Speaker Pelosi and I started the week leading a delegation to the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference COP25 to demonstrate that, despite President’s Trump’s announced withdraw from the international Paris Climate Accord, the United States will remain committed to climate action. I am crafting a climate action plan to help  transition the U.S. to a clean energy economy to benefit our health, create good-paying jobs and tackle the rising costs of climate change. The time is now– America must lead – and in the words of that great Floridian Tom Petty show the world that the U.S. “won’t back down”!

Yesterday the Congress passed the bipartisan TRACED Act that will help eliminate robocalls that are not just annoying but are undermining our entire phone system and consumer safety.  Last year, our Tampa neighbors suffered through an estimated 450 million robocalls and the scams are becoming more sophisticated every day.  The Act requires carriers to offer call-authentication technology to everyone at no additional charge; requires opt-in or opt-out robocall blocking be offered at no additional charge; gives the FCC the ability to step up enforcement actions against unlawful robocalls with a longer statute of limitations and increased fines; pushes DOJ to bring more criminal prosecutions against criminal robocallers. Moffitt Cancer Center helped highlight the problem of robocalls within hospitals and I am pleased that the Act protects patients, doctors and hospitals from unlawful robocalls too.