may it please the court in two thousand and eight the district court issued an injunction order mandating that u s currency be made accessible to individuals with visual impairment for reasons that are completely unrelated to any difficulties in making the currency accessible the secretary has delayed the implementation of that order until twenty twenty six the councils of mit's that a delay of eighteen years in making the first denomination of currency accessible accessible is both unwarranted unreasonable and unnecessary yes q a couple of questions first i know when judge robertson had the case he said there is no data showing that the blind and visually impaired use cash more than sighted people and is that still the case it just seems to me that in this cashless society we're going to the blind and visually impaired are left out of the i think this true i think that there's certainly meant comes  technology smartphone technology which is in any cashless society the loadstone of a cashless society smartphone technology is largely inaccessible to persons with visual impairments because of the touch screen so as a result the much ballyhooed cashless society which clearly we have not arrived at yet and probably never will in our lifetimes the much bally cashless society humbly will present a whole new set of challenges for people with visual impairments because of the other question i had was is my math correct that with population in the society runs into the millions is partly a function just demographic changes in our society as the baby boomers are getting older and that was certainly a factor in the increase in numbers of visual impairments so i think that is probably on the high side four percent the i would like to bring to the court's attention a recent decision from this court in two thousand and seventeen government of manitoba these inky eight for nine eleven eleven in which the court of appeal said that a change significant change to either factual or legal circumstances requires modification the order assuming doing so would be in the public interest and i think there was a case that we did not cite in our briefs but i would like to bring that the attention of the court you question the way you started out by saying referring to i think an eighteen year delay is that the the years that you calculated well it's not necessarily the lay of eighteen years it is a two thousand and eight twenty six that's how i computed the eighteen year period eighteen year period right because there were some there was everybody expected at the time that the order was entered that there was going to be some period before which you would have a redesign currency that's correct that's correct around ok so we're talking about the incremental deferment beyond the expected period that was already built into the order yes yes your honor that's correct and this with respect again i emphasize to the first  we have something of an answer to that question in a recent filing within the past month at the district court it's not part of the it's not part of the record but it is a  in the district court record the government put out an order indicating if there would be read five separate redesigns between the government actually w letter to a member of congress stating there would be five separate redesigns between twenty twenty six and twenty thirty eight so that would be effectively a redesign every two years now that first of all that is an internal working timetable set by the bureau of engraving and printing technically the bureau of engraving and printing does not even have the authority to establish a target date for the issuance of currency that can only be done by the through a recommendation made by the advance counterfeiting to turn committee which is composed of representatives of the secret service of the federal reserve board and the p and they would make a recommendation to the secretary as to a target date that so this is essentially an internal time frame that colonel working fine frame that's the bureau of engraving and printing and i think that's significant as well because one of the issues raised by the government in this case is that a redesign in twenty twenty in another redesign in twenty twenty six would be confusing to the public but then argument is certainly belied by the fact that the government is claiming five separate redesigns within a twelve year period that's proximately one redesign every two point two or two point three years year to changes each nomination successive years i think is correct your honor i think that's correct and i don't see how that would be the case and i think it's would be redesigned in only the ten dollar bill would read to be redesigned in twenty twenty twenty twenty six it would probably be necessary in the letter to run senator wyden indicates that another redesign of the ten dollar bill would occur in two thousand and twenty six so then there would be at that point to redesigns now what work so what we're asking essentially is that the remaining two nominations of currency redesigned in twenty twenty six if that is the case then yes there would be another redesign for each denomination after that for security purposes but for what it's worth your honor i don't place much stock in these internal working deadline set by the pete because in the past they've been way off the mark and  i think it's important to state that the council is not seeking any space forcing the government to provide any specific accommodation that's not what we're asking for we're not seeking any particular accommodation it's really within the government's discretion as to what is the best accommodation we've taken that position since the inception of this litigation in two thousand and two be durable effective and not unduly burdensome that was a determination made back in two thousand and eleven it was certainly not our proposal to put in our p f on the bills it was the government's decision possibility that it's not so much you're increasing the size of the images increasing the dimensions of the currency by the nominations so in other words that you know the fifty dollar bill would be larger than the twenty dollar bill and then the government chose not to do that that's what most countries do but the government decided to do the ark e f instead of changing the size because the government believed that it would be less expensive put less pressure on the banking system make it less expensive for the banking system probably less expensive for the government as well so the other options of course i mean there are any you know it's the there are other options other countries as indicated in the this court's decision in two thousand and eight do other things or spoil features are used perforation features that are users there's a number of features i think the point i was trying to make is that you know it's government certainly has discretion to decide which features are correct but with respect to the external currency readers our position is that those readers do not provide meaningful access because there are other more integrated and efficacious methods available that would not be unduly burdensome so in our view and the record as it is now the external currency readers do not provide cannot provide as a matter of law meaningful access behalf of the secretary and i wanted to start with this question they came up about the redesign and plaintiffs are effectively asking for two separate redesigns for each denomination and also to clarif redesign for security purposes to fill the statutory obligation to design the currency in the best manner to counterfeit to counteract counterfeiting that's one redesign that's clay and it's now been pushed back because of developments in counterfeiting technology but the wool out of the denominations are all done in an orderly manner but that that's a single redesign for security reasons with the roll out of the bills to allow them to be introduced into circulation in an orderly fashion thousand and those denominations were pulled out fairly quickly but there was some delay in the most recent redesign for security purposes for the hundred dollars now and if you look at the projected timeframe and then when you historically you needed to have you know a printing press effectively to counterfeit bills now you've got color scanners people with color printers in their home ubiquitous computing device that is techno counterfeiting is advancing quite rapidly and again the secretary is is making best efforts to address those security concerns and to release a redesigned family of notes that will be secure against those  security threats at the same time however if the secretary adopted a three pronged approach to provide meaningful access to the currency the secretary as we have detailed in numerous status reports detail status reports in the district court including the eighteenth status report that stock at number one fifty six which was found most recently the secretary has made substantial progress in providing meaningful access through the three prong approach now one of those  don't readers have been distributed that distribution program just started in two thousand and fifteen and it's been widely publicized be employees have gone to numerous conferences released have an extensive public education campaign around the i don't read or have received positive feedback we're not arguing that that alone provides meaningful access but the reason there's a three prong approach is because the currency reader can provide immediate access while the secretary  continuing to research and develop the rays tactile feature and then addition to the currency readers of course there are the smartphone applications which is a new technology that he has supported and helped assist in the development of we've seen forty seven thousand downloads of those currency readers on to smartphones and then in addition as as we've explained to the district court in the district court as well familiar with the record in this case there ha been there have been significant efforts on the part of the bureau to develop a tactile feature that works well which is not something that anyone knows how to do cleanups have pointed to other currencies for example that have tactile features but as was noted and the study that the bureau conducted the canadian currency for example the tactile feature on the canadian currency which i believe is about which you might find braille are there passed back and forth from person to person there stuffed in pockets they go through laundry machines it wears down very quickly and on the canadian notes with notes that have been in circulation that's less than fifty percent and around fifty percent varies from thirty to sixty i think depending on the bill but in terms of the ability of somebody who is blind to identify the no now it says this question about the timing so the it seemed like the assumption that attended the entry of the order that we're all talking about was that roughly seven to ten years was the time frame for a redesign if that's historically been the case then let's just assume that everybody kind of had in their minds that that's roughly what's going to happen in the future then the schedule that's been laid out by the other side is that a redesign currency that satisfies the needs impaired would be issued in two thousand and then the government says well that doesn't make a lot of sense for to to add that later on when we're going to have our currency released in two thousand and twenty six under the current schedule anyway and so i understand that as a general matter that you could have some inefficiencies that attend doing things in succession but the gap is six years which seems like the gap already assumed by everybody was something like s ten so are we talking about redesigns on a schedule that is roughly the same schedule that was put forward at the time of the initial order to begin with or are we not well if i may it i s it would be you know roughly six years but again the district court was well within its discretion in looking at your intervention and the inefficiencies and these are significant especially when you're talking about adding a tactile feature and comes up with a figure of sixty six million if you do have to change machines if you don't and he allows for that that's five million that's that's correct but at eight and so he i know exactly what the costs are but what we do know is that the costs are going to increase significantly if we have to do two separate redesigns as opposed to what the district court anticipated here which was one redesign that would allow for the efficiencies of doing  hack tile feature and the security redesign of it all scientists painted it would be done within seven to ten years and you doubled that time well we were very clear with the district court before the injunction as an injunction was entered  in our nemo regarding the injunction that redesign for security features was not on any schedule per se the plaintiffs had that had so you just see it that way he said he just learned that it was required to do this and he counterfeiting redesign every seven to ten years now he may have been exaggerating what the treasury fellow said because i think he said this is our normal cycle but he read it interpreted to mean that it was a requirement but i'm going to ask you about the lead the latest year that i saw for your revenue was i think two thousand and four half a billion dollars how much of that revenue is going to these changes you know i do not know the answer to that question all right would you agree that certainly the visually impaired have a priority over changing the expenses or the costs of changing currency with respect to whose faces on the currency there there is absolutely no there's no suggestion in the record that the secretary has been doing anything other than exercising best efforts to implement the three pronged approach including dedicating significant resources to the development of the tactile feature that includes a focus group with fifty plus participants including members from the american council of the blind that was just  earlier this year they now narrowed down the potential tactile features that are being considered to the problem is that there are substantial challenges in developing the tactile feature including the tactile features in this most recent study the ones that were most effective in accurate participants even with those had a low level of confidence that they were actually determining that currency correctly so there are all these difficulties in coming up with a tactile that it doesn't make sense to do it because there's going to be another iteration for counterfeiting reasons anyway and and then this is going to result in a great deal of it inefficiencies that are potentially discovering the broader cause the other is that we've decided that the way to go forward tactile feature and that's just not physically possible to do anything by two thousand i don't think there's support in the record for the idea that it would be feasible to implement the tactile feature by twenty twenty in particular because there have to be changes to every everything that uses cash in the economy that includes vending machines cash drawers a t m s public transportation systems all of that takes a significant amount of time so even once they settle on a implementing this three prong approach was now detrimental to the public interest the district court was well within its discretion to find that no given the substantial progress that had been made four percent that's substantial progress distributed for free there were commercially available currency readers that individuals may have purchased before that play and there is some of those individuals are not in commerce i'm not suggesting and we have not argued that the currency reader is standing alone or are providing  now when you read that with the background of what judge roberts and found with the the statistics the treasury put forward then and they were just hyperbole and in his footnote town that granted this is ten years ago he said there's little information about the effect of currency changes on third parties the vending machine people say yeah maybe not and then he says that that whole study is skewed because they left in the one dollar bills which of course is not any way to affected by the  f why should we just as soon that mr walsh who says we anticipate three to four billion to the private sector just were to send come from there's nothing in here support it and he even says it may be required his you're right about this his decoration sets out countless meetings and friends and tests and so forth it just seems like for years you all have been dealing with this and got nowhere and here you are with four percent of the visually impaired getting meaningful access after ten years and now they have to wait another nine years if i may on earth that eric study which the bureau commissioned was a comprehensive study this is record i think it's around five ninety i know that's part of the study looked at a looked at the all of the climate manufacturers that the impact on the vending machines all of that there is support for all of that in the record but in addition if i point out that those costs are costs that will occur whenever the raise taxes feature is incorporated so what we're not we're not saying that because be particularly expensive we shouldn't do it what we're saying is this is going to be incredibly expensive we should do it in an in a way that makes sense that is efficient where we have the best tactile feature developed which we are continuing to study and research and i understand that it has taken time but this has been a challenge for years to find a tactile feature that is durable affective manufacturable usable these are difficult things to do and what what the bureau what the district court did in this case was carefully craft an injunction that would allow the bureau and the secretary in his discretion to develop a plan for providing meaningful access we've done that we've implemented that plan we're continuing to work on that plan and the district court was well it would then it's just a question and finding that doing that in conjunction with the statutorily required redesign for security threats made good sense and even looking back at the record and twelve and twenty seventeen when there had been some delays the district court looked at all the progress that had been made not just in the currency readers but also in adding larger numerals that assist the visually impaired and denominating the currency and the high contrast numbers and said it would it's not that the plaintiffs have not satisfied their burden of showing that the injunction needs to be modified tempos a date certain on the secretary says if there's time for you continues to extend so suppose for every good reason i don't doubt that the the good trace of tariff pretty time frames so let's suppose that twenty twenty six hours to come up and then it turns out there's a whole new wave of counterfeiting that needs to be taken into account and it turns out that the next generation is going to deal with that and so the realization is made actually we should be far and let's go to twenty thirty five minutes some point the way to the letter from the letter of the injunction  time frame for a redesign of the currency to deal with this would would extend commensurately but at some point it can be that just every time that there is a need to defer things work out of the purposes that means that automatically there's a deferment for these purposes redesign whether that was still in the public interest or whether circumstances had changed much that point us could satisfy their burden at that point and of course in addition given the significant technological developments  of downloads of the smart phone applications that have been developed and also refers to microsoft's recently released seeing ai which is a free application for apple devices that reads documents and describes objects for blind an for use in public what would be wrong with our remanding here for because the cost on one side of the scale is that the cost to the treasury on the other side is ninety six percent of americans who have a right to meaningful access to the currency what would be wrong with remembering it for a more specific finding as to the cost of dealing taking it from the anti counterfeiting if we if we take away the private sector cost because forty six billion just comes out of nowhere and we concentrate on the treasury costs that can vary from sixty six million to five to go down to five million what's your answer that i just see this as not having been by a model that that the equity use and that's what we're looking at under sixty five if it's equitable to continue this injunction the way it is so there is currency for security purposes and i think that's important to keep in mind as to the secretary's consuls discussion of smartphones in addition to being inherently inaccessible the better smartphones that have the better software such as the apple software are very expensive and it strikes me as just very unfair to require people who are visually impaired to be required to buy their way into access to u s currency any more than somebody who is visually impaired ought to either have to pay to get into a wheelchair ramp and the score with with respect to the issue of the durability issue well the fact is and as noted by this court's opinion in two thousand and eight many and it was the government who chose the r t f back in two thousand and eleven because they said it would be durable now they seem to be spinning their wheels on on this and even if tell features warrant there's nothing to prevent a person with a visual impairment to ask for a different bill easily accommodated requests for money from a cashier with respect to the cost issue i think it's fair to say that the welsh debt wash decoration the additional costs he cited to the government of putting in the r t f would be costs that would be incurred in any event it was there or not the the two designs were paired or separated the the the specific costs cited by mr wash in his declaration would have been incurred regardless of whether those costs were making the feature court i think ordered it in the first place to allow them to you know put the get put the two together i think the it comes down to yes i think you're absolutely right i just don't think there's anything in the record on that your you've gone over your time ok thank you