Congress targets offshored call centers with federal funding ban and disclosure rules
H.R. 4954 — Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025 · Filed by Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI) · 16 cosponsors · Introduced Aug 12, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a public list of employers who move call centers or call center work overseas, bars them from federal grants and guaranteed loans for 5 years, and requires companies to disclose when customer service agents are located outside the U.S. and to offer transfers to U.S.-based agents on request. It also mandates disclosure when artificial intelligence is used for customer service and requires federal contractors to keep call center work inside the U.S.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is twofold: (1) economic punishment (grant/loan ineligibility) for companies that offshore call centers, and (2) mandatory consumer-facing disclosure of agent location and AI use. Both are aimed at protecting domestic employment and consumer information rights, not at commemorating individuals or serving narrow private interests.
What the text implies
- The 8.3% monthly penalty on existing federal grants/loans may create perverse incentives for companies to immediately cease all federal funding relationships rather than comply, potentially disrupting ongoing federal programs or services.
- The requirement that federal contractors keep all call center work in the U.S. may increase federal procurement costs, which could be absorbed through higher contract prices or reduced service scope—a hidden cost to taxpayers.
- The FTC's broad authority to exclude 'classes or types' of business entities from disclosure requirements (Section 201(2)(D)) creates regulatory discretion that could be used to carve out large industries, undermining the transparency goal.
- The bill does not define 'call center work' precisely, creating ambiguity about whether it applies to technical support, billing inquiries, sales, or all customer service—regulatory interpretation will determine scope and compliance burden.
- Workers at companies on the list may face stigma or reduced hiring, and the 5-year penalty period may be long enough to force some smaller companies into insolvency, indirectly harming the workers the bill aims to protect.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill protects U.S. call center workers from job displacement and gives consumers transparency about where their service agents are located and whether they're speaking to AI—genuine public benefits. However, the disclosure and transfer requirements may increase costs for businesses, which could be passed to consumers through higher prices or reduced service quality, and the broad eligibility restrictions on federal funding may harm companies in ways that indirectly affect workers or service
Who stands to gain
- U.S.-based call center operators and staffing firms
- domestic business process outsourcing (BPO) companies
- companies competing for federal contracts that do not offshore call centers
Named in the bill
Secretary of Labor, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. employers, Federal contractors, Call center operators, Artificial intelligence service providers
Where it stands
16 cosponsors: 13 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
- Aug 12, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Aug 12, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Armed Services and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
5 lobbying clients named this bill on 6 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $2,631,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 26 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 78% of bills with at least one filing.
Kristen McDonald Rivet, the sponsor, reported $1,610,092 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Allstate Insurance Company — $1,050,000 on 2 filings
- Doordash, Inc. — $750,000 on 1 filing
- Communications Workers of America — $431,000 on 1 filing
- American Psychological Association Services Inc.(fka American Psychological Assn — $340,000 on 1 filing
- Twilio — $60,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 24, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (11,300 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 24, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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