Federal Communications Commission	"FCC  XX-XXX"


STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER GEOFFREY STARKS

Re: 	In the Matter of Implementing Section 10(a) of the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act), Report and Order, EB Docket No. 20-374.

Consumers and businesses continue to be plagued by a flood of illegal robocalls and spoofed calls that are annoying and potentially harmful; they remain our biggest source of consumer complaints.  Today’s action implements a mandate in the TRACED Act, and is another important step toward identifying the sources of these unlawful and unwanted calls and stopping them.  
The Commission has already taken more than 25 discrete actions to implement provisions of the TRACED Act since its adoption in December of 2019, including rulemakings, public notices, and reports.   Further, over the past five years the Commission has been active and aggressive in its robocall-related enforcement efforts, issuing 6 notices of apparent liability, 8 forfeiture orders, and 7 citations.  By creating a streamlined process for private entities to submit information about suspected unlawful robocalls and spoofed calls, we provide a tool similar to the existing informal complaint process used by individual consumers to share essential information that supports robocall mitigation and swift enforcement actions.  I thank the Enforcement Bureau staff for their work on this item, which I am pleased to support.

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