Federal Communications Commission FCC 16-99 1 STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN Re: Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, CG Docket No. 02-278 We have heard loud and clear that consumers hate receiving robocalls. During the first six months of 2016, Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) related issues accounted for nearly half of the more than 175,000 tickets filed with the Commission’s consumer help center. In our ‘Federal Debt Collection Proceeding,’ nearly 16,000 individuals filed comments, with approximately 80 percent expressing a general dislike for robocalls. As a result, we must strike a delicate balance in this Order between the Commission’s mandate to protect consumers and specific instructions given to us by Congress in last year’s Budget Act regarding robocalls “made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.” While I recognize the importance of delivering timely information to an individual who is delinquent on their debt, and am in agreement that direct communication could actually prevent a borrower from experiencing long-term financial consequences, clear limits must be in place to prevent robocalls and texts from becoming harassment. By setting a limit of three robocalls per month, with explicit flexibility given to federal agencies to request a waiver seeking higher volume limits if needed, we have appropriately tailored a framework which both protects consumers and ensures access to critical information on debt repayment. Despite the limitations laid out in this Order, debt servicers will continue to have many means of communicating with borrowers: calls made with prior express consent; calls manually dialed; as well as email and traditional postal mail. The TCPA was enacted in part to protect consumers from being inundated with unwanted calls, such as those from debt collectors, and our decision here, consistent with the most recent direction of Congress, furthers that goal by placing clear restrictions on what is permissible when collecting federal debt.