Proceedings of: Workshop on Improving Building Design for Persons with Low Vision

Rulemaking Authority

I want to talk about our rulemaking authority. Again, what we’re concerned here primarily is new construction and alterations. And I’m not accustomed to having to look at the screen, by the way. I usually sit my computer right in front of me, so bear with me as I check that out. Our guidelines are not enforceable until they are adopted by a standard-setting agency under the architectural barriers act or under the Americans with Disabilities Act. GSA is a standard-setting agency, and, quite frankly, GSA sets the standard for almost all federal construction. 

They’re going to set the standard for everything but military installations, housing and postal service – and post offices. So GSA is really your go-to agency on this.

Under the ADA and the ABA, our guidelines, as I said earlier, extend only to the built environment. We do not generally regulate things that get put into the environment that are not attached in some way to the building – so we’re not going to regulate this furniture (slide 6). But under the Americans With Disabilities Act and under other federal civil rights regulations, a federal entity may use our guidelines to benchmark accessibility, particularly where there is an individual complaint – someone with, who uses a wheelchair and says I can’t get up onto this table. They’re going to look at the knee and toe clearances that our guidelines establish in order to determine whether or not the table is generally useable to individuals who use wheelchairs.

Let’s see, I think it’s important just to mention the technology side of our office, because I think that, as time goes on, all of this is converging (slides 7 and 8). The built environment, technology, how we communicate, particularly within a building – a lot of this is sort of becoming one thing. So our technology guidelines, our technology standards, our information communication technology standards apply at this moment only to technology that is procured by the federal government itself.

Naturally, that was a really brilliant thing for Congress to do, because essentially what the federal government is saying is, we’re willing to buy it; you produce it. And, as a matter of fact, if there’s an accessible piece of technology out there, we are going to say that we have to buy the accessible piece of technology and not the inaccessible piece of technology. So the federal government is saying not only are they demanding accessibility to technology procured by the government, but “we’re willing to pay for it.”

By and large, we produce guidelines except under the section 508 regulations, in which case we produce standards, which are endorsed by the FCC. The difference being that our guidelines have to be adopted by other agencies before they are enforceable.