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NCD advances 2026 progress report, flags AI, health, transportation and seeks Council input
Summary
NCD staff outlined an in-house draft of the statutorily required 2026 progress report covering health care, transportation, education, employment and AI/technology, with a proposed transmittal timeline and possible July or August Council approval.
Joy Welan, who is leading the agency's annual progress report, told the National Council on Disability on May 7 that the statutorily required report will be drafted in-house and is scheduled for submission by the end of October.
Welan said drafts and monthly subcommittee sessions have produced a working structure that will include five major sections: health status and health care, transportation, education, employment, and artificial intelligence and other technology. She said the draft includes preliminary recommendations and that the subcommittee has tried to avoid projecting outcomes that are not yet factual: "We want to make sure that the Council is not predicting what might happen. We want to make sure that we're reporting just the facts so to speak in order to preserve the Council's credibility on these issues," Welan said.
Among topics staff highlighted for the report were changes in Medicaid and Medicare policy affecting home- and community-based services, recent Department of Transportation complaint data and rulemaking affecting air travel, Department of Education restructuring and grant cancellations affecting students with disabilities, and AI issues including algorithmic bias and the risks that AI could replicate discriminatory human patterns.
Welan also said the draft will include a discussion of the Air Carrier Access Act and signaled a preliminary recommendation to consider a private right of action under that law for air-travel accessibility claims. The staff timeline calls for finalizing recommendations and editorial work in June'July and for a Council vote at the August meeting or, if necessary, an email vote in July to meet the October statutory deadline.
What happens next: staff will continue drafting and circulating section drafts to the subcommittee and the full Council, refine recommendations (including possible options for a private right of action under the Air Carrier Access Act), and coordinate logistics for an August vote or a July email vote to meet the October deadline.
Speakers who guided the draft included Welan and policy staff Joan Durocher; the meeting did not produce a final Council vote on the report.
