Deadline for IT accessibility standards pushed back

Federal agencies will get more time to prepare for new regulations implementing a 1998 law requiring that information technology bought, used, developed or maintained by the federal government is accessible to the disabled.

House and Senate lawmakers agreed last week to include language in the conference report for the fiscal 2001 military construction spending bill, H.R. 4425, that would delay for six months following the publication of the final regulations the date when third parties can begin challenging federal agencies' implementation of the rules. The House passed the conference report Thursday and the Senate cleared it Friday for action by the President, who is expected to sign it into law.

The date change was added to the military construction bill by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman James Jeffords, R-Vt.

The disability access provision, included in the 1998 Workforce Reinvestment Act, amended a 1973 law that imposed non-binding guidelines requiring agencies to provide the disabled with accessibility to information technology. The 1998 changes added enforcement mechanisms and allowed third parties to begin filing complaints by Aug. 7, 2000.

The Access Board, the federal agency charged with developing the regulations, is not expected to publish final rules until this fall or later-after the effective date set by law.

High-tech companies and others impacted by the regulations argued that it would be difficult for agencies to comply with regulations that had yet to be published.

"If the Aug. 7 date had stayed in, it would have created a lot of turmoil and confusion," said Olga Grkavac, executive vice president for the Information Technology Association of America.

High-tech companies must wait for the government to issue rules, which likely will be based on the final standards developed by the Access Board, providing instructions to federal contractors on how to comply with the law.