For over forty years the United States has had regulations that say new buildings must be accessible to people with disabilities if the building is built by an organization that receives federal funds. Now the trump administration is taking the first steps to undo this long history of access in the built environment.

Jump to:

share on linkedinshare on bluesky

How we can help stop this federal attack on disability rights

The national disability rights community is asking everyone who cares about disability inclusion and access to oppose this drastic rollback by filing comments with the federal government. Comments much be filed no later than Monday June 16. Everything you need to know to submit your comments is at the end of this article.

Federal regulations about accessible buildings include specific requirements for features like ramps, door width, and bathrooms disabled people can use. And they include safety requirements too, things like making sure blind people can navigate buildings without bumping into dangerous protruding objects. Or making sure deaf people get visible warning in the event of a fire.

Care about digital accessibility? You should care about this threat

Although the proposed rollback does not talk about digital accessibility, those of us in the digital accessibility space should pay careful attention and file comments if we can.

The current attack comes from the United States Department of Energy about physical buildings. It fulfills the republican party promise to dismantle government regulations across the board.

We don’t know what agency will try to rollback regulations next. And we don’t know what regulations will be targeted. Will it be long-standing digital accessibility regulations from the US Department of Justice? Or last year’s regulations incorporating WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 into the web and mobile obligations of state and local governments? Or regulations from the Department of Transportation requiring accessible airline kiosks?

I asked Claudia Center, Legal Director of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) about the connection between the current attack on built environment riules and the digital space. She said:

We often reference the new construction regulation and approach in digital access litigation. These regulations show that Congress intended new things to be built to be fully accessible. And although many digital things did not exist in 1977 and 1978 and 1990, the requirement that new = accessible is a core principle of our disability rights. So in that way the proposed rollback of Department of Energy rules is related to digital access.Claudia Center, DREDF 

The regulations the trump administration is trying to eliminate were adopted under Section 504, the law at the heart of the disability community’s 25 day sit in at the San Francisco federal building in 1977. The story of the sit-in and the disability community’s fight for these regulations is told in the wonderful movie Crip Camp.

Stopping the current effort to dismantle long-standing access regs for buildings shows the strength of the disability community today.

How to comment about the proposed rollback of access regulations

The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) and the civil rights law firm of Fox & Robertson have prepared templates to help you file comments linked below. You can follow these templates exactly, or you can state in your own words why you oppose the proposed rule. Be sure to include why you think access to buildings built by organizations receiving federal dollars is important. Lainey is grateful to everyone who worked on these templates, led by Claudia Center at DREDF and Amy Robertson at Fox & Robertson.

You can read another sample comment from Ken Nakata of the Converge Accessibility consultancy. Ken wrote two short paragraphs and shared him in an article on his website titled Is the DOJ Web Accessibility Rule in Danger?. Ken’s article also flags a potential threat to the Title II web and mobile accessibility regulations in the form of a letter asking the trump administration to delay implementation. I wasn’t aware of this letter until after this article was originally posted and will be sharing more about it soon.

• DREDF’s Action Alert about filing a comment summarizing how to file comments opposing this proposed rollback
• DREDF’s template of what to say in your comment. This is focused on general discrimination.
• Fox & Robertson template of what to say in your comment. This is focused on accessibility standards.

---

Updates to this article

July 11, 2025 Update

Today’s update shows that advocacy works! More than 20,000 people and organizations filed comments in response to the republican attempt to rollback the accessibility regulations discussed in this article.

The rollback was supposed to become final this month. But further action has been delayed by 60 days because so many comments against the rollback were filed by the disability community and allies. The agency will be reviewing all comments during this time.

In its announcement the Department of Energy said:

Due to the receipt of significant adverse comments, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is extending the effective date of the direct final rule “Rescinding New Construction Requirements Related to Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities,” published on May 16, 2025.

• The announcement will become official on July 14. On that date it will be available on this webpage.
• Before July 14 you can find the unofficial announcement here.

Back to the original article text

June 9, 2025 Update

The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) has updated its website with everything you need to know to file a comment to protest the Department of Energy’s attempt to take away long-standing accessibility rules for new buildings.

The new page has a plainer language template. It also has everything you need to know to object to this civil rights rollback.

Visit DREDF’s web page titled Tell the Department of Energy to Stop Attacking Civil Rights and Section 504

All comments due no later than June 16.

Back to the original article text

June 6, 2025 Update

James (Jim) LeBrecht, Co-director of the film Crip Camp and a wheelchair user, shared the comment he filed to protest the Department of Energy’s attempt to roll back the new construction requirements discussed in this article. Anyone can file their own comment by June 16 on the official government page here.

Jim took the template shared in the article above and tailored it to represent who he is and why he is opposed to the Department of Energy’s anti-access actions. Also, he reduced the character count to below 5,000 as required. He did that without losing any of the citations in the templates included in the main article above.

Jim’s full comments can be found here. He wrote:

I am writing as a disabled person who uses a wheelchair and opposes the direct final rules at Docket Numbers DOE-HQ-2025-0015 and DOE-HQ-2025-0024.James LeBrecht Comment opposing the roll back of new construction rules

He went on to say:

I’m 69 and have lived with my disability all my life. I’ve seen the benefits of the rules now at risk. Reasonable access to healthcare and education are just two reasons why accessibility at federally funded sites is essential. Without these protections, I’ll be denied the same access to services that nondisabled people receive in new buildings. Section 504 regulations have helped disabled people engage in society, find work, pay taxes, and contribute significantly to the economy.James LeBrecht Comment opposing the roll back of new construction rules

Thank you Jim for filing a comment and sharing it on LinkedIn.

Back to the original article text