102d CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1462
AMENDMENT
In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
November 26, 1991.
Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 1462) entitled `An Act to amend
the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit certain practices involving
the use of telephone equipment', do pass with the following
AMENDMENT:
Strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert:

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This Act may be cited as the `Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991'.

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The Congress finds that:
(1) The use of the telephone to market goods and services to the home and
other businesses is now pervasive due to the increased use of cost-effective
telemarketing techniques.
(2) Over 30,000 businesses actively telemarket goods and services to
business and residential customers.
(3) More than 300,000 solicitors call more than 18,000,000 Americans
every day.
(4) Total United States sales generated through telemarketing amounted to
$435,000,000,000 in 1990, a more than four-fold increase since 1984.
(5) Unrestricted telemarketing, however, can be an intrusive invasion of
privacy and, when an emergency or medical assistance telephone line is
seized, a risk to public safety.
(6) Many consumers are outraged over the proliferation of intrusive,
nuisance calls to their homes from telemarketers.
(7) Over half the States now have statutes restricting various uses of the
telephone for marketing, but telemarketers can evade their prohibitions
through interstate operations; therefore, Federal law is needed to control
residential telemarketing practices.
(8) The Constitution does not prohibit restrictions on commercial
telemarketing solicitations.
(9) Individuals' privacy rights, public safety interests, and commercial
freedoms of speech and trade must be balanced in a way that protects the
privacy of individuals and permits legitimate telemarketing practices.
(10) Evidence compiled by the Congress indicates that residential telephone
subscribers consider automated or prerecorded telephone calls, regardless
of the content or the initiator of the message, to be a nuisance and an
invasion of privacy.
(11) Technologies that might allow consumers to avoid receiving such calls
are not universally available, are costly, are unlikely to be enforced,
or place an inordinate burden on the consumer.
(12) Banning such automated or prerecorded telephone calls to the home,
except when the receiving party consents to receiving the call or when
such calls are necessary in an emergency situation affecting the health
and safety of the consumer, is the only effective means of protecting
telephone consumers from this nuisance and privacy invasion.
(13) While the evidence presented to the Congress indicates that automated
or prerecorded calls are a nuisance and an invasion of privacy, regardless
of the type of call, the Federal Communications Commission should have
the flexibility to design different rules for those types of automated or
prerecorded calls that it finds are not considered a nuisance or invasion
of privacy, or for noncommercial calls, consistent with the free speech
protections embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution.
(14) Businesses also have complained to the Congress and the Federal
Communications Commission that automated or prerecorded telephone calls are a
nuisance, are an invasion of privacy, and interfere with interstate commerce.
(15) The Federal Communications Commission should consider adopting
reasonable restrictions on automated or prerecorded calls to businesses
as well as to the home, consistent with the constitutional protections of
free speech.

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Section 331 of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended--
(1) in the heading of such section, by inserting `AND AM RADIO STATIONS'
after `TELEVISION STATIONS';
(2) by inserting `(a) VERY HIGH FREQUENCY STATIONS- ' after `SEC. 331.'; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(b) AM RADIO STATIONS- It shall be the policy of the Commission, in any
case in which the licensee of an existing AM daytime-only station located
in a community with a population of more than 100,000 persons that lacks a
local full time aural station licensed to that community and that is located
within a Class I station primary service area notifies the Commission that
such licensee seeks to provide full-time service, to ensure that such a
licensee is able to place a principal community contour signal over its
entire community of license 24 hours a day, if technically feasible. The
Commission shall report to the appropriate committees of Congress within
30 days after the date of enactment of this Act on how it intends to meet
this policy goal.'.
Attest:
Clerk.
S 1462 EAH----2

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Automated Telephone Consumer Protection bill — S. 1462

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