A Senate bill to reauthorize the Assistance to Firefighters Program from 2005 to 2010 was introduced May 11. It authorizes between $900 million and $1.1 billion per year for the program, raises caps on the size of grants, reduces matching requirements, and provides grants to any volunteer EMS organization. The original legislation authorizing the FIRE Grant program will expire at the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30.

Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) introduced the bill. “The responsibilities of our nation's firefighters have changed dramatically since the original FIRE Act was enacted,” said Dodd. “The tragic events of Sept. 11 have required firefighters to shoulder additional homeland security responsibilities.… The bipartisan legislation that Sen. DeWine and I have authored will give firefighters across America the tools they need to save lives and do their jobs safely.”

S. 2411 authorizes $900 million for FY 2005, $950 million for FY 2006 and $1 billion for FY 2007 10. In addition, it would make the following changes:

• Grant the DHS secretary authority to award grants, but stipulates consultation with the U.S. fire administrator.
• Make volunteer EMS organizations eligible for grants. EMS organizations may receive no more than 3.5% of the total funds appropriated.
• Eliminate matching fund requirement for noncompetitive fire prevention grants and adds grants for research to improve firefighter health and life safety. Increases percentage of funding for grants in this category from 5% to 6%.
• Decrease matching fund requirements for departments serving jurisdictions with more than 50,000 residents from 30% to 20%; the match for departments serving communities with 20,001 to 50,000 residents becomes 10%; the match for departments serving communities with 20,000 or fewer residents becomes 5%.
• Make grants available for funding automated external defibrillator devices.
• Increase caps on the size of grants to $1.5 million for jurisdictions of 500,000 to 1 million people and award to any single jurisdiction to $2.25 million.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) introduced similar legislation to reauthorize the FIRE Grants in the U.S. House on April 1. H.R. 4107 reauthorizes $900 million for each fiscal year from 2005 through 2007.

Another difference between the two bills: The House Bill includes “Protection of Volunteers from Discrimination” language that prohibits departments that receive grants from preventing members from volunteering in another department when off duty.

That provision, obviously a contentious one, has divided support for the House reauthorization bill, with volunteers represented by the National Volunteer Fire Council strongly supporting it, and the International Association of Fire Fighters opposing.

Both sides testified May 21 in a House Science Committee hearing on H.R. 4107. NVFC Chairman Philip Stittleburg said several jurisdictions have implemented union contract provisions barring their members from also serving as volunteer firefighters. “We feel these types of provisions are a violation of the basic First Amendment right of free association,” Stittleburg told the committee. “It is very alarming that any city would try to tell a firefighter how they should or should not spend their off-duty time, which is their own time, especially when they are doing good in their community.”

Kevin O'Connor, IAFF assistant to the general president, said that while the union supports reauthorization of the FIRE Grants program, it opposed H.R. 4107 because of the volunteer nondiscrimination clause, which it viewed as unfair interference with its collective bargaining rights.

Both S. 2411 and H.R. 4107 implement, with a few variations, many recommendations for reauthorization for the Assistance to Firefighters Program contained in a White Paper that presented to Congress the unified recommendations from all the major national fire service groups for reauthorization of the program.