Acting on petitions filed by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and other concerned business interest organizations, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today issued a stay of new regulations governing fax advertisements until January 1, 2005.
 
The FCC granted the stay request after receiving hundreds of comments and requests for interpretation from associations and other businesses over the past several weeks regarding the rulemaking, published July 25 in the Federal Register. ASAE and others argued that the fax regulations as written would significantly impede the marketing strategies and basic communications between associations and their own members. The new rules were due to go into effect August 25, but will now be given more deliberate consideration to determine congressional intent.
 
ASAE thanks the more than 1,500 associations who lent their support to ASAE's Petitions for Stay and Emergency Clarification filed with the FCC, and the many individuals within the association community who have been working at a grassroots level to submit their comments with the FCC, bring the issue to the attention of members of Congress and their staffs, and get the word out about how the fax regulations affected associations and their members and how others could get involved.
 
Our work is just beginning on this issue, however. Now that the stay has been granted, the association coalition will need to keep the momentum moving toward changing the law in Congress as it pertains to fax advertisements. The groundwork of bringing our elected representatives up to speed on the issue and securing some initial support for our arguments has already begun, but there is much left to be done before fax marketing legislation is passed that is favorable to the association and business communities.
 
ASAE's Advocacy Center makes it easy to alert your members of Congress to this issue. Please visit:
http://capwiz.com/asae/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=2957766 to encourage your elected officials to support legislation that does not restrict business-to-business and association-to-member fax transmissions.
 
For more information, please visit:
http://www.asaenet.org/publicpolicy/FCC_FAX_Rules/ or contact ASAE's
Public Policy Division 202-626-2703.