36 CFR Part 1194 - Proposed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Standards and Guidelines NPRM - Preamble

SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY REGULATORY ANALYSIS

Consistent with the obligation that federal agencies under Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 propose and adopt regulations only upon a reasoned determination that benefits justify costs, the proposed rule has been evaluated from a benefit-cost perspective in a preliminary regulatory impact analysis (Preliminary RIA) prepared by the Board’s consulting economic firm. The focus of the Preliminary RIA is to define and, where possible, quantify and monetize the potential economic benefits and costs of the proposed 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines. We summarize its methodology and results below; a complete copy of this regulatory assessment is available on the Access Board’s website (www.access-board.gov), as well the federal government’s online rulemaking portal (www.regulations.gov).

To estimate likely incremental compliance costs attributable to the proposed rule, the Preliminary RIA estimates, quantifies, and monetizes costs in the following broad areas: (1) costs to federal agencies and contractors related to policy development, employee training, development of accessible ICT, evaluation of ICT, and creation or remediation electronic documents; and (2) costs to manufacturers of telecommunications equipment and customer premises equipment of ensuring that that their respective websites and electronic support documentation conform to accessibility standards, including WCAG 2.0.

On the benefits side, the Preliminary RIA estimates likely incremental benefits by monetizing the value of three categories of benefits expected to accrue from the proposed 508 Standards: (a) increased productivity of federal employees with certain disabilities who are expected to benefit from improved ICT accessibility; (b) time saved by members of the public with certain disabilities when using more accessible federal websites; and (c) reduced phone calls to federal agencies as members of the public with certain disabilities shift their inquiries and transactions online due to improved accessibility of federal websites. The Preliminary RIA, for analytical purposes, defines the beneficiary population as persons with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities, as well as those with manipulation, reach, or strength limitations. The Preliminary RIA does not formally quantify or monetize benefits accruing from the proposed 255 Guidelines due to insufficient data and methodological constraints.

Table 1 below summarizes the results from the Preliminary RIA with respect to the likely monetized benefits and costs, on an annualized basis, from the proposed 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines. All monetized benefits and costs are incremental to the applicable baseline, and were estimated for a 10-year time horizon using discount rates of 7 and 3 percent.

Table 1-Annualized Value of Monetized Benefits and Costs under the Proposed Rule, 2015-2024 (in 2015 dollars)

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While the Preliminary RIA monetizes likely incremental benefits and costs attributable to the proposed rule, this represents only part of the regulatory picture. Today, though ICT is now woven into the very fabric of everyday life, millions of Americans with disabilities often find themselves unable to use—or use effectively—computers, mobile devices, federal agency websites, or electronic content. The Board’s existing standards and guidelines are greatly in need of a “refresh” to keep up with technological changes over the past fifteen years. The Board expects this proposed rule to be a major step toward ensuring that ICT is accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities—both in the federal workplace and society generally. Indeed, much—if not most—of the significant benefits expected to accrue from the proposed rule are difficult if not impossible to quantify, including: greater social equality, human dignity, and fairness. Each of these values is explicitly recognized by Executive Order 13563 as important qualitative considerations in regulatory analyses. 

Moreover, American companies that manufacture telecommunications equipment and ICT-related products would likely derive significant benefits from the harmonized accessibility standards. Given the relative lack of existing national and globally-recognized standards for accessibility of mobile technologies, telecommunications equipment manufacturers would greatly benefit from harmonization of the 255 guidelines with consensus standards. Similar benefits would likely accrue more generally to all ICT-related products as a result of harmonization.

It is also equally important to note that some potentially substantial incremental costs arising from the proposed rule are not evaluated in the Preliminary RIA, either because such costs could not be quantified or monetized (due to lack of data or for other methodological reasons) or are inherently qualitative. The impact of the proposed 255 Guidelines on telecommunications equipment manufacturers is, as the Preliminary RIA notes, particularly difficult to quantify due to lack of cost data and a dynamic telecommunications marketplace. As a consequence, for example, the Preliminary RIA thus neither quantifies nor monetizes potential compliance costs related to the proposed requirement that ICT providing real-time, two-way voice communication support RTT functionality.

The Access Board welcomes comments on all aspects of the Preliminary RIA to improve the assumptions, methodology, and estimates of the incremental benefits and costs of the proposed rule. The full Preliminary RIA posted on the Board’s website poses numerous regulatory assessment-related questions or areas for public comment, and interested parties are encouraged to review that document and provide responsive data and other information. In addition, the Board sets forth below—in the section providing a more in-depth discussion of the Preliminary RIA—several additional questions on which it seeks input. See Section VIII.A.6 (Regulatory Process Matters – Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis – Conclusion).