Q: What is Section 508?

A: In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘ 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

We strive to keep our websites in compliance. However, sometimes new technologies are implemented on a website for which no 508 "fix" is available, but which are expected by the majority of our Web visitors; such as some mapping technologies. If you find data on our website you cannot access, please notify us so we can search for a solution. In addition if you would like website data in another format, please contact us below.

Please follow the links below to learn more about Section 508 and download Adobe's module to make Acrobat Reader work with voice recognition software.

Section 508

Access Board

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

Adobe Acrobat X Reader

Adobe Acrobat X Accessibility

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