House Subcommittee Approves Bill to Extend Do Not Call List
The House Consumer Protection Subcommittee approved Tuesday bills relating to the FTC including one to make permanent the Do Not Call Registry. The Do Not Call Improvement Act, HR-3541, sponsored by Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., Chip Pickering, R-Miss., and Rick Boucher, D-Va., would keep all valid phone numbers on the list for good. Another bill, amended and approved during a post-hearing markup, would extend the FTC’s authority to collect fees to maintain and enforce the Registry and would make permanent the program and the fees companies pay.
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The FTC said it wouldn’t remove any numbers from the Do No Call Registry as it awaits “final Congressional or agency action” on whether to make registration permanent.
Also approved by the Subcommittee, the SAFER NET Act, HR-3461, sponsored by Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., and others would pay for an FTC “public awareness campaign on Internet Safety.” During markup, an amendment by Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., reduced funding from $10 million to $5 million “not to minimize importance but more accurately reflect estimated costs,” he said. Another bill, HR-3526, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would require financial regulatory bodies to consult the commission before any rulemaking. All the bills were sent to the full committee.
In opening statements, members praised the Do Not Call Registry. It’s “already ingrained in consumers’ minds,” said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. Most consumers probably think the list is permanent now, he said.
The FTC’s support of the registry “has not wavered one bit since 2002,” Lydia Parnes, the director of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau, told the subcommittee. The commission believed the five-year renewal cycle in the original legislation “was necessary to maintain accuracy of the list, but number portability… and the explosion of public support” make the time limit no longer useful, she said.
An FTC subcontractor “purges” the registry monthly of numbers that have been reassigned after being disconnected. The commission was “conservative” in deciding not to delete numbers as soon as they're disconnected, since consumers often are cut off temporarily for missed payments and other reasons, she said.
But Parnes admitted that the “list is pretty big now,” about 145 million numbers, “and I don’t know that we expected that.” It could get bigger: Members complained about telemarketers’ increasingly calling cell phones. Cell numbers are eligible for the list but the FTC doesn’t have statistics on how many are on it, she said. FCC rules prohibit the use of number-generating technology that can find cell phones, she said. Rep. Mike Burgess, R-Tex., wondered whether services like Skype will be targeted next. “VoIP could be under the radar,” he said.