Federal Communications Commission	FCC 23-37


STATEMENT OF
CHAIRWOMAN JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
Re:	Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls, CG Docket No. 17-59; Call Authentication Trust Anchor, WC Docket No. 17-97; Seventh Report and Order in CG Docket CG 17-59 and WC Docket 17-97, Eighth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in CG Docket 17-59, and Third Notice of Inquiry in CG Docket 17-59 (May 18, 2023)
	If you are tired of us developing new ways to combat robocalls, rest assured that I am tired of being in this business.  But scam artists are creative.  Whenever we shut down one calling fraud scheme, another can always pop up somewhere else. 
However, in the last two years we have stopped more big robocall schemes than at any point in our history.  We shut down a flood of junk calls about auto warranties.  We shut down a fraudulent calling scheme involving student loans.  And we shut down a predatory mortgage lending scheme responsible for millions of robocalls.
	Just last week, we shut down a gateway provider pumping robocalls in from overseas.  This was a first-of-its kind action by the Federal Communications Commission.  We found a carrier responsible for so much junk traffic, we told all other carriers to block its calls.  This won’t be the last time we use this hammer-like approach.  That’s because the data suggest that an increasing amount of robocalls heading to our homes and businesses are coming from abroad.  
	Today we build on these efforts by clarifying some of our rules designed to put a halt to illegal robocalls.  We make clear that all carriers have a duty to respond to traceback requests in 24 hours so we can figure out who is behind any new rash of illegal robocalls.  We make clear that when we ask originating carriers to mitigate junk calls from a specific provider we mean block them—all of them.  And we make clear that the duty to know your upstream provider applies to every carrier in the call path.  
	On top of this, we seek comment about requiring additional analytics that can help identify suspect traffic on our networks and ask about other tools used to block robocalls, like setting up honeypots to catch those behind the scams.    
	So no rest for the weary.  We are simply not going to stop until we get this junk off the line.  
	Thank you to the Robocall Response Team and those at the agency who worked on this effort, including Alejandro Roark, Edyael Casaperalta, Mark Stone, Aaron Garza, Kristi Thornton, Karen Schroeder and Jerusha Burnett of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau; Mary Romano, Kristi Thompson and Daniel Stepanicich of the Enforcement Bureau; Elizabeth Drogula, Matt Collins, Zach Ross, Jonathan Lechter and Jesse Goodwin of the Wireline Competition Bureau; David Furth, Kenneth Carlberg, John Evanoff, Gerald English and Rasoul Safavian of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau; William Richardson, Chin Yoo, Richard Mallen, Valerie Hill, Derek Yeo and Andrea Kearney of the Office of General Counsel; Virginia Metallo, Eugene Kiselev, Mark Montano and Michelle Schaefer of the Office of Economics and Analytics; and Joycelyn James of the Office of Communications Business Opportunities.
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