Breaking News: Senate Holds Hearing for S. 3304!

Today the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet announced that Senator John F. Kerry will chair a hearing Wednesday, May 26 at 2:30 pm on S. 3304, Equal Access to 21st Century Communications Act of 2010. HLAA has learned that full access will be provided for people with hearing loss who wish to attend or view the webcast for the Senate hearing: CART and interpreters will be on site, and captioning will be viewable on the webcast. For more information about the hearing, see the Senate Subcommittee website http://tinyurl.com/2g7xdao

The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) announced just last week that S. 3304 had been introduced by Senator Mark L. Pryor (AR) with co-sponsoring Senators Kerry (MA), Byron L. Dorgan (ND) and Kent Conrad (ND).

HLAA is thrilled that this legislation has been introduced in the Senate and that hearings are being held so quickly on the heels of its introduction. S. 3304 is related to and has many of the same provisions as HR 3101, Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009. HLAA has sent a letter of thanks to the Senators who are sponsoring this bill – and we hope you do too. (See the HLAA’s letter re: S 3304 as a separate posting on today’s HLAA Public Policy blog.)

COAT has been working tirelessly in both Houses of Congress to see this legislation come to pass. The steering committee has been working not only with Congress, but also with industry to come to consensus on language in the legislation. In fact, the COAT steering committee met with video industry representatives as recently as May 18 to discuss the video programming provisions of HR 3101. They discussed set top boxes, the role of video programming operators, online captioning, mobile TV, emergency information for people with vision loss, and user controls. Generally, industry representatives wanted longer time lines for implementation, limits to scope of device coverage, and statutory exemptions. They also raised technical feasibility questions and wanted clarification on specific language in the measure. Discussion about video description was limited due to lack of agreement within trade associations.

What can you do to help?

• Send a thank you to the co-sponsors of S. 3304 and watch the hearings.
• Recruit your own Senators to sign onto S. 3304 and your Representatives to sponsor HR 3301.
• If your HLAA chapter or group is not already a COAT affiliate, send an email to COAT to join the Coalition. You too can be part of the great work of COAT. http://www.coataccess.org/
• Visit the COAT website regularly www.coataccess.org for updates on the legislation and news about COAT affiliates.

###