36 CFR Parts 1190 and 1191 ADA and ABA Accessibility Guidelines - Preamble (Discussion of Comments and Changes)

Statutory Background

The Access Board is responsible for developing and maintaining accessibility guidelines for the construction and alteration of facilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.¹ The Board holds a similar responsibility under the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) of 1968.² The Board's guidelines provide a minimum baseline for other Federal departments responsible for issuing enforceable standards.

The ADA recognizes and protects the civil rights of people with disabilities and is modeled after earlier landmark laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and gender. To ensure that buildings and facilities are accessible to and usable by people with disabilities, the ADA establishes accessibility requirements for State and local government facilities under title II and places of public accommodation and commercial facilities under title III. The law requires that the Board issue minimum guidelines to assist the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the department of Transportation (DOT) in establishing accessibility standards under these titles. Those standards must be consistent with the Board's guidelines.

The ABA requires access to facilities designed, built, altered, or leased with Federal funds. Similar to its responsibility under the ADA, the Board is charged with developing and maintaining minimum guidelines for accessible facilities that serve as the basis for enforceable standards issued by four standard-setting agencies. The standard-setting agencies are the Department of Defense (DOD), the General Services Administration (GSA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Each Federal department responsible for standards based on the Board’s guidelines under the ADA or the ABA is represented on the Board. These departments have been closely involved in the development of this rule. Through this process, the Board and the standard-setting agencies coordinated extensively to minimize any differences between the Board’s guidelines and their eventual updated standards.