S. 151

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, in a few moments, the Senate will vote on the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act. The shorthand name for that is the TRACED Act. I rise in strong and optimistic support of this legislation at this time. I thank the leadership on both sides of the aisle for working to bring this bill to a vote.

Last month, the people of my State of Mississippi received over 50 million robocalls. That is just in the State of Mississippi, with about 3 million citizens. That is more than 17 robocalls for every man, woman, or child in my State--50 million. Imagine what it is around the country. It is billions and billions.

Some robocalls are legitimate. When we get a reminder from a doctor's office that our appointment is coming soon or when a school activity is canceled, those are welcome. But many are not. Most are not.

Billions and billions of robocalls are scams targeting the most vulnerable members of our society. These abusive robocalls have plagued Americans for years. Studies show that in my part of the country, the Southeastern United States, they are particularly abusive and pervasive, costing consumers billions of dollars each year and costing our economy billions of dollars each year.

Many of these illegal robocalls use what is referred to as neighbor spoofing, where robocallers somehow manage to use a local number and a local area code in the hope that recipients will be more likely to pick up the phone. The result is many Americans don't answer those phone calls. They just let it ring and see if there is a message. But Americans also miss important calls because of scammers and because this has been hijacked by the extraordinary networks used by these scammers and illegal violators of the law.

The TRACED Act will help. It goes after abusive and illegal robocallers by giving consumers, regulators, and law enforcement tools to fight the people taking advantage of the system. The bill will help the Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, to crack down on violators, require phone companies to authenticate calls, and require the FCC to consider when and how to make call-blocking services available to customers.

Perhaps the most important part of the TRACED Act is that law enforcement will now join the battle. Under the authority of the U.S. Attorney General, the bill will get law enforcement fully engaged in the fight to prevent and prosecute robocall violations. The American people are ready for this and are demanding this. We can give it to them in just a few moments when we vote on final passage.

The bill will task the Attorney General with providing Congress with the next steps we need to take to stay ahead of the pestilence of illegal robocalls.

I thank the bipartisan leadership in the Commerce Committee for moving this bill forward and the authors, Senator Thune and Senator Markey, for their leadership on this important issue. I thank my ranking member, the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, for her help in getting this important piece of legislation approved by a voice vote out of the Commerce Committee. Also, there is a special thank-you to Senator Schatz and Senator Moran for their amendment to the TRACED Act, which improves the FCC's reporting on robocalls and generally makes the bill better.

I predict an overwhelming majority vote for this piece of legislation when it comes up for a vote in just a few moments. My appreciation goes to all of those who have participated. My optimism is that this will soon move to passage in the House of Representatives also.

Thank you.

I see my distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, the sponsor of this legislation.

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