Ban on ‘Junk’ Phone Calls Clears House : Consumers: Bill would also block unwanted ad faxes. Senate has passed its own version. Compromise measure may go to White House this month.

Without a whisper of dissent, the House Monday approved a bill to stop businesses from making annoying telemarketing calls and sending “junk fax” advertisements to phone subscribers who do not want to be bothered.

The legislation, which is opposed by the Bush Administration although there has been no veto threat, could get final congressional approval this year. The Senate already has passed similar legislation.

Discussions began late Monday on how to reconcile the Senate and House bills into a compromise measure that could be passed by both chambers and sent to President Bush before the scheduled Thanksgiving adjournment date.

“Almost everyone in this room has been bothered by unwelcome calls, usually at dinner time, it seems,” Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said during House debate before the legislation sailed through on a voice vote.

Explaining the bill, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said that it would “let the public just say no to unwanted telephone advertisements” that are now being made with the aid of automatic rapid dialing machines that can call up to 20 million Americans a day.

“Many Americans are fed up by advertising calls from strangers and robots,” Markey told the House. He said that the bill would allow telephone customers to place themselves on “don’t call me” lists. Businesses would be barred from calling those on such lists.

In a statement of Administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget said recently that the bill would bring “unnecessary regulation of commercial activities and could curtail technological innovation and eliminate legitimate business operations.”

It said that the FCC already has issued rules to require prompt disconnection of a telephone line by automatic dialing machines when the person receiving a call hangs up the phone. The agency, OMB added, has authority to take further action if necessary.

“The legislation could impose substantial costs on industry and the public, and it has not been demonstrated that (the bill) will produce benefits that outweigh these costs,” the Administration statement added.

Marketing by telephone has expanded rapidly in recent years as lower costs and development of sophisticated, computer-driven telemarketing strategies have allowed calls to be made nationwide to a growing number of prospects.

“It is estimated that over 300,000 solicitors now call more than 18 million Americans every day, with about 75,000 stockbrokers making some 6 million calls a day,” said a report by the Democratic Study Group, a research organization of House Democrats.

Expansion of telemarketing, however, has raised questions of privacy for residential telephone subscribers and led to the introduction of legislation to regulate the practice.

Under the House-approved bill, the Federal Communications Commission would be required to set up a “national privacy protection system” to develop a comprehensive list of persons who do not want to receive unsolicited telephone advertising calls.

Business firms making automatically dialed calls would be required to give their address or telephone numbers and disconnect quickly if the person being called hangs up.

In addition, the bill would bar telemarketers from making machine-dialed calls to emergency phone lines of any hospital, doctor or health care facility, or to the emergency lines of any firehouse or law enforcement agency. It also would forbid calls to paging, mobile radio or cellular phone services.

The legislation, however, would permit calls to people where there is an established business relationship. For instance, newspapers or magazines would be permitted to telephone their subscribers and credit card companies would be permitted to call their cardholders.

In addition, retail stores and service firms would be allowed to telephone recent patrons. The ban also would not affect calls or messages from tax-exempt, nonprofit groups such as charities or political organizations nor calls for public opinion polling or consumer surveys.

Another provision of the bill would authorize the FCC to adopt restrictions on the use of fax machines or similar electronic devices in the sending of unsolicited advertisements. It would give the agency discretion in choosing the most cost-effective means of preventing fax-advertising abuses.

The bill also would direct the FCC to require that fax machines used for unsolicited ads be equipped to identify the name of the sender and the sender’s telephone number on the pages received by the prospective customer. This provision, however, would not take effect until six months after enactment.

Fax machines without automatic dialing or those that are not hooked up to a computer would be given one year after enactment to meet the same identification requirement.