Tech leaders concerned about accessibility regs

High-tech industry representatives would like to see less specificity in-and more time to implement-regulations designed to require that federal agencies buying, using, developing or maintaining information technology ensure such technology is accessible to the disabled.

The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and other groups expressed those sentiments in comments filed with the Access Board, the federal agency charged with developing the regulations. The comments were in response to proposed regulations implementing a 1998 law that requires agencies to provide the disabled with access to electronic and information technology. Tuesday was the deadline for filing comments.

A provision included in the 1998 Workforce Reinvestment Act amended a 1973 law that imposed non-binding guidelines requiring accessibility. The 1998 changes added enforcement mechanisms.

While ITAA and ITI said they support the 1998 law and the general direction of the regulations, they said they would like to see the Access Board give industry more flexibility in how to achieve the goals set forth in the proposed rules. The draft regulations, released at the end of March, call for specific design features to make information technology purchased, maintained or used by a federal agency more accessible-such as requiring at least eight background colors on computer monitors.

"What we would prefer the Access Board do is set goals to be achieved by technology, rather than specific design parameters," said ITAA counsel David Colton.

ITAA and other groups also have called on Congress to delay implementation of the regulations. The law requires that they go into effect Aug. 7.

The Access Board has proposed that implementation be delayed until six months after the date on which the rules are published, but such a move would require a change in the law by Congress. The Senate approved language implementing the six-month delay in an amendment to a recently passed military appropriations bill. Approval by a House-Senate conference committee is expected.

The final rules are not expected to be finished until after the Aug. 7 date. Industry officials say both the industry and federal agencies need more time to implement the regulations once they are completed.

"It's really incumbent on the federal government to provide adequate training for contracting officers so they will have the expertise to implement" the regulations correctly, said Ken Salaets, director of government relations at ITI. His group and others are working with lawmakers to change the effective date of the regulations.

Other groups also called on the Access Board to bring the proposed regulations more in line with rules developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to provide better access for the disabled to the Internet.

"We will hope that they will look at some of the suggestions we will make on how they could harmonize what the industry and disability [community] have been doing in the area of Web access," said Judy Brewer, director of the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative.