BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1787
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Date of Hearing: April 20, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS AND CONSUMER
PROTECTION
Mary Hayashi, Chair
AB 1787 (Swanson) - As Amended: April 7, 2010
SUBJECT : Administrative procedure: regulations: narrative
description.
SUMMARY : Requires agencies to include a narrative description
of additions and deletions made to the California Code of
Regulations (CCR) for the visually impaired. Specifically, this
bill :
1)Requires agencies to include a narrative description of an
addition to, or deletion from, the CCR. This description
shall reference the subdivision, paragraph, subparagraph,
clause, or subclause within the proposed change, and provide
express language necessary that allows for accurate
translation by reading software used by the visually impaired.
2)Establishes the Narrative Descriptions for the Visually
Impaired Act.
3)Makes legislative declarations and findings.
4)Makes technical changes.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), setting
forth the requirements for the adoption, publication, review,
and implementation of regulations by state agencies.
2)Establishes the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for the
orderly review of adopted regulations.
3)Establishes the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, requiring that
all meetings of a state body that are open and public shall
meet the protections and prohibitions contained in the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
4)Federal law establishes the ADA, which states that no
AB 1787
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qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of
such disability, be excluded from participation in or be
denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a
public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such
entity.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Purpose of this bill . According to the author's office,
"Currently, when a [state] agency submits regulatory changes,
they are in a format that is understood only by a person with
vision. Software that reads for the visually impaired cannot
distinguish underline and strike out [text], which makes it
impossible for them to understand the regulatory changes.
Instead, this law would require each agency to identify each
addition to or deletion from CCR by specific reference to
subdivision, paragraph, subparagraph, clause, or subclause and
[include] a narrative [description] of the items being added,
deleted, or amended. This will make it possible for someone
with visual impairment to understand the changes in a manner
that allows for accurate translation by reading software."
Background . OAL ensures that agency regulations are clear,
necessary, legally valid, and available to the public. OAL is
responsible for reviewing administrative regulations proposed by
over 200 state agencies for compliance with the standards set
forth in the APA, for transmitting these regulations to the
Secretary of State, and for publishing regulations in the CCR.
The Federal Register provides legal notice of federal rules and
notices and makes them available in narrative description.
The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act and ADA provide for access for
the visually impaired. This legislation attempts to fix a
problem resulting from specific software inability to read text
in a certain format.
According to the sponsor, state departments are not required to
provide a narrative description of regulations if someone
specifically asks for one because current statute requires a
state agency to "use underline or italics to indicate additions
to, and strikeout to indicate deletions from, the CCR" without
permissible alternatives.
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Support . According to the sponsor, California Council of the
Blind, it is important to "track regulatory changes that may
impact Californians living with sight loss. The state's current
practice of using typographic variations in its published
notices of proposed regulations to indicate modifications in
regulatory language, italic type for changed text and strike out
type for deleted text, makes it difficult for those of use who
are blind to know the nature of such changes because we cannot
easily distinguish italic or strike out text from the rest of
the language in these documents. AB 1787 would give visually
impaired and blind Californians equal access to the information
about regulatory changes contained in these notices by requiring
that narrative text would be included, along with the current
typographic notation to identify the changed language. The
federal government already uses narrative text to identify
changed language in the Federal Registrar, and California would
do well to adopt this practice."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Council of the Blind (CCB) (sponsor)
CCB, Greater Long Beach Chapter
National Federation of Independent Business
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Joanna Gin / B.,P. & C.P. / (916)
319-3301