Pallone-Thune TRACED Act includes some beneficial language targeting illegal actors, fails to include important clarifications concerning TCPA compliance for legitimate businesses.This content is available to ACA members only.
12/2/2019 9:30
Congressional leaders officially released an agreement on S.151, the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act, from the House and Senate aiming to mitigate “robocalls” last week; taking into consideration some changes addressing concerns of legitimate businesses in the accounts receivable management industry by removing problematic provisions concerning “consent revocation” and defining “called party.” The legislation in its current form directs the FCC to engage in a number of rulemakings, and reports to Congress, on issues it has been examining over the past year including call blocking and call authentication.
The original draft of the House bill, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act, would have defined a “robocall” as a call or text message made using equipment that makes a series of calls to stored telephone numbers, including telephone numbers stored on a list; or to telephone numbers produced using a random or sequential number generator; or a call made using an artificial or prerecorded voice. The July version, which passed the House of Representatives, directed the Federal Communications Commission to define an autodialer. However, the House and Senate ultimately could not agree on a directive to the FCC concerning the autodialer definition and the entire section was removed in the final package.
ACA International sent a letter opposing the original draft of the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act and has been working for many months to improve this legislation as well as the Senate’s Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, where we also secured important report language to recognize legal versus illegitimate callers.
ACA worked to include several improvements in the final version:
- Removing the problematic definition of “called party." The House bill, H.R. 3375, defined the term “called party” to mean the “current subscriber or customary user of the telephone number to which the call is made.” This was removed in the final bill.
- Removing broad language about consent revocation. ACA urged Congress to ensure that businesses can designate certain channels where consumers’ revocations can be efficiently and accurately processed. H.R. 3375 in its original form stated that (2) calls made and text messages sent using automatic telephone dialing systems and calls made using an artificial or prerecorded voice are made or sent (as the case may be) with consent, unless consent is not required under or the call or text message is exempted by paragraph (1), (2)(B), or (2)(C) of subsection (b) of such section; (3) consumers can withdraw consent for such calls and text messages.
- Improve language concerning call blocking than what the FCC proposed by noting it should be done with “transparency and effective redress options” for consumers and callers and assurance there will be no cost to callers for unblocking wanted calls stating, “provided with no additional line item charge to consumers and no additional charge to callers for resolving complaints related to erroneously blocked calls.”
“Despite that this is a far from perfect piece of legislation, we appreciate that Congress worked with us to consider how the accounts receivable management industry and other legitimate actors would have been harmed if changes were not made to the original House bill,” said Leah Dempsey, vice president and senior Counsel, federal Advocacy. “It is now time for Congress and the FCC to act and provide clarity to legitimate actors by defining what is considered an autodialer as the D.C. Circuit and thousands of businesses throughout the country have asked them to do well over a year ago.
As noted, the new legislation also includes several directives to the FCC about SHAKEN/STIR and call blocking and labeling. The FCC has already begun policymaking in these areas and ACA has been engaged with the FCC on these issues. It is expected that 2020 will be an important year for additional industry advocacy on these issues as the FCC is expected to take several additional actions in these areas. The legislation also seeks several reports to Congress including one done by an interagency working group that also includes the CFPB.
The U.S. Senate passed the TRACED Act with important clarifications included in report language surrounding concerns raised by ACA, particularly to recognize the needs of legitimate callers, by a 97-1 vote in May. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act, sponsored by Chairman U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J. and Ranking Member U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., was approved 429-3 in July.
The new legislation titled, Pallone-Thune TRACED ACT (S.151) is a combination of these bills and is likely to be considered on suspension in the next few weeks.