Federal Communications Commission	"FCC  XX-XXX"


STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
Re:	Implementing Section 503 of RAY BAUM’S Act, WC Docket No. 18-335; Rules and Regulation Implementing the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, WC Docket No. 11-39.
I remember when it was Rachel from cardmember services I disliked most.  Then it was the agent calling from the Internal Revenue Service with his final notice of an imminent lawsuit.  But now it’s the calls with spoofed numbers that look like family and friends but when I answer the line I get an automated voice offering me a cruise or debt relief or something else I did not ask for, do not want, and do not need.
This is insane.  Across the country we have more than 5 billion robocalls a month.  An alarming number of them involve spoofed numbers.  This is fraud and today we start a rulemaking to stop it.  Pursuant to Section 503 of RAY BAUM’s Act, we propose changes to our rules to cover additional communications services as well as calls that originate outside of the United States.  This will expand the reach of robocall enforcement, so I fully support it.  Today the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau also releases a report on robocalls.  This too has my support, as does the Chairman’s suggestion yesterday that we may need a rulemaking to require new caller identification technologies.
But I think rulemakings and reports have their limitations.  It’s action that counts.  In the past twenty-four months, this agency has had no more than a handful of enforcement actions involving illegal robocalls schemes.  Our work is too slow.  We are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.  We need more dedicated resources.  To this end, this month the Federal Communications Commission created a new division within our Enforcement Bureau that will focus on fraud, waste, and abuse in the universal service fund.  Why not create a division that will combat robocalls?  If year-in and year-out this is the single largest source of consumer complaints at this agency, how about organizing our enforcement efforts to reflect that?  I think that’s what we need to do and I think the time to do it is now.  Before spoofed calls, robocalls, Rachel calls, or any of it gets any worse.



2