As we reported last week, H.R. 1602 is among the plethora of robocall legislation being considered by Congress. And the Czar’s suspicions were right—H.R. 1602 is the House version of the TRACED Act .
This week, Congressman David Kustoff’s office issued a press release identifying H.R. 1602 as the House version of the TRACED Act. Though the text of the bill is not yet available, Congressman Kustoff’s press release summarizes H.R. 1602 as:
- Broadening the authority of the FCC to impose civil penalties of up to $10,000 per call on those who intentionally flout the TCPA;
- Extending the FCC’s statute of limitations to take civil enforcement action against intentional violators from one to three years after a robocall is placed;
- Bringing together the DOJ, FCC, FTC, Department of Commerce, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, CFPB, and other relevant federal agencies, state attorneys general and non-federal entities to identify and report to Congress on improving deterrence and criminal prosecution of robocall scams at the federal and state levels;
- Requiring carriers to adopt call authentication technologies enabling verification that incoming calls are legitimate; and
- Directing the FCC to implement rulemaking to protect subscribers from receiving unwanted calls or texts from callers.
So there you have it. We now have both the House and Senate considering legislation encouraging a disastrous expansion of TCPA enforcement. Though no co-sponsors of H.R. 1602 are currently listed, given the mounting bipartisan support for the TRACED Act in the Senate, we anticipate seeing similar support in the House. We will have a full analysis of H.R. 1602 when the text becomes available.