; 110 Stat. 126), the Federal Communications Commission began enforcing rules requiring full closed captioning of most English television programming on January 1, 2006. (2) The Federal Communications Commission rules also require that video programming be fully captioned in Spanish by 2010. (3) More than 37,500,000 Americans are considered deaf or hard of hearing, and many require captioning services to participate in mainstream activities. (4) The National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders estimates that one in 3 Americans over the age of 60 has already experienced hearing loss. The 79,000,000 Americans who are identified as baby boomers represent 39 percent of the population of the United States and most baby boomers began to reach age 60 just in the last few years. (5) Closed captioning is a continuous source of emergency information for people in mass transit and other congregate settings. (6) Empirical research studies since 1988 demonstrate that captions improve the performance of individuals learning to read English. 3. Authorization of grant program to promote training and job placement of realtime writers (a) In general The Secretary of Education shall make competitive grants to eligible entities under subsection (b) to promote training and placement of individuals, including individuals who have completed a court reporting training program, as realtime writers in order to meet the requirements for closed captioning of video programming set forth in section 713 of the Communications Act of 1934 ( 47 U.S.C. 613 ) and the rules prescribed thereunder. (b) Eligible entities For purposes of this Act, an eligible entity is a court reporting program that— (1) can document and demonstrate to the Secretary of Education that it meets minimum standards of educational and financial accountability, with a curriculum capable of training realtime writers qualified to provide captioning services