can get very sick, like I did.

I am asking you to pass these bills because the 2020 City of Boston’s submission to the FCC’s 19-226 docket stated, “Boston believes that the concerns of the public are real and that the Commission has done a disservice to itself, local government, consumers, and even the wireless industry in failing to understand and respond to the broadly shared mistrust of the safety of RF emissions.”

I am asking you to pass these bills and take action today as the City of Boston cannot wait for the FCC to take action, as it has ignored a court order to do so- which is why YOU must. You must pass these bills so that you do not do a disservice to yourself and consumers by failing to respond to the widely documented harms from RF emissions.

RF radiation is a carcinogen in the same category as lead and DDT. Lead and DDT are now banned and if there is a source of lead in a house, it must be remediated or else children cannot legally live there.

I am asking you to please pass these bills so that we can safely, and without additional cost or penalty, live in our homes free from RF radiation from digital meters.

Thank you, Amelia

S. 2306 & H. 3551 Courtney Gilardi, Mom

Thank you for allowing me to speak in support of S.2306 and H.3551 for notifying residents if they have a smart meter, allowing smart meters to be removed, allowing residents to keep analog meters, and for utility companies to provide a no fee opt out.

Esteemed legislators, for a moment, please indulge me and imagine you are disabled, and use disability aids like a wheelchair. If you can’t imagine this for yourself, please picture a loved one, maybe a parent or a grandparent. Imagine that you have worked tirelessly to install a ramp next to the stairs for you to enter your home. Imagine that you have a stair chair lift to get you up to your bedroom. Imagine you renovated the bathroom and have removed the tub and replaced it with a zero entry shower. All of these changes you made yourself so you could live safely in your own home and access each of your rooms. Now imagine for a moment, you come home and all accessibility aids are gone. Not only has your previously accessible home been made inaccessible, with your disability, it is now downright dangerous, and yet you still have to live in it.

This is not just an analogy, this is literally what it is like to come home and find that your analogue meter has been swapped out for a digital one, without warning, without consent, and now, because of the pulsed modulated radio frequency radiation emitted from the digital meter, your entire home, not just the room adjacent to the outside wall where the meter was installed, but every single room is now not just inaccessible, but dangerous, and harmful to you.

Please, after five sessions in the legislature, I am humbly imploring you to finally pass S. 2306 and H. 3351 to prevent this nightmare scenario.

As a parent it is my job to protect my children’s health. Both of my kids suffer with nausea, insomnia, headaches, skin rashes and other symptoms in the presence of prolonged wireless radiation- which is exactly what a smart meter on your house is.

The prescription from my children’s pediatrician was to avoid RF radiation, even if it involved moving to a different home and removing all sources of RF, which we did. We spent a lot of money to do this and to make sure every room was safe with hardwired Ethernet. No one, and I mean no one should have to choose between their home and their health, their community and their health, their school district and their health, their finances and their health. In this economy with a housing shortage, it is an awful and heartbreaking choice, but not nearly as bad as watching your children suffer in a home that used to be their sanctuary.

If you wouldn’t like to come home and find a wheelchair ramp and all your accessibility aides removed- then please intervene and ensure utility companies allow our homes to stay accessible to us and not to charge us for digital meter opt outs that may make it easier for them, but in the process, make it dangerous and impossible for us.

Thank you. Courtney

H.3551 and S.2306 - H. Walker of the Massachusetts Association for the Chemically Injured (MACI)

Submitted to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy By Helen Walker

Thank you for the chance to speak in support of H.3551 and S.2306. An Act relative to smart meters. These bills would allow a ratepayer to choose what type of utility meters to have installed on the property, without incurring any fees for choosing non-wireless-transmitting analog meters.

Some of you know that we have been advocating for smart meter choice since 2013. We thank you for your past support. To those of you who are new: MACI and Massachusetts for Safe Technology have a significant number of members and colleagues who developed debilitating ongoing health problems immediately after installation of wireless utility meters on their homes. In some cases, symptoms were so severe that people moved out of their homes. Some people became unable to tolerate a normal work environment because they developed sensitivity to ambient wireless radiation. [With the expansion of 5G networks, sensitivity to wireless radiation means nowhere to go.]

This year is crunch time. Under DPU mandate, National Grid and Eversource are rolling out smart meters across the state. If you don’t have one now, you will shortly. And you or your family members may be surprised by sudden onset of health problems. The opt out we are requesting must be in place to provide remedy before health problems become disability.

DPU agrees that there must be an opt out. But the people who need it can’t afford the fees. National Grid is charging a monthly fee of $26; Eversource - $34; one municipal water company - $100. And while DPU orders name “non-transmitting analog meters,” the electric companies only promise “non-advanced meters.” What are those and who knows whether they will meet the health concerns? Today’s bills guarantee no-fee “non-transmitting analog meters”...including for gas and municipally owned utilities, which DPU orders do not cover.

Consider briefly the idea that FCC guidelines guarantee the safety of these smart meters. In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit asked why the FCC had quietly closed its investigation into the adequacy of 1996 guidelines for wireless safety. The court was shocked when oral arguments showed that the FCC had no studies whatsoever about wireless technologies after 1996, or about exposures from combinations of technology, or about cumulative effects over time...and that the FCC had failed to respond to thousands of pages of evidence of harm. And yet the FCC still has not re-opened its investigation.

Please also consider the social justice issue of large banks of meters in multifamily housing. More meters mean more emissions, more potential violations of the inadequate FCC guidelines, and greater need for the no-fee opt out.

I urge you to report these two bills favorably out of committee very soon, in time for the bills to continue through the legislative process. - Helen

You Can Still Support the Legislative Efforts in MA

Massachusetts has a 2-year legislative session.

The first step to bill passage is to move a bill out of committee.

Hearings are completed. Until Thursday June 19 written testimony can still be submitted to two Committees considering important EMF-related legislation this week.

Quick Easy Instant Action to support all 3 bills:

Sign the petition at

Petition · MA Legislature: Pass Smart Meter and EMF Health Harm Registry Bills - United States · Change.org which supports all 3 bills

If more time:

Send a written comment as an attachment to the Joint Committee for Public Health in favor of the EMF Registry of Harm

Email title: Support Bill H.2413

Send to JointCommittee.PublicHealth@malegislature.gov

See the bill here: Bill H.2413

Send a written comment as an attachment to the Joint Committee for Telecom Utilities and Energy for the two identical smart meter opt out bills

Email title: Support Bills Senate.2306 and House.3551

Send to: Phillip.Hashey@mahouse.gov and Ben.Minerva@masenate.gov.

See the bills here: Bill H.3551 and Bill S.2306 These are the same bill, for both the House and the Senate

EVENTS

International Action for Electrosmog Free Beaches and Parks 14-15 June Next International Electrosmog Action will take place on Saturday/Sunday 14/15 June. Its focus will be on Electrosmog Free Beaches and/or Parks, including National Parks. Make a placard, visit the Beach or your Park, take a picture (with a real camera, not a phone!) and post it to the Media as well as Global 5G Protest + Safetech International. Please don't forget to add country and which Beach or Park: https://www.facebook.com/groups/548912049259423
Email: team@safetechinternational.org

Massachusetts For Safe Technology Hosts World EHS Day Webinar, June 16, 2025 Register to Attend Meeting Registration - Zoom

REMINDER JULY 4 is the deadline for the Big Beautiful Bill in the U.S.

Thanks for all you do.