HB 181 was introduced by Representative Therese Sander of Moberly, and if enacted into law would require that beginning January 1, 2008, publishers or manufacturers of electronic video instructional materials offered for adoption or sale to educational institutions in Missouri must provide either closed or open captioning on such materials. If a publisher failed to comply with the captioning requirements, they would be liable to the purchaser of the materials for damages of 10 times the amount paid to have them captioned. 

 A House Committee Substitute bill for HB 181 was voted “Do Pass” by the House Higher Education Committee on 3/6/07.  Unfortunately, the committee substitute bill (HCS HB 181) deleted the civil liability and enforcement language from the original bill, thus making it a much weaker bill.  MCDHH will try to get that language added back to the bill when it comes to a floor vote.  Advocates who would like to see a stronger captioning bill should contact their local representative and ask them to SUPPORT ADDING THE CIVIL LIABILITY AND ENFORCEMENT LANGUAGE BACK TO HCS HB 181 WHEN IT COMES TO A VOTE.  If there is no penalty for violation of the captioning law, and no mechanism for enforcing it, there is no incentive for manufacturers to add captions to electronic video instructional materials.   And we will continue to have exactly the same situation that we have today – relatively few educational instructional materials being captioned.