Pallone-Thune TRACED Act includes improved language from original House bill, will prompt FCC rulemakings. Editor’s note: This content is available to members only.
12/31/2019 10:30
Landmark legislation aimed at mitigating illegal robocalls, the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act (S. 151), was signed by President Donald Trump Dec. 30, 2019.
What became the final law transformed significantly in the last year as ACA International advocated for changes to several iterations of the legislation on Capitol Hill.
The final bill, now law, signed by the president combines legislation from the 116th Congress, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act (H.R. 3375) from U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and the TRACED Act from U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. The bills passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate. The House approved the legislation by a 417-3 vote on Dec. 4, 2019, and the Senate sent it to the president’s desk through unanimous consent by voice vote on Dec. 19, 2019, reflecting the importance of early engagement in securing improvements to the bills because of the political popularity of moving these measures forward.
The law will prompt several rulemakings by the Federal Communications Commission and reports from the FCC to Congress in 2020.
The original draft of the House Stopping Bad Robocalls Act would have undone much of the progress from ACA International’s victory in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by expanding the definition of what is considered an autodialer. The draft 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 of the legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives directed the FCC 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 worked to include several improvements in the final version:
- Removing the problematic definition of “called party.” The House bill 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.
- Improved language concerning call blocking, 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 legitimate calls stating that they must be, “provided with no additional line item charge to consumers and no additional charge to callers for resolving complaints related to erroneously blocked calls.”
ACA recently discussed the changes to the legislation in more detail and provided an outlook for what follows at the FCC in 2020 on a recent episode of ACA Cast titled Dissecting the TRACED Act.
The final law:
- Broadens the authority of the FCC to levy civil penalties of up to $10,000 per call on people who intentionally flout telemarketing restrictions.
- Extends the window for the FCC to catch and take civil enforcement action against intentional violations to four years after a robocall is placed.
- Creates an interagency working group at the Department of Justice, FCC, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Commerce, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other relevant federal agencies, as well as state attorneys general and other non-federal entities to identify and report to Congress on improving deterrence and criminal prosecution at the federal and state level of robocall scams.
- Requires voice service providers to adopt call authentication technologies, enabling a telephone carrier to verify that incoming calls are legitimate before they reach consumers’ phones.
- Directs the FCC to initiate a rulemaking related to unwanted calls or texts from callers.
- Directs the FCC to initiate a rulemaking process related to “one-ring” scams.
- Requires the FCC to establish a working group to issue best practices to prevent hospitals from receiving illegal robocalls.
"While the final law is far from perfect, it has been drastically improved over the past year as a result of ACA’s advocacy in conjunction with our members on Capitol Hill,” said ACA International CEO Mark Neeb. “Most notably, the final law does not include several provisions in the original bill language which would have made compliance with the TCPA even more onerous for ACA members. However, Congress and the FCC must do much more to address outstanding questions about the TCPA for legitimate businesses such as those relevant to the accounts receivable management industry."
The FCC has already initiated policymaking in many of these areas and ACA worked with the FCC on these issues over the past year. ACA filed comments on SHAKEN/STIR in July and led efforts to improve language in a June Declaratory Ruling. ACA is also continuing its work with a broad coalition of industries to urge the FCC to act on defining what is considered an autodialer. ACA and the coalition are seeking support of this goal from Congress and regulators including the U.S. Department of Treasury and Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy.
It is expected that 2020 will be an important year for additional industry advocacy on these issues. In 2019, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly addressed these FCC efforts at the ACA International Washington Insights Fly-In. We encourage ACA members to attend this year’s event May 19-21, 2020, to continue to engage directly in industry advocacy efforts on these issues in Washington, D.C.