Foreign Robocall Elimination Act

Key Points

• The bill creates a new interagency taskforce, combining government officials and private sector experts, to study and recommend ways to combat illegal robocalls coming from outside the United States. The taskforce must be established within 270 days of enactment and deliver a report to Congress within 360 days after that.
• Phone companies wanting to register in the FCC's Robocall Mitigation Database may be required to post a bond of up to $100,000. This targets fly-by-night providers that facilitate robocalls while exempting established, legitimate companies from the requirement.
• The consortium that traces the origin of suspected illegal robocalls would receive legal immunity for receiving, sharing, and publishing information about those calls. This removes the threat of lawsuits that might currently discourage traceback organizations from sharing data about bad actors.
• The FCC or the traceback consortium could publish a public list of phone companies that either transmit large volumes of illegal robocalls or refuse to cooperate with traceback efforts, and the FCC could take enforcement action based on that information.