H.R. 1009 — Introduced in House

I 117th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1009 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES February 11, 2021Ms. Meng (for herself, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Green of Texas, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Espaillat, Ms. Blunt Rochester, Ms. Barragán, Mr. Case, Mr. Lieu, Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Gomez, Ms. Porter, Ms. Roybal-Allard, Mr. Kilmer, Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Pressley, Ms. Castor of Florida, Ms. Sánchez, Mr. Horsford, Ms. Eshoo, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Mr. Cárdenas, Mr. McNerney, Ms. Strickland, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Sires, Mr. García of Illinois, Mr. Carson, Ms. Jackson Lee, Ms. Newman, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Torres of New York, Ms. Johnson of Texas, Mr. Higgins of New York, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Meeks) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform A BILL To require all Federal agencies to translate COVID–19 materials into multiple languages, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the COVID–19 Language Access Act. 2. Translation of materials (a) In general Each Federal agency that receives Federal assistance related to the COVID–19 pandemic shall translate any English language written material prepared for the general public relating to such pandemic, including COVID–19 vaccine distribution and education, into the languages described in subsection (b) not later than 7 days after any such material is made available in English. (b) Languages covered The material described in subsection (a) shall be translated, at a minimum, into Spanish, Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Haitian Creole, French, Hindi, Hmong, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Tagalog, Urdu, Vietnamese, Greek, Polish, Thai, and Portuguese. (c) Definition of COVID–19 pandemic In this section, the term COVID–19 pandemic means the public health emergency declared by the Secretary pursuant to section 319 of the Public Health Service Act on January 31, 2020, entitled Determination that a Public Health Emergency Exists Nationwide as the Result of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.