Today, the Pennsylvania House Consumer Protection, Technology & Utilities Committee, unanimously adopted a second package of amendments to Senate Bill 992 (SB 992), Amendment A02964, and unanimously voted to advance the bill to the full House for consideration. The amendments — sought and shaped by the Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) — sharpen the bill’s definitions, create a needed exemption for businesses that are not engaged in telemarketing, and codify the standard list of opt-out keywords that consumers already use every day to stop unwanted text messages.

This is the second EIA-backed amendment package to clear a chamber of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. In October 2025, the Pennsylvania Senate unanimously adopted Amendment A01964, removing the bill’s problematic “one-to-one” consent provision that mirrored a defunct FCC rule vacated by the Eleventh Circuit in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC. Today’s House action builds on that foundation and moves SB 992 closer to a workable, balanced regulation of telephone solicitation in Pennsylvania.

What Amendment A02964 Does

A02964 is a focused, technical package that does four important things for Pennsylvania consumers and the legitimate businesses that communicate with them.

1. Tightens the bill’s core definition to focus on “telephone solicitation.” The amendment strikes the broader phrase “telephone solicitation call or message” and replaces it with “telephone solicitation.” This conforms the operative term throughout the bill to ensure clarity that only text messages that meet the definition of “telephone solicitation” are being regulated and prevents any future argument that the law regulates any “message” regardless of its purpose.

2. Creates an express exemption for non-solicitation communications. A new paragraph (13) makes clear that a person or business is not engaged in “telemarketing” when the calls or messages they initiate do not meet the requirements of “telephone solicitation.” This is a common-sense fix. It ensures that transactional messages, customer-service communications, informational notices, and other non-solicitation contacts are not inadvertently swept into a regime that was never designed to cover them. It also makes clear that businesses who obtain consent prior to sending text messages are not required to undertake the state’s burdensome registration process, preventing a repeat of the confusion that played out after the adoption of Texas SB 140 in which many platforms and lawyers were advising customers to register under a regime that was never intended to reach consent-based SMS messages.

3. Standardizes the opt-out keywords consumers already use. For telephone-solicitation text messages, the amendment expressly recognizes that a recipient may stop further messages by replying with “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel,” or “unsubscribe.” That list reflects long-standing industry practice and CTIA messaging guidelines, and it gives consumers and businesses the same predictable rules of the road. A consumer who sees “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” knows it works; a business that honors any of these keywords knows it has complied.

4. Conforms several other provisions to the bill’s solicitation focus. A02964 also strikes references to “or message” and “or messages” in pages 16 and 18 of the bill where the broader phrasing was duplicative or inconsistent with the bill’s solicitation-focused framework, and replaces “or otherwise initiating” with “initiating” to clean up the operative verb.

Taken together, the amendments do not weaken Pennsylvania’s protections against unwanted solicitation. They simply ensure that the law targets the conduct the legislature is actually concerned about — solicitation — and not the broader universe of legitimate business-to-consumer communication.

Why It Matters

Pennsylvania consumers are best served by a mini-TCPA that is clear, enforceable, and aimed squarely at bad actors. Sloppy or over-broad definitions create the opposite of consumer protection: they generate litigation against legitimate businesses, chill the routine messages consumers actually want (shipping confirmations, appointment reminders, account alerts), and leave the real telemarketing abuses harder to police.

A02964 addresses each of those risks. By anchoring the bill’s obligations to “telephone solicitation,” carving out non-solicitation communications, and codifying a uniform set of opt-out keywords, the House committee’s amendment package gives Pennsylvania businesses a workable compliance roadmap and gives consumers the consistent, intuitive controls they expect.

A Pattern of Constructive Engagement

Today’s committee action is the second time Pennsylvania legislators have moved SB 992 in a more practical direction after engagement with the EIA and its members. The Senate’s October 2025 vote eliminated a federal rule that the courts had already invalidated. The House committee’s action today refines the bill’s scope and codifies the industry-standard opt-out language consumers already rely on. Both reflect the same legislative instinct: that good consumer-protection law should be grounded in how communications actually work, not in abstractions or in federal rules that have been struck down.

The Path Forward

With A02964 adopted in committee and SB 992 adopted as amended, SB 992 moves toward consideration by the full House. With these amendments in place, the bill strikes a workable balance — protecting Pennsylvania consumers from genuine telemarketing abuses while leaving room for the legitimate, consent-based commercial communications that consumers rely on every day. The EIA appreciates the work on both sides of the aisle to address the concerns EIA surfaced about the unintended consequences that the original bill would have on ecommerce companies nationwide.  

The EIA thanks Chair Burgos, Vice Chair Metzgar, and the members of the House Consumer Protection, Technology & Utilities Committee for their thoughtful consideration of the amendment package and for their continued commitment to collaborative policymaking.

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