Markey Readying 'Hang Up Act' To Repeal Budget Provision
Lawmakers may introduce legislation this week to roll back an administration-favored provision that would allow robocalls to cellphones for the collection of debt owed to the government, included in the two-year Bipartisan Budget Act deal approved by the Senate and House last week in contested votes. The White House announced President Obama's intention to sign the deal into law. The deal, which raises spending caps and the debt ceiling, contains many provisions setting up future FCC spectrum auctioning and expanding the Spectrum Relocation Fund (see 1510270063).
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“I plan to file a bill that strikes that provision,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who voted for the overall budget deal in the 64-35 Friday Senate vote, on the chamber floor of the robocall provision. “I also intend to ask the majority leader for a vote on my bill at the earliest possible time. We must protect American students and consumers.”
A Democratic Senate staffer told us Friday that Markey plans to file the legislation by around midweek and that he's in discussion with several other senators about co-sponsoring the measure. The staffer framed the planned legislation as a straight repeal of the budget provision. Markey slammed the provision in a statement Tuesday after the budget deal’s release Monday.
The provision “actually makes it easier to harass consumers on their mobile phones,” Markey said on the floor. “That is wrong -- just plain wrong. … The provision opens the door to potentially unwanted robocalls and texts to the cellphones to anyone with a student loan or a mortgage.” The White House defended the budget measure to us Wednesday after outcry from several Senate Democrats (see 1510280039).
Consumers Union is urging opposition to the budget provision, trying to gather supporters for Markey’s legislation, which it calls the Hang Up Act. A Senate staffer confirmed this is the name of Markey’s unreleased legislation.
“It is currently illegal for debt collectors to robocall your cell phones without permission. A sneak provision in the federal budget rushed through Congress this week (no amendments allowed) would change that -- but lawmakers are already feeling your wrath and have filed a separate bill to repeal the provision before it takes effect,” CU said in a petition. “Debt collectors have already been robocalling cell phones illegally, and not necessarily the right cell phones. … If lawmakers had been required to vote on this idea as a stand alone bill, it wouldn't have had a chance. No American -- regardless of philosophy -- wants robocalls to their cell phone. So now we have that stand-alone bill. Tell your lawmakers to support the HANG UP Act!”
Attorney Sergei Lemberg, who deals with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act at Connecticut-based Lemberg Law, also slammed the budget provision. “If this budget becomes law, it would pave the way for debt collectors to robocall consumers who owe debt to the federal government,” Lemberg said in a statement. “That directly targets the 40.8 million Americans who owe $1.18 trillion in student loan debt. … It’s not a stretch to imagine a future bill that gives debt collection agencies the authority to robocall consumers in order to collect other types of debt.”
The White House hadn't announced signing the deal into law at our deadline Friday. “I look forward to signing it into law as soon as it reaches my desk,” President Barack Obama said in a statement early Friday of the budget deal. "After that, Congress should build on this by getting to work on spending bills that invest in America’s priorities without getting sidetracked by ideological provisions that have no place in America’s budget process."
GOP appropriators in both chambers said they would begin crafting FY 2016 appropriations measures for when government funding ends Dec. 11. Earlier GOP appropriations proposals would have funded the FCC for FY 2016 at levels lower than its FY 2015 funding and far lower than its FY 2016 budget request.
“Our final work product should adopt much-needed oversight measures to rein in government overreach,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Earlier, GOP appropriators had said they hoped to revive net neutrality policy riders in a year-end omnibus bill, but they haven’t commented on plans since release of the budget deal. Democratic Senate appropriators told us in September they believe Capitol Hill Democrats and the administration can successfully oppose any GOP-driven net neutrality riders (see 1509220051). Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., voted against the budget deal and said the earlier committee-passed appropriations bills are what lawmakers “should be considering, not this last-minute agreement crafted without input from most members.”
In the two chambers’ votes, all Democrats voted for the budget deal, but Republicans were divided. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., was among the minority of Republicans in the Senate to favor the bill. The Thursday House vote was 266-167. House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., were among the Republicans favoring it, while Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., voted no.