Federal Communications Commission	FCC 26-49

STATEMENT OF
CHAIRMAN BRENDAN CARR

Re: 	Improving the Effectiveness of the Robocall Mitigation Database; Call Authentication Trust Anchor; Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls, WC Docket Nos. 24-213 and 17-97; CG Docket No. 17-59, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (July 22, 2026).

Earlier this week, I joined Secretary Bessent, Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair Bowman and FTC Chairman Ferguson for the inaugural roundtable meeting of the Payment Fraud and Scams Working Group.  The working group brought together leaders from social media and telecommunications companies to discuss ways that the federal government can continue to detect and prevent payment fraud and scams.  An important part of that conversation is how we can continue to fight illegal robocalls.

Fighting illegal robocalls remains the FCC’s top consumer protection priority.  Since I became Chairman, we have been taking a new approach to combatting such calls by tackling the problem at every point in the call path.  That means holding every provider involved in carrying a call accountable, from origination to termination.  Ultimately, every provider touching a call must know who it is doing business with and be held accountable for the traffic it is carrying and ultimately delivering to Americans.

We have kicked off proceedings that would do so in different ways, including through strengthening the FCC’s Know Your Customer and Know Your Upstream Provider obligations, tightening access to numbering resources, financially deterring illegal robocalls that originate abroad, and improving call authentication standards.  We have also continued to pursue aggressive enforcement action against bad actors, including against providers that have violated the rules governing the Robocall Mitigation Database or RMD.  Last summer, we removed nearly 1,400 providers because of deficiencies in their filings, cutting off their ability to pass bad traffic along U.S. networks. 

Today’s item builds on that work by strengthening the RMD in several ways.  For example, we are seeking comment on raising the bar for what types of information providers need to submit to the database, including details about their mitigation practices or relevant enforcement activity.  We are also seeking comment on how we can remove bad actors from the database in a more streamlined way.  Through these changes, the agency would make it harder for bad actors to hide behind layers of intermediaries and, in turn, make it easier to identify and stop unlawful traffic before it reaches consumers.

Thank you to staff for their great work on this item, including Joseph Calascione, Cara Voth, Jodie May, Chris Laughlin, Merry Wulff, John Menges, Daniel Stepanicich, John B. Adams, Derek Yeo, and Weiren Wang.