Media Contact: 
Will Wiquist, (202) 418-0509
will.wiquist@fcc.gov

For Immediate Release

CHAIRMAN PAI STATEMENT ON SENATE PASSAGE OF 
THE TELEPHONE ROBOCALL ABUSE CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT & DETERRENCE (TRACED) ACT 
  -- 
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2019—Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai issued the following statement today on U.S. Senate passage of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act:

“I commend the U.S. Senate for passing the TRACED Act and Senators Thune and Markey for leading this bipartisan effort.  The TRACED Act would help strengthen the FCC’s ability to combat illegal robocalls, and we would welcome these additional tools to fight this scourge.  Further powers like increased fines, longer statutes of limitations, and removing citation requirements which obligate us to warn some robocallers before penalizing them, will significantly improve our already strong robocall enforcement efforts.

“I also welcome the Act’s provisions that would increase coordination with state Attorneys General.  This is a vital partnership in the fight against unwanted robocalls and one we already are working hard at.  Just today, I am meeting with Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter to discuss his efforts to fight scammers, and earlier this week I attended the National Association of Attorneys General Consumer Protection Conference.  It’s important that federal and state partners work together—and engage productively with private stakeholders—to address this important consumer protection priority.”


Background:
Combatting illegal robocalls and malicious spoofing to protect consumers from scam calls is the Chairman’s top consumer protection priority.  Unwanted calls account for over 60% of the consumer complaints the agency receives each year.  To fight these calls, the Chairman has taken strong policy steps including call blocking rules and a proposed ruling to allow blocking by default, authorizing the creation of a reassigned number database to reduce calls made to the wrong consumer, and ruling that carriers could continue to block spam robotexts.  In addition, the Chairman has led the push to ensure caller ID authentication is adopted this year and imposed the largest fines in the agency’s history.  To learn more about these initiatives, visit: https://www.fcc.gov/scam-robocalls 

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Office of Chairman Pai: (202) 418-1000 / Twitter: @AjitPaiFCC / www.fcc.gov/leadership/ajit-pai 

This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action.  Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action.  See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).