Time and again, when I've been unable to watch a show on TV and TiVo or basic cable can't come to the rescue, I've gone to the Internet to see if I can watch it there. Invariably, I'm stymied. It's available all right, but without captions. I feel the same frustration when friends on Facebook post links to what they claim are what certainly look like funny and hilarious videos. Again, no captions.

Equal access to pop culture is certainly not a life or death matter, but we have the right to the same access as everyone else. This is going to be an even bigger problem as more and more content is delivered over the Internet instead of broadcasts and DVDs. As a journalist, I'm frustrated when information I want isn't accessible; I could be missing out on something important, like in a news report. And there's a lot more at stake here as well.

HR 3101, the 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act of 2009, introduced by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), will help "bring existing federal laws requiring communications and video programming accessibility up to date and fill in any accessibility gaps, to ensure the full inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of daily living through accessible, affordable and usable communication and video programming technologies," according to the bill summary written by Karen Peltz Strauss, Co-Chair, Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT).

"The last time that Congress addressed captioning in TVs was 19 years ago, in the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990," says Peltz Strauss. "At that time, there were very few TVs that had screens smaller than 13 inches. Now these are everywhere - iPods, cell phones, PDAs, etc. Also, when Congress created the captioning mandates for TV in 1996, there really was no such thing as TV programs over the Internet. A new law is needed to ensure that people with disabilities are able to have access to these new and innovative Internet technologies to the same extent that people without disabilities have access to them."

Peltz Strauss says that the bill will require that Internet-based communications technologies are fully accessible to everyone. "This will ensure that all populations have the same opportunities to jobs, education, and recreation, will in turn promote independence, will allow integration into all aspects of society, and will foster greater productivity," she says.

COAT's web site (http://www.coataccess.org) has more information about the bill, including the section-by-section summary referred to earlier, as well as a one-page summary. Some of the inclusions in the bill require the FCC to develop real-time digital standard to replace TTY communications, easy access to closed captions via remote control and on-screen menus, caption decoder circuitry or display capability in all video programming devices, including PDAs, computers, iPods, cell phones, DVD players, DVRs and battery-operated TVs.

One person who would benefit from this bill is Sveta Kouznetsova, in New York City. "I believe that this new act would make it easier for us to tell the website owners to add captions and transcripts to their video and audio files," she says. "This has been a dilemma for me as a deaf web professional to educate hearing web professionals. I have been to conferences where they were talking about web accessibility, and I have to raise my hand asking them, 'What about us, the deaf users?' They are like, 'Oops, we haven't thought about it,' and ask me where to find a free automated voice to text converter. Many website owners refuse to comply with my request to post transcripts along with audio files, complaining about how 'expensive' it is to transcribe."

Rob Reynolds of Seattle says this bill will benefit him in a social context. His friends really enjoy Netflix's instant watch feature, but he currently can't. It will also help him a great deal professionally. "In my field, there are a lot of webinars and online courses offered, which typically are not captioned," Reynolds says. "If they were, then I would be on a more level playing field with my colleagues."

There are eight co-sponsors of HR 3101 - all Democrats. The bill needs a Republican co-sponsor. Jamie Berke, a leader of Caption Action 2, a blog that supports HR 3101 (http://captionaction2.blogspot.com/), posted about this. One Republican who expressed interest last year but who did not co-sponsor is Representative Cliff Stearns (FL). If you go to Berke's blog, she suggests some ways in which to help get Stearns to sign on. There's also a companion cause on Facebook: http://www.causes.com/captionaction2.

It would be nice if COAT's site had resources similar to the National Organization for Women's (NOW). Granted, NOW is a much larger organization, but its Legislative Action Center is impressive. There's even a link: Find Your Elected Officials, which makes it easy to contact your local politicians.

In the meantime, constituents should figure out who their representatives are in the House and tell them that it is time that the laws on accessibility are brought up to date with new technologies, says Peltz Strauss. Right now, it's stuck in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Peltz Strauss says COAT is hoping it gets passed during the Congressional session, which will be by the end of 2010.

If we all work together to get HR 3101 passed, in the future, we'll be lucky enough to discuss amendments. Kouznetsova is already looking ahead: "We need to make sure that [captions] would be required for all the future technologies as well, when we have videos displayed in the air as holograms."

Since this article went to press, the HR 3101 bill has since gained eight more co-sponsors.

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