RIC.HARD C. SllllBY AcABAMA CHAIRMAN MILHAfL t RAPO. IOAllO SHFRROO BROWN. OHIO BOB CORKlR. ITNNfSSEE JACK H~W. RHODE ISLAND OAVIO v1n~R lOUISIA"'A CliARL£<; [ SOiUM FR. lloEW YOR~ PATRILkJ TOUMIOY P[NNSVI VA!l:IA ROBfRT MHJfNOf-/ "'FW J~R&I Y MAllK KIRK n UNOIS JON 1~s1rn Ml>Nl .. NA DEAN HELlfR NfVAOA MARK WARNfR VIRG NIA TIM SCOTT, SOUTH CAROL '\A J£fl MllllCTOR The Honorable Tom Wheeler Chairman Federal Communications Commission 445 12111 St. SW Washington, DC 20554 Dear Chairman Wheeler: ttnitcd ~tares ~cnatr COMMITIEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS WASHINGTON, DC 20510- 6075 March 9, 2016 As Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, I am concerned with a provision in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-7 4) that will impact Americans with student loans and mortgages. Section 301 of the law permits automated telephone calls, also known as "robocalls," to collect debts owed to or guaranteed by the United States. This legislation further requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue regulations to implement this provision by August 2, 2016. As you work to draft these regulations, I ask that you take steps to ensure that debt collectors do not mislead borrowers or engage in other misconduct. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) protects consumers from being harassed by telemarketers and other companies, particularly through the use of automated telephone equipment. The TCPA and the FCC's implementing regulations protect consumers in a number of important ways, including prohibiting calls before 8 AM or after 9 PM, creating a Do-Not-Call list so that consumers can ask not to be called, and requiring companies to identify who they are and where they can be reached. The TCP A also includes protections for consumers in instances where they may be charged for the call, such as charges for cellular telephone calls, and requires express consent to initiate any telephone call to a residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice. However, section 301 exempts government debt collection calls from these protections and compromises the TCPA's consumer protections. Millions of Americans may be robocalled about their federal student loans, mortgages, business loans, or tax obligations. Additionally, this provision could potentially allow robocalls and texts to unrelated persons who have the reassigned cell phone numbers of the original borrowers, or to the borrowers' relatives and references. The FCC must limit this consumer protection rollback through strong regulations. I request that you work in coordination with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to ensure that your approaches to supervising debt collectors and debt collection are consistent. Section 32102 of the FAST Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-94) amended Section 6306 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to direct the IRS to enter into contracts with private collection contractors to collect inactive tax receivables. I ask that you work in coordination with the IRS and the CFPB 181 The Honorable Ton1 Wheeler Page 2 of 2 to draft rules and guidance for this progra1n so that it n1ai11tai11s the consumer protections co11tained in the TCPA. As of February 2016, over 47 million people could be in1pacted by section 301. This number does not incll1de those people Sltbjcct to ll1e IRS' new autl1ority to contract with debt collectors. This includes 42 1nillion people with federal student loans and 5 nlillion with Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, as well as others who nlay l1ave small business loans tl1rough the Small Business Administration. Millions more could be affected by the addition of IRS collections; as of September 30, 2014, approximately 12.4 nlillion individuals were Sltbject to IRS collection activities. Please consider including the following principles as you write rules to impleme11t section 301: • Calls that are made pursuant to section 301 should be permitted only if they meet require1nents that you set forth in regulation. • The caller should be required to verify that the called party is the borrower, i11cluding through policies and procedures, docume11tation, and periodic review. • Tl1e person who is called should have the ability to request that the calls be stopped, and be notified of that ability. • Calls to perso11s who are not the borrower should be eliminated. • Serviccrs of gover1unent debt shotdd t1ot be permitted to make robocalls. Tl1is is particularly important in the stude11t loan context, as we have seen repeated instances of servicing misconduct by federal student loan servicers. • Debt that is no longer owned by the federal govern1nent sl1ould not qualify for the exemption. • The nu111ber and duration of calls per month should be limited. • Calls to reassigned numbers should be prohibited. • Ensltre that all callers are aware of their con1pliance obligations under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, including the time-of-day restrictions and the restrictions of 15 u.s.c. l692b. 111 your respo11se, please detail how yoll plan to consider these recommendations in your rulen1aking. While it is important to ensure that the federal governn1ent can effectively collect on debt it is owed, it is also i1nportant to ensure that tl1e federal government is not itself an i11strun1ent to harass at1d n1istreat individltals through robocalls. I ask that you imple1nent sensible limits on federal debt collection and look forward to hearing fro1n you. Sincerely, Sherrod Brown Ranking Member