Accessibility act

August 5, 2010, Washington, D.C.:-- COAT celebrates the passage of the "Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010" (S. 3304)
by the U.S. Senate today by unanimous consent. Due to the extraordinary efforts of advocates across the country and in Washington, D.C., COAT has secured
a monumental step forward in accessible technology.

Recently the US Senate held a congressional hearing on legislation to improve access to the Internet and other technologies for blind and deaf individuals. In the US House of Representatives, the Committee
on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on their version of this legislation called the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, by updating
the statutory provisions found in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act of 1988, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,
the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Committee Chairman, Henry Waxman, said that that this hearing was ‘the first step in a process to ensure that Americans with disabilities can more fully
participate in our evolving Internet-based society.” Chairman Waxman stated that he wanted the hearing “to outline and clarify where agreement exists …
and where some adjustment may be necessary.”

Sparks flew at a hearing June 9 on HR 3101, The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, a bill that would update communications accessibility
provisions in the 1996 Communications Act and apply them to access to broadband.