Hurd Continues Push to Stop Spam Robocalls

Yesterday I proudly voted in support of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED) Act. This bipartisan bill would help lower the blood pressure of South and West Texans by deterring criminal, unsolicited robocall scams by giving federal officials more tools to find scammers, increasing penalties for those who are caught and promoting the use of caller authentication to identify and stop robocalls.

Spoofing robocall scams do nothing but invade the privacy of South and West Texans and waste folks' time. It’s about time we finally put an end to these criminal acts. This bipartisan bill makes great strides hold these bad actors accountable for their actions, which is why I am proud to help get it across the finish line. I’ll continue to do all I can to keep folks safe and hold bad actors accountable.

I cosponsored the House version of this bill (H.R. 1602).

The TRACED Act takes important steps to stop robocall scams by:

•Requiring carriers to offer call-authentication technology to consumers and small businesses—in rural and urban America—at no additional charge;

•Requiring opt-in or opt-out robocall blocking be offered at no additional charge to consumers;

•Giving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the ability to step up enforcement actions against unlawful robocalls with a longer statute of limitations and increased fines in certain cases;

•Pushing the Department of Justice to bring more criminal prosecutions against criminal robocallers;

•Requiring the FCC to work to stop one-ring scams;

•Helping the FCC and responsible carriers traceback and cutoff suspect phone companies that are responsible for sending vast numbers of unlawful robocalls; and

•Protecting patients, doctors and hospitals from unlawful robocalls.