What legislative issues considered in the 109th session of Congress could have the greatest impact on the nation’s local fire and emergency service departments and their personnel?

Rep. Curt Weldon (R.-Pa.), founder of the Congressional Fire Caucus, and Rep. Bill Pascrell, (D.-N.J.) original author of the FIRE Act, and two of the fire service’s strongest allies in Congress, highlighted what’s on the landscape in Capitol Hill in a roundtable discussion with fire chiefs from across the nation on April 7. The event was one of many workshops sponsored by the Congressional Fire Services Institute in conjunction with the 17th annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner in Washington, D.C.

Legislative issues to keep on your radar screen include:

Fiscal Year 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations

Senate and House committees on appropriations are currently preparing measures to fund the Department of Homeland Security, including funding for many important fire service programs under DHS, such as the U.S. Fire Administration and the Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response, the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (FIRE ACT), the Staffing for Adequate Firefighter and Emergency Response Act (known as SAFER), the State Homeland Security Grant Program and the Urban Area Security Initiative.

Both Weldon and Pascrell commended the fire service leaders for rallying around the FIRE Act, which has now provided an estimated $2.6 billion to 22,000 local fire departments. “Most of the folks down here didn’t know what hit them,” said Pascrell. “You did it on $2.6 billion dollars in four years, going on five, for all firefighters in the United States, paid and volunteer. We no longer can afford to get involved in petty disputes between paid and volunteer firefighters. Washington profited when we were all at each other’s throats. We are all on the same page. That’s the reality now, but you can’t rest on your laurels. There is much to be done.”

The FIRE Act monies must be separated from Homeland Security Grants, and must continue to go directly to fire departments, rather than passing through states, the Congressmen agreed.

When discussing appropriations for important fire service programs under DHS, Pascrell emphasized that members of the fire service must not go to Congress with “hat in hand.” “That is not appropriate for the honor of your position. You have a noble cause…No one is giving you anything. You have earned it and you cannot back off once you’re there.”

The objective, Pascrell said, is to protect firefighters on the front line. “We are not going to accept sending them into battle to fight the fire that occurs every 17 seconds, ill equipped or ill trained. We’re not going to do that anymore. It’s unacceptable. That’s why we’ve lost firefighters.”

The Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act of 2005
(S. 21)

According to CFSI information, this legislation would reorganize homeland security grant programs by establishing a baseline level of funding for each state that will then be supplemented by risk-based grants. It would also streamline and enhance the homeland security grant process and deliver federal homeland security grants to local first responders more expeditiously.

House Rep. Chris Cox, (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is expected to introduce legislation in the House of Representatives that will also be aimed at reforming the process under which homeland security grants are administered. Both bills will preserve “pre-9-11” grant programs such as the FIRE Act and SAFER, as separate grant programs.

The SAFER Act
(A Homeland Security Appropriation)

Pascrell and Weldon agreed the SAFER Act needs to be high on the legislative agenda. It’s appropriated a modest $65 million this fiscal year to help fire department with staffing shortfalls. As authorized SAFER, will provide five-year federal grants to fire departments for staffing, with a total maximum grant of $100,000 to help fire departments hire, recruit and retain firefighters. The grants are designed to provide decreasing federal support and an increasing local match each year over the five-year period, from a 10% local match the first year to 100% local funding in the fifth year. Funding is also provided to for volunteer recruiting and retention programs. If each successful grant awardee gets the full $100,000, only 650 grants could be awarded with the $65 million appropriated in 2005.

“We’re there but it’s not enough,” said Weldon. “I mean, when you compare support for the fire service and support for the police, we’re spending $3 billion to $4 billion a year for local law enforcement in America. So we have to continue to push….What you need to do is when you visit with your representatives and your senators, say, ‘We want the money that already been appropriated to spend for the SAFER program, and we want you to support additional funding in this year’s appropriation process.’”

Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act of 2005
(S. 512 and H.R. 1131)

One of the most promising fire prevention bills to be introduced, this legislation will provide a tax incentive to reclassify the retrofit of automatic fire sprinkler systems as five-year property for the purposes of tax depreciation. Weldon introduced the House version of the bill on March 3. “If a building or business installs a sprinkler system, they get a reduced insurance premium, and that premium can be significant in terms of what they save,” Weldon said. “What my bill does is it reduces the [tax] write-off from a business standpoint of that sprinkler system from 20 years to five years. …When you take the added insurance benefit, that business owner can actually recover the cost of installing the sprinkler system in three years.”

At this time, the bill needs cosponsors. It’s currently assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee, which probably will consider it among tax measures and tax reform this year, Weldon said.

Safe Intersections Act of 2005
(S. 564 and H.R. 1122)

This legislation prevents the unauthorized sale and possession of an electronic device that gives the driver of a vehicle the ability to change a traffic light from red to green. Sellers and users may be penalized with a fine of $10,000, imprisonment or both. Those found in unauthorized possession of the device face the same penalties.

Cigarette Safe Act of 2005
(S. 389)

Another try at setting ignition standards for cigarettes causing them to self-extinguish if left unsmoked, preventing thousands of smoking related fires, a leading cause of fire fatalities every year. Canada and New York have passed similar fire-safe cigarette bills and several states are considering them.

Weldon mentioned several other legislative priorities he planned to address this year. Among them:

• Prevent the U.S. Justice Department from “defining what a firefighter is” by setting age limits through the death benefits awarded under DOJ’s Public Safety Officer Benefit program. The Justice Department has ruled that junior firefighters don’t quality for the benefit because they’re under the age of 18. “That’s outrageous,” Weldon said, “because the moment you begin to allow the federal government to determine what a firefighter is, you’ve opened the door to the beginning of the federal government telling you who can serve as a firefighter in your department.”
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• Work on measures in Congress to discourage the International Association of Firefighters from making union rules that prevent paid firefighters from volunteering in their communities. “What’s happening here is a major effort that is creating a divide in the fire service that I talked about when I formed the Fire Caucus 18 years ago, and it can’t stand,” Weldon said. “I will go to the wall for the paid firefighter in America…but driving a wedge between the volunteer and paid firefighters in America is absolutely the wrong way to go."
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• Establish a National Fire Center in Washington, D.C. A location one block away from the Capitol on New Jersey Avenue has been selected, Weldon said. Plans call for the center to take up an entire block and for it to include a working fire station, a national fire service museum and meeting rooms. "We want to turn it into a multistory building so that you have a presence on Capitol Hill one block away from the Capitol, so any group in America that's involved in fire and EMS can rent space in that complex. The National Fire Center becomes your rallying point.... It will be a single presence in Washington that the people of America can visit, so they can understand the history of the fire service and see a working fire station," Weldon said.
  
  
• Support the transfer of military global positioning satellite technology to track the location of firefighters on the fire scene and report on their status to incident commanders.