To ratify the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do-not-call registry.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the House, I call up the bill (H.R. 3161) to ratify the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do-not-call registry, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, welcome to Groundhog Day, courtesy of a misguided court decision, soon to be overthrown, I believe, were we not acting today, but one that jeopardizes one of the most consumer-friendly regulations ever to come out of Washington in a long time. Just several months ago, President Bush signed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act into law. That law authorized the funding of the Federal Trade Commission's National Do-Not-Call registry, a concept so embraced by consumers in America that 50 million Americans have now signed up to be on that list since then. And, Mr. Speaker, Congress passes a law, and an agency then implements it. Nothing wrong, right? Wrong. One can imagine our surprise when we found out yesterday morning that a Federal court in Oklahoma, not California, Oklahoma, invalidated the FTC's do-not-call registry. And even more surprising was the judge's basis for the decision. He found the FTC did not have the statutory authority to create a national do-not-call list.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As I mentioned in February of this year, Congress passed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act. Obviously, Congress would not have funded something that it thought was unauthorized. Indeed, back in 1994, Congress passed the Telemarketing Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which gave the FTC power to regulate abusive telemarketing practices. Certainly, allowing consumers to sign up for a do-not-call list, to essentially opt out of an abusive telemarketing practice, is well within the mandate given to the FTC.

Make no mistake. The judge in this case is dead wrong, and I am sure his decision will, in turn, be overturned. In an abundance of caution, however, and I make perfectly clear to any and all who may have doubts, today we consider H.R. 3161. This bill specifically authorizes the FTC to create a national do-not-call list and explicitly ratifies the FTC's actions over the past year to implement that list. We should probably call the bill ``This Time We Really Mean It Act'' to cure any myopia in the judicial branch.

The bill leaves no doubt as to the intent of Congress. The FTC wants this list. The President of the United States wants this list, and more importantly, 50 million Americans, who are growing impatient about being interrupted at mealtime by unwanted and unnecessary harassing telemarketing calls,

want this list. And this Congress is going to make sure they have this list today.

Every consumer should have the right to choose whom they want to talk to. We allow consumers to opt out of junk mail. All they have to do is go down to the post office and tell the Postal Service they do not want junk mail coming to their house, and it does not come. They can choose not to answer a knock at the door. They can decide who enters their house and who communicates with them there. Consumers ought to have the power to say ``no'' to unwelcomed and unwanted telemarketing calls. Families ought to have the right to enjoy a little time together at the end of a day and no longer come home to find their answering machines jam filled with telemarketing calls.

Worst of all, they get that call and answer it, and there is nobody there. These new devices that rotary dial three, four, five, maybe 20 people at a time and the first one who answers, they hang up on all the rest, those are the worst to me. Americans are signing up to end that kind of abusive practice, and we need to give the FTC clear authority.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking Democrat on our committee and the dean of our House, because he and I have promised to do everything in our power to make sure that the do-not-call list becomes a reality, and he is here with me today to make sure we pass this bill.

Less than 1 week from today, on October 1, 2003, we hope to give Americans access to precisely what they have been asking for, a national do-not-call list, and today we are effectively hanging up on the telemarketers who have been bothering me at that precious hour of the day.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, let me again emphasize this is extraordinary. The court decision came out yesterday. The leadership of this House authorized this bill to the floor today. We are about to pass this bill, I believe the Senate is about to do the same thing, and, in all likelihood, we will have a bill on the President's desk this afternoon.

This Congress has often been called a slow and cumbersome beast, but I think you can see how fast this Congress is prepared to move when 50 million Americans are angry, and I cannot imagine more anger now, when 50 million Americans found out the national do-not-call list was put in jeopardy by a single judge in Oklahoma somewhere.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the senior gentleman from New Jersey, (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to

do something very unusual on the House floor. As the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) knows, every now and then, we are accused of voting for bills we have not totally read. I am going to read the whole bill.

I want all the judges of America to pay close attention. I want you to tune in good. Turn up the volume a little bit and turn off your telephone and listen real carefully, because I am going to read the whole bill to you. Every judge in America, here it comes:

``(a) AUTHORITY. The Federal Trade Commission is authorized under section 3(a)3(A) of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6102(A)(3)(A)) to implement and enforce a national do-not-call registry.''

Do you hear me? To implement and enforce a do-not-call registry.

``(b) RATIFICATION. The do-not-call registry provision of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, (16 C.F.R. 310.4(b)(1)(iii)), which was promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission, effective March 31, 2003, is ratified.''

Did you hear me, judges? Ratified.

When this bill passes today, when the Senate does the same thing, none of you judges ought to have any doubt. We really mean it, do you understand? We really mean it. We want the national do-not-call list to become law on October 1.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend from Massachusetts for his compliments and, most importantly, for his extraordinary long- standing support for actions to protect consumers in America, and this is just one more step in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In summation, let me again thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) for their extraordinary bipartisan cooperation in moving this as rapidly as we have. It is the sort of cooperation we always seem to get from our members on both sides of the aisle on the Committee on Energy and Commerce when we have a problem that clearly faces our country that is neither Democrat nor Republican, but is American. This is an American problem, and we are solving it as Americans in this House, and that is always a proud moment in this House when that occurs. I want to thank my colleagues for all of the courtesies and the help that we have gotten in moving this legislation forward.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) was correct in complimenting the chairman of the FTC, Mr. Muris. I want to also join in that compliment. The Federal Trade Commission, as the gentleman knows, took on what the FCC would not take on. We had originally given this authority to the Federal Communications Commission which declined to put together a national do-not-call list. Mr. Muris and the Federal Trade Commission decided to go forward with it with our help. So we authorized the money for them to proceed with the list. Only this judge seems to want to stand in the way of it, and this Congress now makes it very clear today that we want to give Americans this right.

I want to make a public apology. These harassing phone calls that come to us in the middle of the precious time we have with our family have gotten to a point of, I know, such aggravation that some of us react very badly to a call we get at a most inappropriate moment, and sometimes we are pretty ugly to a telemarketer who is bothering us or interrupting us. I hung up on the Ambassador's wife from Norway one day, thinking she was a telemarketer. She belongs to an international club with my wife, and we had to make great apologies afterwards because I thought I was being harassed by a telemarketer. Those sorts of things ought not happen in America. We ought not be caught in these awful circumstances where we are so aggravated that we are impolite to someone as important as an Ambassador's wife who was trying to make a call to my wife, and I apologize both to my wife and to her again publicly for my impatience.

But Americans are impatient, and they are tired of this kind of problem, and they want it fixed; and this legislation will fix it today. We have heard some of the passion on this floor. The passion that we feel about this issue is the passion that Americans feel about this issue. When 50 million Americans sign up as fast as they have, that tells us how passionately Americans feel about a national do-not- call list, and it is time to be implemented.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for those comments. In fact, we have been asked so many times, is this a free-speech issue. The United States Constitution gives you the right to speak; it does not give you the right to be heard. None of us have an obligation to listen if we do not want to. As a courtesy, we listen to one another in this House, hopefully we do, but nobody has an obligation to listen. The fact that Americans have the right not to be bothered by some speech they do not want to listen to is a right we ought to protect too. That is what we do today.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I can only tell the gentleman it was an embarrassing moment and, again, I apologize to both of them. But the gentleman knows we have heard this bill in committee, and he knows how absolutely aggravated people get with these calls. They seem to come at the worst moment. When you are just leaving the house, you are trying to get everything in the car and the phone rings, it could be your mother calling, your daughter, your son, somebody important; and you rush back in and it is one of these doggone calls. They always come at the exact wrong moment. I am not saying telemarketers are bad people. There are many good telemarketing firms, and for folks who want to receive these calls and take advantage of them, they will have that right under the bill. But it is just going to end the ones we do not want, the ones that aggravate us to the point where we do something as stupid as I did, for which I have apologized today a few times.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I compliment my colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Hollings. This is an important issue, one we believed we had previously resolved only to learn that a court ruled that the Do Not Call list developed by the Federal Trade Commission was ``not authorized.''

Most of us in Congress and the Senate are surprised by that. Clearly, we authorized that. But if a court needs another authorization, it is something we can certainly do on a Thursday afternoon at 4:15. So this will be done with the support of many colleagues, and I am pleased to say that this is good public policy.

Let me make a couple of comments about the substance. There may be some people who are terribly lonely and whose phone seldom rings except to have an advertiser of a credit card or a long-distance service call during meal time just wanting to visit about their product. There may be some people who welcome those calls, just talk the ear off these telemarketers. I can't say that for sure, but this country is full of very interesting people. As for me and for most of the American people, getting a telephone call in the middle of a meal or getting a telephone call at all hours of the day and night to have someone tell us that we really need a new long-distance service or a preapproved credit card gets a little annoying. Unsolicited phone calls are an intrusion on the phone line that most American people pay every month to have in their home.

I come from a sparsely populated State, a wonderful place. It is 10 times the size of the Massachusetts landmass, with 642,000 people. It is spread out. We understand the importance of communications. We understand the importance of telephones. It took a long while to get telephones to the outer reaches of our country, including rural areas. Now with modern communications, we also understand that we are not alone in our homes.

There are those who are working in large banks of employees who are randomly, with computers, calling telephone numbers from banks of telephone books, getting people on the line. And by the way, because these computers dial multiple numbers at once, when one person answers, perhaps a second person is answering a nanosecond later, no one will be on the line when they answer. That happens often. People should understand that comes from unsolicited phone calls with computer banks making calls. One person answers; the other doesn't get an answer. That is what is happening. It is enormously annoying.

Do people have an inherent right to make solicitation calls? Yes. But the other question is, Do people who pay for their telephone service each month have a right to put their name on a registry saying: I really don't want these calls; don't have them come into my telephone instrument; I pay for the instrument and I don't want to be annoyed and I don't want to be interrupted by them? Do people have that right? Of course, they do. That is what this issue is about.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs in the Commerce Committee last year, I held hearings on this. At one of the reauthorization hearings for the FTC, we had an entire panel devoted to the discussion of a do not call registry. We had a hearing in which the Federal Trade Commission came up, the Commissioners themselves, and talked to us about this issue. I had a member of the Federal Trade Commission come to Fargo, ND. We held a public hearing there on this subject. This is not a foreign or strange subject to me nor to most of my colleagues. As a result of that, we took action in reauthorizing the Federal Trade Commission to include funding to allow them to put together a Do Not Call Registry.

If you wonder whether the American people care about this, just remember these numbers. They put together a Do Not Call Registry and said to the people: If you think these unsolicited telephone calls are bothersome to you, if it is an intrusion on your family and an interruption to your life and annoying to you and you want to stop them, call and put your telephone number and your name on this registry.

Guess what. In virtually a nanosecond, 50 million Americans have said: Count me out. I don't want to be a part of this unsolicited phone call mess going on. Put my name on the list and get rid of these phone calls. In the State of North Dakota, 131,000 people said: We don't want these calls. We don't want the interruptions. We don't want the annoyance. Stop it.

Now one court has said somehow this is not operative, effective, because it is not authorized. So this afternoon the House will authorize it, the Senate will authorize it, and the bill will go to the President and be signed.

I hope this court will understand that not only was it authorized, but we were pleased this afternoon to authorize it a second time just to reinforce our determination with the American people that we believe they have the power and they ought to have the ability to stop these calls.

Let me make just a couple of additional points. Some say this is an important industry making these telephone calls, doing marketing. The answer is, sure, it is. It employs people. We are not saying with this legislation that you cannot make unsolicited phone calls. We are saying the American people, however, have a right to decide they don't want to be part of it; I don't want to receive them. This is empowering the American people.

If there are people, as I said, who are lonely, have no one to talk to, who sit around all day with a desire to visit with somebody, if they want to get these phone calls, God bless them. Let them get the phone calls, let them get the credit cards and sign up for multiple long-distance services, and let them visit until they are visited out. I assume there are a few of those people. But in most cases the American people are saying: Put my name on the list. I don't want to be interrupted. I don't want unsolicited phone calls, especially during mealtime.

There is this peculiar quality of this industry to call only when dinner or supper is ready. Lord only knows how that occurs, but it does. So today we have said we are going to authorize this explicitly once again, so that this Do Not Call list will not be interrupted. People whose names are on that list will be assured they will not receive unsolicited calls.

I say to my colleague, Senator Ensign, I know he is working on this issue and has introduced legislation, and my colleague, Senator Feinstein, and others--again, we have worked hard on this in the Commerce Committee, going back to last July--July 17, at the reauthorization hearing I chaired. I will not go through all the negotiations that went on with appropriations and the reauthorization, but suffice it to say we believed very strongly the FTC should have taken the action they did. We provided the funding. We implicitly provided authorization for it, and today we are once again reauthorizing that which we have previously done just to satisfy some court in some corner of America, and in order to give comfort to those 50 million Americans and the at least 130,000 North Dakotans who have said: Take my name off this list. The American people have that right. This legislation allows them to keep that right. It is very important.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Inouye as a cosponsor.

I was just recollecting, as the Senator from Montana was speaking, telemarketing is, of course, a legitimate business. It is an important business in many respects. But the point that my colleague, Senator Ensign, made is the American people also have their right, and their right is to put their name on a list to say, I do not want unsolicited calls.

They call almost everyone. I received a call some long while ago from a telemarketer. I answered the phone, and the telemarketer said: May I speak to Haley Dorgan please? I could tell immediately it was a telemarketer. I said: You could, but I do not think she is going to buy anything. She is 4 years old.

They get lists and they just blizzard the country with telephone calls to young and old. It is indiscriminate, and that is why this fervor has grown in this country to do something about giving the American people the right to say they do not want these unsolicited calls. That is what this legislation will do.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl.

Mr. President, unless the Senator from Nevada has time he wants to consume, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Pryor.

I ask unanimous consent Senator Reid of Nevada be added as an original cosponsor.

Might I just in less than a minute say we have not mentioned on the Senate floor, and we should, that the Federal Communications Commission took action that was complementary and action that coordinates with the Federal Trade Commission because action was needed by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to common carriers in areas under their jurisdiction to also create a do not call list, which is expansive.

So while I, with some of my colleagues, have been critical of the Federal Communications Commission on other issues on the Senate floor in recent weeks, I did want to say that the Federal Communications Commission deserves our plaudits and deserves credit for moving very quickly to fill in a gap with respect to a do not call list. All of our discussion is about the Federal Trade Commission, but, again, I think the Federal Trade Commission has contributed substantially, and I compliment them for that, with the leadership of Michael Powell and all the Commissioners.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I yield the remaining time on our side to Senator Dodd from Connecticut.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, I thank the cosponsors of our legislation, especially my chief cosponsors, Senator Feinstein from California, Senator Dorgan, Senator McCain, and Senator DeWine, as well as the 47 original cosponsors. I thank them all for being original cosponsors.

The legislation, however, we are dealing with now is identical legislation sent over by the House because of a procedural matter. I am very excited that this legislation is going to be

passed in just a little over an hour from now, because I think this is very important legislation just for the peace of mind of a lot of the people at home.

People say, ``Have you heard about this from your constituents?'' A lot of people who don't follow politics are talking about this issue in the last couple of days. They have talked about it for years, but they have heard about it in the news. They are talking about it around the water cooler and they are talking about it wherever there is a coffee shop, wherever they are, because they want to make sure that on October 1, when the Do Not Call list is supposed to be starting to be enforced, that it actually happens.

There are over 50 million Americans, as was said, who have signed up for this service. I am hazarding a guess, but I would say in the coming months there are going to be tens of millions more who will sign up for this because so many people don't want to be bothered. As Senator Dorgan talked about, the people who don't mind being bothered--for them, they don't have to sign up for the Do Not Call list. If they want to continue to receive all those offers at home from telemarketers who are trying to sell a product--if people want to receive those calls at home--I don't, but a lot of people probably want them--it is their right to have that coming into their household. I know in our household we get bothered by this a lot, and you hate being rude to people when they call up on the telephone. Nobody likes to get a call during dinner. You happen to have the phone all the way across the room. You get up and you walk across the room, and all of a sudden you realize it is a telemarketer. You are a little irritated and you don't want to be mean, but at the same time you don't want to be bothered. This Do Not Call list stops that from happening because the penalties in the Do Not Call list legislation are such that these telemarketers are going to stop.

So it is, to me, very exciting that we are actually going to act very quickly after what I believe the judge did was wrong. But that is fine; the Senate and the House have quickly acted on this bill. We are going to make sure there is no question in the court's mind that this bill is authorized.

I will conclude with this, and I will yield 5 minutes to my friend from Montana. It is really summed up in the Jerry Seinfeld episode where a telemarketer calls him and he asks the telemarketer, ``Can I have your phone number?'' The telemarketer says, ``Why?'' Jerry says, ``Because I want to call you during dinnertime and bother you.'' Of course, the telemarketer doesn't want to do that. But that is how people feel. They want to call them and bug them to let them know how they feel. That is the way people feel all across America.

It is important that we pass this legislation, and it is great to see the bipartisan support for it.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Montana.

I ask unanimous consent Senator Don Nickles be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I want to spend a couple of minutes talking a little more about this legislation. First of all, this chart that we have in back of us--this graphs the calls and online registering to the Do Not Call center. This started June 27, 2003, which is the far left side of the graph. In blue or purple there is the amount of e-mails that came in, the way the people registered on line.

In the middle is 1-888-382-1222, the telephone number. About 11 million came in there. In the yellow at the bottom which started in July, about 8.5 million people came in. Those were numbers that came in from the States.

There are over 31 million people just since June 27 who have registered online. So we see, for a total of a little over 50 million people, how rapidly people have signed up to say we do not want to receive telemarketing phone calls.

The key is people are saying we don't want to be bothered. Part of freedom, it seems to me, is the freedom from being bothered by people when you are in your own home. Telemarketers contend that, just as if they are sending mail, somebody who is sending mail to somebody's home, they have the right to call somebody in their home.

The American people are saying no; we don't want to receive those phone calls. Mail they can just glance at and throw away. They don't actually have to get on the telephone and speak to somebody. Telemarketers require somebody to pick up the phone. If it is ringing, you have to go because you don't want to miss an important phone call. Maybe your kids are out or something, you don't want to miss an important phone call, and it turns out to be a telemarketer.

Nowadays, because of answering machines, you have a situation where you come home and it says: Hi, this is Fred--or this is Lisa or whoever it is. Please give me a call my number is, and you don't know who it is.

Then you call the number back and you find out it is a telemarketer. So you have just now wasted the time listening to the message, and you have wasted the time making the telephone call.

So we have people stealing valuable time, and time is our most precious commodity. That is why so many people want to sign up for the Do Not Call list.

We want to remind people--and I think this is going to happen a lot-- that the telephone number is 1-888-382-1222. That is the number that people will be able to call, and can call today to sign up for when this goes into effect on October 1. They just call up, very simple, add their name, give them their telephone number, add it to the list.

If they want to register on line, it is on the World Wide Web, donotcall.gov. It is all small letters. They go on there, they sign up, put their telephone numbers in, and they are added to the list.

It is simple for people to do. I think the simplicity is why it has been so wildly successful up to this point.

On October 1, when it goes into effect, that is when people will start having some peace of mind at home. At a time where families need more time together, they need more time to talk, I think it is important, especially around dinnertime when there are so many distractions--that is a prime time for telemarketers to call, at dinner time. Families don't have enough time together as it is now. I think to have those distractions around dinnertime is even more disruptive of that important family time.

We need to encourage families to be together. This certainly will result in fewer interruptions around the dinner table. That is why I so strongly support the legislation and why I sponsored this legislation to repeal what the Federal judge did in Oklahoma.

I don't currently see anyone who wishes to speak. I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Pryor be added as a cosponsor to S. 1655.

Mr. President, marketers assault Americans' privacy every day. Businesses track everything we buy and everything we do. It seems the marketers know more about our lives than we do ourselves. It is intrusive, and Americans want the tools to fight back.

But those of us who work to protect Americans' privacy are thwarted every step of the way. The marketers oppose antispam legislation. The marketers oppose decency limits on advertising to children. And the marketers oppose legislation that would allow Americans to ``opt-out'' of the sharing of their personal information, including financial records.

The one success we have had is the Do Not Call list. The public's vociferous reaction to the court decision yesterday shows the country's desire to win refuge from the marketing onslaught. The public wants the Do Not Call registry. And the public wants the registry to become active next week. We will make sure that happens.

But we have several Johnny-Come-Latelys to our cause. When I was chairman of the Commerce Committee last Congress, we worked with the FTC to create the Do Not Call Registry. But we didn't get much help from the other side. Instead we were unfairly criticized by interest groups for jeopardizing their funding.

We fought to win $18 million for the registry in the omnibus appropriations bill last year. But the House wanted language that would prohibit using that funding absent explicit Congressional authorization. The House language could have stopped the registry. Again, it was an uphill battle, and we had few allies. But we eventually got the bad language removed, giving the FTC the funds to implement the Do Not Call Registry.

Once the FTC opened the list to registration, the response from the American public was overwhelming. By yesterday, Americans had registered more than 50 million phone numbers. South Carolinians have registered 685,393 phone numbers--486,533 through the FTC Web site, 198,855 via phone, and 5 through hearing-impaired devices. The marketers argued that Americans did not want the Do Not Call list, but the American public proved them wrong. Americans want this tool. They want the assault on their privacy to stop. Once news reports showed the Do Not

Call Registry was popular, many converted to the cause. And some of them are leading the charge today. We appreciate their support now as we try to overturn a clearly flawed court decision.

To prepare for compliance on October 1, 2003, nearly 5,000 telemarketers have purchased all or parts of the list. Therefore, telemarketers acting in good faith are ready to comply next week.

A telemarketer that ignores the Do Not Call list is subject to an $11,000 fine for each call to a phone number on the Do Not Call Registry. The law requires telemarketers to search the registry every 3 months and synchronize their call lists.

Once consumers register a number on the Do Not Call list, telemarketers are prohibited from calling the number for the purpose of selling goods and services. Consumers who receive sales calls after their number has been in the registry for three months can file a complaint on the FTC web site or call 1-888-382-1222.

The Do Not Call list will not hurt charities seeking to raise money for worthy causes. Charities may still hire professional telemarketers to seek donations. But calls during which a charity or telemarketer seeks to sell something are prohibited to phone numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.

This Do Not Call Registry has been a long time in coming. We are going to take the final step today. The court decision yesterday may even have given the Do Not Call Registry more publicity, encouraging even more people to register their phone numbers.

Opponents of Americans' privacy should take notice: Americans want tools and choices, such as the Do Not Call Registry, to protect their precious time with their families. They also want to protect their private medical and financial information and protect their children from indecent advertising. We will keep fighting.

Mr. President, let's thank Chairman Tim Muris of the Federal Trade Commission, who came to the Commerce Committee last year. And we put in S. 2946, the Do Not Call bill, with some $5 million that was requested. Later on, we found there were well organized holds, whereby we could not even get this bill up for consideration. Yes, we reported it favorably from the Commerce Committee, but we could not get it on the floor to pass it. And it was needed.

Chairman Muris came to me and said he needed $15 million. I talked with Chairman Gregg earlier this year, and in the omnibus bill, with the Federal Trade Commission appropriations, we increased it to $18 million. We could see the demand and see the interest and see the need. So we did just that.

It is good that my distinguished chairman, the Senator from Arizona, is on the Senate floor because the opposition was that it was not authorized. I go right to my experience for over 30 some years on the State-Justice-Commerce Committee, where we have had difficulty over the years passing, for example, an FBI authorization bill.

I remember for a period of almost 20 years we had no authorization. We worked with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to make sure their wants were taken care of. But we provided the bill; the same with respect to State Department authorization.

So I would only admonish the distinguished jurist who made this ruling about authorization that, yes, the Senator from Arizona is jointly correct with respect to the rules of the Senate but not with respect to the Constitution.

Once you receive three readings in the House and three readings in the Senate, and it is signed by the President of the United States, we have no doubt that law would take effect and this order of the court would be set aside.

However, the triggering date is the first of October, next week, and so I commend my House colleagues and those on the Senate side, and my chairman, Senator McCain, in taking this up at this particular time so we can go ahead and take the House bill.

There are many interested in separate bills, and what have you. But right to the point, time is of the essence. Fifty million Americans cannot be wrong, they are all interested in stopping the calls.

With that, let me yield, then, to the distinguished chairman, and then to Senator Dorgan, who will control the time on the floor.

I thank the chairman.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Nevada. I am wondering if the Senator from California wants to speak, if we are going back and forth here. I don't want to preempt her.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Commerce Committee and everybody on the committee. You are probably hearing from the core of that committee today, reacting to the disappointment that we have gotten from the Oklahoma Federal District Court preventing the Federal Trade Commission from going forward and implementing the Do Not Call list.

The Do Not Call legislation turned out to be the most popular and probably the most necessary consumer initiative we have ever passed in the history of this body. From day one, people started to sign up; that was June 26. Up until now--you have heard the figures--over 50 million people have registered, and 138,000 of those are in Montana.

So urgent was the public's need to stop intrusive telemarketers that in the first 14 hours of enrollment on June 16, 650,000 people called up. That gives us some idea of how consumers think of these telemarketers.

The ill-considered decision yesterday by the Federal District Court in Oklahoma would prevent the Do Not Call list from going into effect next Wednesday. The decision is dead wrong and its core assumption is that the FTC acted without statutory authority in creating and administering the Do Not Call list.

Let us make it very clear, Congress clearly granted the FTC the authority to set up the Do Not Call list by passing the Do Not Call Implementation Act in February of this year. The act gave the agency authority to collect fees from telemarketers and to establish and enforce the list. In fact, the Omnibus Appropriations Act in February also authorized the FTC to enforce the Do Not Call list.

Rather than waiting around for an appeals court to overturn this wrongheaded decision, I am certainly glad the Congress has taken action very swiftly. It did not take long. In fact, one of my good friends who does not serve in this body anymore, who served from North Carolina, said this is almost a june bug issue, and it really is. We do not have to put Americans through unwarranted intrusions into their lives by telemarketing, and so we will pass this today.

I tell my good friend from North Dakota, my wife has it all figured out about telemarketers. We both may be home; the call comes in: Is Mr. Burns there? She says: I will call him--whether I am there or not. She lays the phone down and goes off and leaves it until we hear the little disconnect: ``If you are trying to place a call, please hang up and try again.'' So that is our attitude towards that.

By any estimate, telemarketers attempt almost 105 million calls daily. The implementation of the Do Not Call list would reduce these calls by almost 80 percent, and those are figures that are out now. So if they do not get the message by talking to a telephone that does not have an ear on the other end of it, then we will take care of it this way.

People are rightly sick and tired of this endless interruption into their private lives. So I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

I thank my good friend from Nevada for allowing me this time, and Senator Dorgan and the chairman of the full committee for acting this swiftly, because this takes care of it.

Let's make no bones about it, they clearly had the authority. They clearly had the funds to implement it. We gave it to them in appropriations and we gave them the authority this year. The telemarketers did not choose to abide by that law. So I heartily commend my good friends for offering this legislation.

By the way, if I am not on the list, you may put me on the list.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my disappointment at the Oklahoma Federal district court decision preventing the Federal Trade Commission from going forward on implementing the Do Not Call list.

The Do Not Call list has proven to be one of the most popular and necessary consumer initiatives in history. From the day consumers have been able to sign up for the Do Not Call list on June 26, over 50 million Americans have registered, including 138,841 in Montana. So urgent was the public's need to stop intrusive telemarketers that in the first 14 hours of enrollment on June 26, over 650,000 citizens added their numbers to the list.

Yesterday's ill-considered decision by the Federal district court in Oklahoma would prevent the Do Not Call list from going into effect next Wednesday. The decision is dead wrong in its core assumption that the FTC acted without statutory authority in creating and administering the Do Not Call list. In fact, Congress clearly granted the FTC the authority to set up the Do Not Call list by passing the Do Not Call Implementation Act in February of this year. This act gave the agency authority to collect fees from telemarketers to establish and enforce the list. The Omnibus Appropriations Act in February also authorized the FTC to enforce the do not call provisions.

Rather than waiting for an appeals court to overturn this wrongheaded decision, we must act quickly so that Americans do not have to suffer the needless and unwarranted intrusions into their lives by aggressive telemarketing. Unwanted telemarketing calls have reached unacceptable levels in our country. By one estimate, telemarketers attempt almost 105 million calls daily; implementation of the Do Not Call list would reduce these calls by almost 80 percent.

Americans are rightly sick and tired of these endless interruptions in their private lives, which often take place during the dinner hour, or at times when parents wish to spend uninterrupted quality time with their children. By responding rapidly to overturn this reckless and sloppy decision by the Oklahoma district court, Congress sends a clear message that this destructive hyper-marketing will no longer be tolerated. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation that would leave no doubt in anyone's mind as to the FTC's authority to maintain and implement the Do Not Call Registry.