Washington (October 21, 2025) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today successfully helped pass four amendments through the Committee as part of the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act. These amendments continue Senator Markey’s long-running work to crack down on unlawful robocalls, including robotexts, and hold scammers and other bad actors accountable.

“Robocalls and robotexts continue to rob Americans of their time, privacy, and tens of billions of dollars every year,” said Senator Markey. “I’m proud that the Commerce Committee advanced my amendments to strengthen tracebacks, hold bad actors accountable, and protect consumers. Every call we trace and every scam we stop saves consumers money, holds scammers accountable, and restores trust in our phone networks.”

Senator Markey helped secure four amendments as part of the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act—three in partnership with Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and one in partnership with Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

• Amendment #1: This amendment from Senators Luján and Markey imposes a new bond requirement when telephone companies register in the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD). Before transmitting calls in the United States, telephone companies are required to register in the RMD and file a certification about their efforts to fight illegal robocalls. Although the Federal Communications Commission has removed providers from the RMD that upload incomplete information, such fraudulent providers can easily re-register with the RMD at effectively no cost. This amendment would require providers, with certain exceptions, to post a bond up to $100,000 to register with the RMD, imposing real costs on scammers.

• Amendment #2: This amendment from Leader Thune and Senator Markey includes their legislation, the Robocall Traceback Enhancement Act, which the lawmakers introduced in 2021. The amendment helps bolster privately led efforts to trace back the origins of illegal and bothersome robocalls, helping to identify and stop bad actors.

• Amendment #3: This amendment from Senators Markey and Luján expands the report required by the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act to consider the impact of publicly releasing private tracebacks of unlawful robocalls.

• Amendment #4: This amendment from Senators Markey and Luján helps clarify the report required by the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act.

Senator Markey is the coauthor of the bipartisan Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, landmark robocall legislation that was enacted in 2019. The TRACED Act helped to address unwanted and abusive calls by, among other things, requiring telephone companies to authenticate callers, strengthening caller identification, and giving consumers greater power to block calls from unverified numbers

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