House lawmakers introduce bipartisan anti-robocall bill

House lawmakers on Thursday announced a new bipartisan compromise on a bill to combat robocalls, a proposal that Democrats and Republicans hope will lessen interruptions from the automated calls that rang Americans’ smartphones nearly 5 billion times in May.

The measure — put forward by the leaders of the tech-focused House Energy and Commerce Committee, and scheduled for an early panel vote next week — aims to outlaw a wide array of robocall practices adopted by fraudsters and legitimate businesses alike while empowering the government to

issue tougher penalties against callers who violate the law.

House Democrats and Republicans unveiled the socalled Stopping Bad Robocalls Act at a moment when Washington is under heavy fire for failing to swiftly stem the tide of unwanted spam calls. The nearly 5 billion robocalls that targeted Americans’ mobile devices last month is roughly double the number from the same period two years ago, according to YouMail, which offers a smartphone call-blocking app.

Such disruptions have become more than a mere annoyance. They result in the theft of Americans’ personal information each year, and they threaten to overwhelm the country’s most critical communications lines, including at hospitals, which recently have reported a significant uptick in robocalls targeting administrators, doctors and patients, The Washington Post has found.

“Americans deserve to be free of the daily danger and harassment of robocalls,” Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee’s Democratic chairman, and Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, its top Republican, said in a joint statement. “It’s time

we end the robocall epidemic and restore trust back into our phone system.”

Their legislation would require the Federal Communications Commission to update the definition of what qualifies as a robocall, a move that could subject a wider array of companies to requirements they obtain consent before calling a consumer. The FCC also would have to ensure it outlaws any attempts to circumvent its rules using new or different robocall technology.

Margot Saunders, senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, pointed to a lawsuit that her organization has supported against Hilton Grand Vacations Company. Advocates charge that Hilton designed its system in such a way that it narrowly avoided the government’s definition of a robocall — by having a human worker essentially just click a button. As a result, they say, Hilton never obtained the consent of the consumers it called. Hilton has denied it violated the law.

“We think this bill is a significant step toward stopping unwanted robocalls,” she said.

The bill also would start the clock on telecom giants such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, requiring them to implement new technology to authenticate if calls are real or spam a year and a half at