The Senate recently reintroduced the Older Americans Reauthorization Act. The reauthorization was slotted to go through in the last Congressional session, but never made it all the way through. Now, in the 119^th Congress, we need to urge Congress to pass the bill. The Older Americans Act, which has been around since 1965, provides various services to people over the age of 60 to ensure they receive needed services.

On Wednesday, June 18, the Senate reintroduced the Older Americans Reauthorization Act. The OAA was last reauthorized in 2020. Congress had worked to reauthorize it in the last Congressional session, but was unsuccessful. ACB follows the bill closely because of the large number of aging Americans who are likely to lose vision. ACB has and continues to advocate for more provisions of the bill to include vision services for the aging community. ACB thanks our affiliate, AAVL, for there strong advocacy on this issue.

As many know, Congress is in the process of passing a reconciliation bill that includes potential cuts to Medicaid services. ACB previously reported that the House had finished its version and passed it onto the Senate to discuss. This week, a draft of the Senate’s version of the bill was released. ACB is now reading through the text to better understand what the potential implications of the Senate version will be. Please stay tuned as we learn more about the new version of the bill.

On Thursday, June 12, 2025, the Supreme Court put out a unanimous opinion on an education-related case that the disability rights community is now excited about.

The case was brought by a teenage girl with epilepsy and her family from the state of Minnesota. She was fighting to receive as much instruction as her non-disabled peers. The legal question that was brought before the Supreme Court asked what standard of proof was necessary to demonstrate that the student was facing discrimination by the public school in education-related disability lawsuits.

ACB is excited to share our inaugural action alert through our new subscription to Speak4. Through this new program, we are making it easy for you all to reach out to Congress to advocate for important legislation and needs of the blind and low vision community. Please follow the link below to reach out to Congress concerning the reconciliation bill that may impact Medicaid services for persons with disabilities.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Scott Thornhill

Executive Director

202-467-5081

sthornhill@acb.org

The American Council of the Blind Announces 2025 Scholarship Recipients

The Department of Energy has put out what is called a Direct Final Rule through the federal register. The rule will go into effect on July 15. However, we do have the opportunity to offer our thoughts and opinions. The process explains that if enough discourse is brought about the new rule, the agency will have to postpone the rule.

ACB thanks legal counsel, Matt Handley, for this new and exciting update to the Labcorp case.

The American Council of the Blind’s (ACB) Scholarship Program was established in 1982. The American Council of the Blind (ACB) and the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) have partnered to offer educational scholarships ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 for legally blind students attending a technical college or who are an entering freshman, undergraduate or a graduate student. This program awards students with scholarships to help with post-secondary education financial needs such as tuition, fees, room and board and other additional costs associated with adaptive technology.