Title: COVID–19 Language Access Act
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
COVID-19 Language Access Act
This bill requires each federal agency that receives federal assistance related to the COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic to translate any English language written material prepared for the general public relating to the pandemic into specified languages not later than seven days after such material is made available in English.
Such languages shall include, at a minimum, the following: Spanish, Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Haitian Creole, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Tagalog, Urdu, Vietnamese, Greek, Polish, Thai, and Portuguese.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6623 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6623

 To require all Federal agencies to translate COVID-19 materials into 
              multiple languages, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 24, 2020

    Ms. Meng (for herself, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Mr. Price of North 
 Carolina, Ms. Garcia of Texas, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Gonzalez of Texas, 
Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Rush, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. Meeks, Ms. Johnson of 
 Texas, Mr. Huffman, Ms. Norton, Mr. Espaillat, Ms. Castor of Florida, 
   Ms. Shalala, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Mr. Kilmer, Mr. Serrano, Ms. 
 Jayapal, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Ms. Velazquez, 
Mr. Cardenas, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. McNerney, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Johnson of 
 Georgia, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Takano, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Horsford, 
  Ms. Porter, Mr. Case, and Ms. Eshoo) 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.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``COVID-19 Language Access Act''.

SEC. 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 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, 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''.
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