[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 13 (Monday, February 14, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H364-H367]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     TRIBUTE TO OUR LOCAL VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMS PERSONNEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sherwood). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
is recognized for 50 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pay 
tribute to America's national heroes, and it is appropriate that I give 
this Special Order following a 5-minute Special Order given by our 
friend and colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), because in her 
Special Order, she paid tribute to two brave citizens of Texas, two 
firefighters, a man and a woman who gave their lives over the past 24 
hours in protecting the people in her district. Kimberly Smith and 
Lewis E. Mayo, who were cited by the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee), are both American heroes. Unfortunately, they gave their 
lives in the process of protecting other fellow citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, there are millions of people like Kimberly Smith and 
Lewis E. Mayo around this country who day in and day out protect 
America, who are always being asked to perform the impossible, whether 
it be responding to a house fire, a large factory fire like we saw in 
Massachusetts late last year that killed a multiple number of 
firefighters, or single family fires like we saw last summer in D.C. 
where three D.C. firefighters were killed. The gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer) and I came down here for that service. But we tend to, as a 
Nation, take these losses for granted; and we tend to take these people 
for granted, and that is the topic of my discussion tonight, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Each year in America, we lose, on average, 100 men and women who are 
involved in fire and life safety across this country who are killed in 
the course of protecting their communities. Now, the interesting, or I 
would say outrageous fact is that out of the 100 or so people that are 
killed each year, the bulk of them are volunteers. There is no other 
group of people in America who volunteer their time who each year and 
who see upwards of 100 of their colleagues killed in the course of 
doing their volunteer work. Yet, that is the story of the America fire 
and life safety service all across this country.
  Now, we heard, Mr. Speaker, the President give a typical speech last 
month during the State of the Union and he mentioned a ton of different 
groups. In fact, he promised $172 billion of new programs to every 
group we can think of. He talked about our law enforcement, he talked 
about our teachers, he talked about our military. He talked about those 
people who need special help in America, but Mr. Speaker, in that 1 
hour and 30 minute speech, President Clinton did not mention our 
national heroes one time.
  He did not mention the firefighters or the EMS personnel who are 
killed all across this country every year. He did not mention that 
there are 1.2 million men and women who every day in 32,000 departments 
protect America. He did not say a word about what they have been doing 
for a period of time that is older than the country itself and largely 
that time has been given by volunteers. He did not mention the fact 
that these people are now being asked to perform additional 
responsibilities.
  And even though many of us believe that fire and EMS services are a 
local responsibility, which I believe fully, we are now tasking these 
people to take actions that some would say are Federal in 
responsibility. When one asks local fire and EMS organizations to 
respond to terrorist incidents, when they are asked to respond to an 
incident involving a weapon of mass destruction, a chemical, biological 
or perhaps a nuclear agent, then there is a Federal responsibility to 
help train and assist these individuals.
  Now, the fire service in this country, Mr. Speaker, is a proud 
tradition. I know, because I would not be involved in politics today 
were it not for the fire service. Having been born and raised into a 
fire service family like my six older brothers and my father before me, 
I got involved in the volunteer fire company in my hometown and 
eventually became president and then chief of that fire company. I went 
back to school in the evenings while teaching during the day and got a 
degree in fire protection and then for 3 years as a volunteer I ran the 
training program for the 78 fire companies in my home county.
  I understand who these people are, Mr. Speaker, because I have been 
one. I have traveled to all 50 States where I have interacted with the 
leaders of these organizations; and I have seen the faces of these men 
and women who day in and day out give so much of themselves to protect 
their neighborhoods, to protect their neighbors, and to protect the 
people who live and work in the area that they serve. In the urban 
areas, they are typically paid, and in the suburban and rural areas, 
they are typically volunteer, but they are all professionals. They are 
trained, they are equipped, and they are prepared to respond.

  Each year, Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate, 100 of them, on average, 
give their lives, as the two just did in the past 24 hours in Houston, 
Texas. Yet, President Clinton made no mention of these people and the 
challenges that they face. In fact, Mr. Speaker, not only did he not 
mention them in the State of the Union speech, he gave them the 
ultimate slap in the face. The fire and EMS community in this country 
gets a pittance of Federal funding from our budget process. They get 
the U.S. Fire Administration, which is less than $40 million a year, 
and they get the U.S. Fire Academy which operates at Emmitsburg, 
Maryland. There is only one entitlement program and one grant program, 
not even an entitlement, one grant program to help the volunteer fire 
companies in this country. President Clinton had the audacity to submit 
a budget that cut that program from $3.25 million to $2.5 million. No, 
not billions of dollars, millions of dollars.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the President sneezes and 
spends more money than $2.5 million, and yet, in the budget proposed 
for this fiscal year, he has cut the only program to provide funding 
for rural fire protection from $3.25 million to $2.5 million. Mr. 
Speaker, that is absolutely unacceptable.
  Now, there are those, as I said, and I am one of them who believe 
that fire and EMS services is a local responsibility. I am not saying 
that we should federalize the national fire EMS service; that would be 
wrong and it would be a tragic thing if we tried to do it and the fire 
service would object to that. What I am saying is, Mr. Speaker, we 
should provide some support.
  There have been fiscal studies that have been done that shows that if 
the volunteer fire service in America had to be paid, if all of those 
32,000 towns across America who rely on their volunteers had to replace 
them with a paid department, the cost to the taxpayers would be in 
excess of $35 billion, $35 billion. But these men and women who serve 
their towns are not asking for $35 billion. What they are simply asking 
for is the respect, the consideration, and some one-time help in giving 
them the resources to deal with these new threats that America is 
facing.
  Now, let us make some comparisons. We provide strong funding for our 
military, almost $300 billion a year, and as a Member of the National 
Security Committee, I support that full funding and even more for our 
Nation's armed services. It is important that we have the best military 
in the world which we have today because they are constantly put in 
harm's way.
  But, Mr. Speaker, almost $300 billion a year for the Nation's 
international defenders, our military, yet less than $30 million a year 
for our domestic defenders, the people who fight the wars on our soil. 
Remember, these are not just people that fight fires. These are people 
who have responded, the first responders, to floods, hurricanes, 
tornadoes, earthquakes, HazMat incidents, shootings in our inner 
cities, drug deals gone sour, they are the first responder to every 
emergency situation

[[Page H365]]

in every town and city across America. Every disaster we have, they are 
the first in. They are there before the police, they are there 
certainly before the emergency management personnel; they are always 
there in advance of our military and their job is to control the 
situation, stabilize the casualties, and make sure they control the 
damage from extending beyond the original impact of the disaster.
  These are America's first responders. Yet, what is our response? Our 
response at the Federal level is zero. Many of these people, the 85 
percent of these 1.2 million who are volunteers, go out and raise their 
money through chicken dinners, through tag days on the local street 
corners, by having bake sales, and by doing things to raise money. And 
they are proud, and it is a proud tradition that they want to continue. 
But there is, I believe, Mr. Speaker, a need for us to provide a one-
shot infusion of dollars to make sure these people who are volunteering 
continue to volunteer, to make sure these people who are being paid 
have the proper training, equipment, and resources to meet the 
challenges they face every day.
  Now, is that an unusual request? Well, Mr. Speaker, I have mentioned 
that we fund the military to a number of less than $300 billion a year. 
How about our local police department. Now, law enforcement at the 
local level is a local responsibility. Our towns hire the police 
departments, they pay the detectives, they buy the patrol cars. Imagine 
asking our police to run a tag day to buy a police car or to run a cake 
bake or have some kind of a chicken dinner to buy police vests. No, 
that is not the case. In most cases, our law enforcement costs are 
borne by local taxpayers, because it is a local responsibility.
  But wait a minute, Mr. Speaker. The Federal Government each year 
spends over $3 billion for local law enforcement. We now have a Federal 
program where we pay for one-half of the costs of protective vests for 
police officers across America. Now, I support that program, Mr. 
Speaker. But why is protecting the life of a police officer or a 
military person that much more important than protecting the lives of 
those 100 people a year who are killed in the course of serving their 
communities when most of them are, in fact, volunteers.
  Mr. Speaker, $3 billion a year for law enforcement. That money goes 
to hire local police. We have heard the President stand up on this 
podium time and time again and talk about putting 100,000 cops on the 
street, putting money into additional detectives and money into police 
vests. Well, why did the President not mention our national heroes who 
respond to disasters? Not even a peep, not even a word, not even a 
thank you.

                              {time}  1945

  But it gets more outrageous, Mr. Speaker, because this administration 
just does not get it. We might remember, a few years ago President 
Clinton went before the American people with this grandiose idea. He 
said, we are going to create a program that encourages young people to 
volunteer in our communities across America. This new program is going 
to be called AmeriCorps. We are going to encourage young people to get 
involved; a great idea, a great concept.
  Do Members know, in traditional liberal fashion, the President 
created a big bureaucracy program called AmeriCorps, where we actually 
pay young people, pay them to volunteer. We actually give them an 
annual stipend, we give them benefits to volunteer.
  The last time I volunteered I did not get paid for it, because the 
word ``volunteer'' means you are doing it for free. But even if we were 
going to, say, pay a person to understand the importance of 
volunteering, would we not think, Mr. Speaker, that this AmeriCorps 
program would in some way support the 1 million volunteer fire and EMS 
personnel across the country?
  Guess what, Mr. Speaker? Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps program has done 
nothing for the volunteer fire and emergency services of this country. 
In fact, they do not even qualify for the program. So here we have 
32,000 departments, ambulance, fire, and rescue departments all across 
the country depending upon people to volunteer for life safety, and we 
create a Federal program that does not even recognize those volunteers. 
Mr. Speaker, is that big government liberal philosophy or what? We do 
not even recognize volunteers who were here longer than the country has 
been a Nation, over 250 years.
  Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced inside this Beltway we just do 
not get it. We think we have all the answers. President Clinton is 
going to create a great program called AmeriCorps, and yet does not do 
a thing to recognize those million people who are already volunteering, 
and recognize the fact that most of those 32,000 departments across the 
country are having a terrible problem right now recruiting young 
people. They cannot get people to volunteer.
  Did we think to go out and offer to work with them, to create 
incentives and programs to help bring in more volunteers? No. Because 
it was not a politically correct thing to do, we bypassed and ignored 
the volunteer fire and EMS personnel in this country.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, the outrageous act of this administration 
several years ago when they held a volunteer summit in Philadelphia was 
to not only not include the volunteer fire service, but not even invite 
them. I had to raise Cain with the White House and threaten to boycott 
and picket the conference in Philadelphia unless the volunteer fire 
service was included, and they finally were.
  Mr. Speaker, we have our priorities wrong. Here is a group of people 
who every year for the past 250 years have been all across our country, 
in our smallest rural villages to our largest cities, protecting our 
people and their property. Yet, we have done nothing to recognize those 
people. We have done nothing to pat them on the back and look at how we 
can provide some short-term funding to assist them to better serve 
their communities.
  Again, let me state, Mr. Speaker, I am not advocating that we 
federalize the fire service. That is totally the opposite of what I am 
advocating. What I am saying is that if President Clinton is going to 
reauthorize and request $3 billion a year for the police, if he is 
going to stand before us and demand that we put $1 billion a year on 
the table for new teachers, why does he not say one word about the real 
American heroes?
  I was a teacher for 7 years in the public schools of Pennsylvania, 
Mr. Speaker. I am a strong supporter of public education and teachers 
in general. I support more money for education. But is $1 billion for 
teachers that much more important than perhaps some short-term stopgap 
funding for these American heroes who are killed in the line of duty 
each year, or even a mention from the President that these people 
deserve to be recognized? I think not, Mr. Speaker.
  We have our priorities all wrong, because the polls are showing the 
President and some of our colleagues in this Congress that education 
and crime are key issues. We want to come up with new ways to throw 
more money in each of those areas, some of it well-founded, and other 
is wasteful money. But not a peep is made of support for those people 
who day in and day out protect our towns and cities.
  These people, again, Mr. Speaker, are not just fire fighters. Of the 
1.2 million nationwide in the 32,000 departments, 85 percent of whom 
are volunteer, I will remind my colleagues of who these people are. I 
have been to all 50 States, from Hawaii to Alaska, from Maine to 
Florida, from California to Washington State. These people are the same 
in every State that I have visited.
  They are not just emergency responders, they are the people who 
rescue the cats stuck in the tree, they are the people who pump the 
cellars out when they are flooded, they are the people who organize the 
search parties when the child has been lost, they are the people who 
organize the July 4th celebrations, Memorial Day parades, the local 
organization that runs the Christmas party for disadvantaged kids at 
Christmastime.
  They are the people who collect the money in the boots for muscular 
dystrophy. They are the people whose place of operation we go to to 
vote on election day. It is the place where young couples hold their 
wedding receptions.
  In every town in America, the men and women of the fire service are 
the

[[Page H366]]

backbone of the community. They are the heart and soul of this country. 
They are the same people who teach in our Sunday schools, who work in 
our synagogues. They are the same people who coach our youth programs. 
They are the same people who run our Girl Scout and Boy Scout programs 
across America.
  There is no single group of people in this country that I can think 
of that better represents what America is all about. Whether they be 
paid or volunteer, they provide a service for our citizens, and they do 
so asking nothing in return.
  They do not have high-priced lobbyists on the Hill, because all the 
ones who are volunteers have full-time jobs. They do their full-time 
job during the day, or they work shift work at night, and then when 
they are not working, they go over and work on the trucks, they run the 
fundraising events, they hold the organizational meetings, they 
establish the budgets, and they run their local organizations and keep 
their towns strong.
  Mr. Speaker, they are facing serious challenges today. Recruiting has 
become extremely difficult in every volunteer department in this 
Nation. The communications system for our emergency responders is a 
total and complete disaster.
  Imagine, if you will, Mr. Speaker, I had the chief of the Oklahoma 
City Fire Department appear before my subcommittee 1 year on the date 
after the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Chief Marrs, 
who is a friend of mine, sat at the table testifying before my 
subcommittee. I asked him, I said, Chief, are you better off today as a 
chief of that department than you were 1 year ago when the bombing took 
place? He said, Congressman, I am no better off today than I was 1 year 
ago. The problems are just as real.
  Let me just review one problem that every department in America is 
facing today, Mr. Speaker, because it is outrageous. There is no common 
communication frequency so that fire and EMS personnel can communicate 
freely, one with the other. In the case of the Murrah Building bombing, 
Chief Marrs testified that when they arrived on the scene with this 
huge building having been demolished on one side, there were frantic 
calls for life safety, for more ambulances, for paramedics, for 
structural engineers.
  Yet, they did not have radios that could communicate between EMS, 
fire, police, and other agencies being brought in because they were all 
on different frequencies, so they had to resort to cellular telephones. 
Chief Marrs testified that those cellular phones quickly became 
overtaxed, and they finally had to resort to writing messages down on 
pieces of paper and having fire and EMS personnel carry the message 
from one officer to another to inform him of an order or of a plan of 
action.
  Here we are in the ending of the 20th century, the beginning of the 
21st century, and our fire and EMS leaders have to resort to hand-
carrying messages because the communications system they have 
nationwide is an absolute disaster.
  The departments around D.C., many of them are part-time paid and 
fully volunteer. If they have to get involved in assisting the D.C. 
Fire Department, which is totally paid, and a very efficient 
department, I might add, under Chief Tippet, if they have to assist 
them, they do not have common frequencies so they cannot talk to each 
other. So here we are talking about incidents involving the life safety 
of thousands of our citizens all across America, and yet we do not have 
a common communications system that our fire and EMS personnel can use.
  One might ask the question, what role does the Federal government 
play in that process? As we know, Mr. Speaker, it is the Federal 
government, through the FCC, that issues the licensing for frequencies 
to be used by everyone in America. We should follow through and we 
should provide the support for a common set of frequencies for all fire 
and EMS personnel nationwide. We should provide support funding on a 
one-shot basis to allow local departments to come in line with that 
standard frequency system.
  Training: Our fire and EMS personnel are being asked across the 
country today by the Department of Defense and the Department of 
Justice to train their men and women, most of whom are volunteers, as 
to how to respond if they suspect that a chemical or biological agent 
has been used.
  Imagine, Mr. Speaker, not only are we asking these people to protect 
our towns from the usual disasters, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, 
fires, hazmat incidents, accidents. Now we are saying to them at the 
Federal level, they have another responsibility. They have to be 
prepared and know what to do if a chemical, biological, or nuclear 
agent is put forth in our community. So we are trying to train them.
  Mr. Speaker, the bulk of our 32,000 departments in America do not 
have the resources to continue that training beyond the one time that 
the Department of Justice and Department of Defense comes in and shows 
them the proper process to use. The bulk of our 32,000 departments in 
America do not have the dollars to buy a $15,000 specialized turnout 
suit that can be used in a chemical-bio environment, let alone maintain 
it. The bulk of the 32,000 departments in America do not have the 
ability to buy detectors to detect a chemical or a biological agent so 
they can warn the people to evacuate the area.
  What happens when they do not have that equipment? We saw the result 
of that kind of event in Japan just a few short years ago when a rogue 
terrorist group dispersed Sarin, and that Sarin gas wiped out the 
entire group of first responders because they did not have the proper 
equipment nor the proper training to deal with that situation involving 
a weapon of mass destruction.

  Training is critically important, and resources are critically 
important. If our local emergency responders do not have this, they are 
not going to be able to continue to protect our towns.
  What can we do, Mr. Speaker? I am not advocating a big-ticket 
giveaway program. I am not advocating creating a system where the fire 
and EMS service in this country becomes a part or an arm of the Federal 
Government. I am advocating that we take some steps to put a short-term 
infusion of dollars into this group of people nationwide.
  There are a number of options. We could, for instance, create a low-
interest loan program. Five States already have low-interest loan 
programs. My State of Pennsylvania has one. In fact, in Pennsylvania, 
every piece of fire equipment bought by each of our 2,400 volunteer 
fire companies is financed with a low-interest loan.
  Mr. Speaker, in the history of the program we have not had one 
default, as the Speaker pro tempore well knows because he is from 
Pennsylvania, and he has been a tireless advocate for the fire service, 
as I have back in our State. We have not had one default on a loan by a 
volunteer fire company in purchasing a $500,000 pumper or a $750,000 
aerial truck. The fire service is a proud organization. It pays its 
bills.
  But having a national low-interest loan program could provide low-
cost money for these small departments to be able to buy the equipment 
they so desperately need, and also to help our big cities modernize 
their departments with equipment, as well. We could deal with the 
communications problem, Mr. Speaker, and provide that one-shot infusion 
of funds to standardize a national system of communication. We can 
provide funding for detectors for chemical and biological incidents, 
and turnout suits for these situations, so that they are properly 
protected.

                              {time}  2000

  We could create a grant program, a one-shot grant program, that would 
be available to every fire department in America and every EMS and 
ambulance service in America, to allow them to upgrade their equipment 
or make their own choices about what was the top priority in their own 
community.
  Above all, we need to make sure we have a focus on health and safety, 
because killing 100 fire and EMS personnel in a year in America is 
unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, if we had a situation involving our military where 100 
military personnel were killed, it would be a national outrage; it 
would be a national scandal; it would be front page news that 100 men 
and women were killed in the course of performing their 
responsibilities as soldiers.
  Every year, every year, on average, 100 men and women who serve this 
country as paid and volunteer fire and

[[Page H367]]

EMS personnel are killed. Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker?
  I have had the privilege in October, for 3 or 4 years, over the past 
10 years, of traveling to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where we have the 
National Fallen Fire Fighters Memorial. The times I have been there, we 
have usually had between 115 and 125 families of fire and EMS personnel 
who have been killed. Some years it is above 100. Some years it is 
slightly below 100, but on average it is 100. It is absolutely 
heartbreaking to see these families of fire fighters and EMS personnel 
who were killed while protecting their towns.
  The gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) paid tribute to two of 
them today, two from Houston, a man and a woman who were killed in the 
past 24 hours. They leave their families behind, their loved ones, a 
tragic story. It is even more tragic, Mr. Speaker, when they are 
volunteers, when they do it not as their primary job but as an 
avocation to protect their town. They raise the money to buy the 
equipment to pay for the training to serve their town for free. There 
is no other group of people in America that does that.
  This President, in all the grandeur of the State of the Union, in the 
eight times he has given it, did not mention what he would do for this 
group of people one time, not one mention.
  In fact, in this year's budget, as I started out, Mr. Speaker, he 
made the ultimate slap in the face of these men and women by cutting 
the rural volunteer program from a level of $3.25 million or $3.5 
million, whatever it is, to $2.5 million, which is absolutely 
outrageous.
  Now, there is some money in the FEMA budget for a program that has 
not yet been defined. I have been told by one bureaucrat that it is a 
program that has been favored by one of the assistants at FEMA, Carey 
Brown, to do education for fire prevention in innercity impoverished 
areas. Now, that is important but does that really address the needs of 
the American fire service? I think not.
  Mr. Speaker, there has been legislation introduced, which I am a 
cosponsor of, to provide funding for the fire and EMS personnel in this 
country. There is one bill that has overwhelming support from both 
sides of the aisle, in fact over 240 cosponsors, that would authorize a 
billion dollars for the fire and EMS of this country. I think it is 
going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get a billion 
dollars in a year where the balanced budget is such a difficult process 
to keep on track.
  At a minimum, Mr. Speaker, we have to provide some short-term support 
to allow these men and women to know that we do care about them, that 
we do want them to continue to volunteer in their towns, and that be 
they paid or volunteer, we want to provide support for them in the way 
of communications systems, in the way of health and life safety, in the 
way of training, in the way of equipment, in the way of proper 
apparatus. That is the least we can do.

  So as Members of Congress come to the floor over the next several 
months and rail about an extra billion dollars for teachers, more 
teachers for the classroom, as they come on this floor and rail about 
billions of dollars for local police because we need to keep the crime 
rate down, and I support many of those initiatives, I ask my colleagues 
to step back and think for a moment. Are the men and women who serve 
this country largely as volunteers and who give 100 of their colleagues 
every year any less important than teachers or police or even our 
military? I think not, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask my colleagues, as 
we go through this session, to work with me in crafting an acceptable 
bill that is supported by Democrats and Republicans that will lay down 
a one-time infusion of dollars to help the men and women of the 
American fire service.
  It does not have to be a billion dollars, Mr. Speaker, because to try 
to pass something that we all know is impossible is only falsely 
raising the expectations of that 1.2 million group out there who is 
waiting for us to do something. I think we should start with a 
reasonable amount. I would be happy if we could come up with a package 
of $100 million.
  There is supposedly a $20 billion item of money that we can use for 
special priorities this year and yet still keep our budget balanced, 
because of the way the economy is going. I do not want to take $20 
billion. I do not even think we could get a billion; but, Mr. Speaker, 
it is absolutely essential that this Congress, this year, pass a piece 
of legislation that shows the real American heroes, America's domestic 
defenders, America's first responders, that we care about them, that we 
want them to have the equipment they need; and in the prioritization of 
things we are not going to forget them, like President Clinton did 2 
weeks ago when he gave the State of the Union or like he did last week 
when he revealed his budget and cut the only program that benefits them 
by somewhere close to a million dollars.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support me in this effort. I 
thank all the Members of the fire and EMS caucus, over 340 of them in 
the House and the Senate, for paying attention.
  Now I say, Mr. Speaker, it is time to respond. I would ask our 
colleagues to join in this response together.

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