On Tuesday, May 5, Washington, D.C. Mayor Fenty signed bill 18-33, The Practice of Polysomnography Amendment Act of 2009. The bill provides for the regulation of polysomnography under the Board of Medicine and creates an Advisory Committee on Polysomnography, comprised of physicians and sleep technologists, to develop and submit guidelines regulating the practice.
Now that the Mayor has approved the legislation, the bill will become an Act. Unique to D.C., an approved Act of the Council must be sent to the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate for a period of 30 days before becoming effective as law. Upon the expiration of the 30-day congressional review period, the bill finally becomes law, pending the federal legislature does not file a joint resolution of disapproval towards the Act. If Congress does file a joint resolution of disapproval, the President of the United States could then approve or reject the joint resolution.