[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H65-H68]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Barletta) for 30 minutes.
General Leave
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous materials on the topic of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues in the House and I are here
today to talk about another unintended consequence of the Affordable
Care Act. We understand there is little appetite in this body to
provide fixes to a flawed law. However, we believe that an unexpected
and previously undetected problem with the law represents special and
urgent circumstances.
This really took me by surprise. The fact that the Affordable Care
Act could force volunteer fire companies to provide health insurance to
their volunteers or pay a fine would burden them with unbearable costs
and possibly cause them to reduce the number of volunteers they have or
shut their doors altogether.
Simply put, this is a public safety issue. This is a problem today
because the Internal Revenue Service currently treats volunteer
firefighters as employees for Federal tax purposes. Under the
Affordable Care Act, if they have 50 or more employees and they work 30
hours a week, then the employers have to provide health insurance or
pay a fine.
Here is a key point that I want to make. Some fire companies may hear
about this and immediately think: well, we only have 25 volunteers so
we are safe, we don't have 50. Well, that may not necessarily be the
case. Some fire companies are considered part of their local
government. That could mean that if you take the number of firefighters
paid and unpaid now considered employees by the IRS and add them to the
number of other public employees, such as highway workers, police, code
enforcement officers, health officers, clerical workers, you can easily
reach 50, even in a small town.
This would be a very big deal in my home State of Pennsylvania.
Ninety-seven percent of our fire companies are either completely or
mostly volunteers. Nationally, 91.7 percent of fire companies use at
least some volunteers and 86.2 percent depend on all or mostly
volunteers. Those numbers come from the 2012 National Fire Department
Census conducted by the United States Fire Administration.
So I wrote a letter to the IRS, just like many of my colleagues here,
and asked them for clarification. To this point, as of this afternoon,
we have gotten no reply from the Internal Revenue Service. They have
said that they are ``reviewing'' it.
This should be very easy to clear up for the IRS. Just say that
volunteer firefighters are just that--volunteers. But we are still
waiting.
Let's be clear about this. This wrinkle in the Affordable Care Act
will not provide health care to the uninsured; it will only shut down
fire companies and cause a severe threat to public safety.
That is why I have introduced H.R. 3685, the Protecting Volunteer
Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act. The bill will specifically
exempt volunteer firefighters and volunteers providing emergency
medical services from the employer mandate provision of the Affordable
Care Act.
I was happy to learn that there is a bipartisan Senate bill that is a
companion to mine. I hope that we can see bipartisan support for this
in both the House and in the Senate and that we can get through this
quickly so that the President can sign it.
Mr. Speaker, this problem with the Affordable Care Act represents a
clear and present danger to public safety.
I would like to invite my colleagues to offer their thoughts about
this problem and how it relates to their own districts.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Fitzpatrick).
Mr. FITZPATRICK. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr.
[[Page H66]]
Barletta, for organizing this Special Order tonight.
I have to say that I never assumed it would be easy to get an answer
quickly from a massive bureaucracy of the Federal Government like the
Internal Revenue Service, but I have to admit that I never thought it
would be this hard either, especially on a question important to the
safety of communities across my district and across our great country.
My question to the previous IRS chief--and more recently the new
agency head--has been a simple one: Can you clarify the rules within
the President's health care law as they relate to volunteer
firefighters? As my colleagues here tonight have noted, confusion
exists within the first responder community about the effects of the
health care law's mandates and the IRS's definition of an employee,
which currently, as we have heard tonight, covers volunteer
firefighters.
Yet the question goes unanswered, and I can't offer any information
or comfort to the fire departments who would be the one's hurt by the
misguided mandate. One way or the other, they just want to know so they
can keep on serving their communities.
I would like to read just two emails of many, many emails that I have
heard from my district about the importance of this situation.
The first is from Charles Rumble, who is president of the
Plumsteadville Fire Company:
We are an all-volunteer fire company that is being
penalized for our ability to attract and retain members to
protect the community. There is no way that we--or our
community that supports us--can bear that cost of offering
insurance. We would be forced to shut down and our community
forced to seek substantially more costly and diminished fire
protection alternatives.
From Frank Farry, who is chief of the Langhorne-Middletown Fire
Company, who is also an elected State representative in Pennsylvania:
The administration and the IRS have been aware of this
issue for months but yet have not taken any steps to address
it. The volunteer fire service already faces many challenges,
and if the ACA is applied to it, the volunteer fire
departments will have their backs broken.
Mr. Speaker, waiting for an answer isn't good enough, especially for
people with jobs as important as our volunteer firefighters. That is
why I was proud to join with Congressman Barletta and so many others
gathered here this evening in introducing the Protecting Volunteer
Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act to try to address this
problem legislatively.
I know we all remain optimistic that the administration will address
our concerns. We hope that the IRS takes action and takes action
swiftly. If not, we are prepared to do so in this House.
Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.
Now I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Dent).
Mr. DENT. Thank you. I would like to also join my colleagues tonight
in support of Representative Barletta's very important legislation to
help clarify the fact that the volunteer firefighters should not be
counted as full-time equivalents under the employer mandate under the
health care law, more commonly known as ObamaCare.
It has been very clear to me, after having meetings with many of my
friends in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, where a number of firefighters
from different fire companies came to speak to me on this issue, that
the potential impact of this idea of counting volunteer firefighters as
full-time equivalents will really have a very negative impact on public
safety in that particular community, where volunteer firefighters
really do provide the bulk of the fire service, as is the case in much
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and throughout the country.
It is clear to me that the health care law is riddled with so many
problems. We always knew that this employer mandate was going to be a
problem where it says that if you have more than 50 employees you are
going to have to provide health care benefits after the first 30 for
those working more than 30 hours a week.
I don't think anybody in their wildest imagination would have ever
thought that a volunteer fire company would have been impacted by this.
It raises a whole host of questions too: Well, are those volunteer
firefighters part of the municipal workforce? There are all sorts of
questions that we simply don't know the answers to.
It is my hope that we never have to address the Barletta legislation,
as important as it is. I am hopeful that the IRS will come to a ruling
at some point to clarify the fact that these volunteers are not full-
time equivalents for the purpose of the health care law in the employee
mandate. That would be the easiest way out. Absent an IRS ruling, well
then let's pass this bill. I am proud to be a cosponsor. I am delighted
that my good friend and colleague Lou Barletta, we share a county,
Dauphin County, in the Harrisburg area. We share that county. This is
also a very big issue in that part of the State.
It is important that we move forward with this legislation in the
event that the IRS fails to do its job and provide the clarity and the
guidance that so many of our volunteers depend on. More important than
the volunteers is the people they serve. These volunteer firefighters
are protecting us and this employer mandate will only make that task
that much more difficult and deny fire service, unfortunately, to too
many people across the country in the Commonwealth.
With that, I commend my friend, Mr. Barletta, for his very important
legislation.
{time} 1900
Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Dent.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Meehan).
Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I want to join the gentleman and my colleagues not just
from Pennsylvania but from across the Nation as we challenge this
problem that has emerged. Once again, it is symbolic of a number of
things--of when we heard the mantra: just pass it, and we will find out
what is in it.
We have found out what is in it more and more frequently; and once
again, we are beginning to see the implications of a law that was not
understood when it was passed and that is now becoming worse as it is
being implemented. As my colleagues have stated, it begins here in this
particular circumstance with the IRS and the determination that
volunteers are going to be considered to be employees of
municipalities.
In places like mine, the impact of this is very severe because, if
this kind of thing happens in the first place, think of the concept of
a volunteer. These are the guys who are getting up at 2:30 or 3 o'clock
in the morning on these cold evenings like this and answering the call
and going out and putting out the fires in homes in neighborhoods like
ours. They are going to be considered to be employees under this law,
but that means that the municipalities are going to be fined if they
choose not to supply the kinds of medical that will be required under
the Affordable Care Act, under ObamaCare. Then, if they do pay for it,
what is going to happen in communities like mine is that that cost is
going to be passed through.
I sat and I asked the mayor--and I have five separate volunteer fire
companies just in my own township--and he estimated that it would cost
about $4 million a year to provide that kind of health care coverage to
the members of the volunteer fire departments who were there. Now,
where do you think that $4 million is going to come from? It is going
to come from the homeowners and the taxpayers in our districts, who are
going to see their taxes raised to pay for this service for volunteers.
This is how insane it is.
The second part of what is so frustrating is the difficulty of
dealing with this bureaucracy because, some 3 months ago, like many of
my colleagues, I wrote to the IRS and asked for a simple clarification:
Why can't we just have a clear signal sent to these departments which
rely on this kind of certainty to be able to make decisions as they
move forward on the utilization of their resources? These are the guys
who are holding bake sales to be able to find the money to put together
the equipment and other kinds of needs that they have, and they have
got to worry about whether they are going to be encumbered by this kind
of a bill.
So, for so many reasons, we need clarification and we need action.
Once again, this is symbolic of the particular problems that are faced
by this interpretation, which is affecting communities all across the
Nation. When I
[[Page H67]]
say ``all across the Nation,'' that is 750,000 volunteers in fire
departments and some 25,000 fire companies that are volunteers all
across this Nation. It is touching every community in America.
I join my colleagues in the hope that we will be able to get some
action from the IRS and this administration so we don't have to rely on
the passage of the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency
Responders Act to get the clarification that we need.
I thank my colleague for his leadership on this issue.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Speaker, if you could just imagine the bookkeeping nightmare that
these volunteer fire departments would face in determining whether or
not the volunteer firefighters have worked 30 hours or not in order to
be considered a full-time employee or less. Do they count the times
that they have their pagers on as hours worked or the time that they
are listening to a scanner or the 12- or 24-hour shifts that many of
the volunteers would have to work and who would record this? It is the
fact that these men and women who are volunteers to protect the
communities that they love would be forced into doing things that we
just know they wouldn't do. It would simply close firehouses or
volunteers would no longer be volunteering their time.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. David Joyce.
Mr. JOYCE. I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding and thank
Mr. Barletta for organizing this Special Order on this important
legislation.
Mr. Speaker, we are here today because it is critical that we protect
our local volunteer firefighters from the Affordable Care Act's
employer mandate. As we all know, the IRS has a history of treating
volunteers as employees for tax purposes; and if the employer mandate
is incorrectly implemented, volunteer fire departments may be forced to
comply with these requirements, and that could force them to close or
to curtail their emergency response services.
In the seven counties I represent in northeastern Ohio, there are
over 220 fire departments, many of them with an all-volunteer force.
Chief Scott Hildebrand related to me that some of these departments
will be forced to double in size due to the mandate, and each one of
these extra volunteers will need additional turnout gear at a cost of
$2,500 to $3,000 per individual.
Before coming to Congress, I was the Geauga County prosecutor for 25
years. During that time, I founded an organization called the Geauga
Bluecoats. The Bluecoats is a charitable organization that provides
relief and services to the family members of police, fire and emergency
responders who have become disabled or who have lost their lives in the
line of duty. These men and women are our friends--they are our
neighbors--and they have gone above and beyond the call of duty. We owe
it to our local communities to continue to allow these brave men and
women to carry out their duties.
This legislation will ensure that those brave men and women are
protected from the employer mandate and can continue to serve.
I thank Mr. Barletta for his leadership on this, and I urge my
colleagues to support this legislation.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Kansas, Ms. Lynn
Jenkins.
Ms. JENKINS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for
his leadership on this critical issue. I will note that I am a proud
cosponsor of this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I grew up on a family farm in Holton, Kansas. However,
as anyone from a tight-knit community knows, folks see it as a civic
duty to pitch in where help is needed. This means that many folks
choose to be volunteer firefighters. These volunteers give freely of
their time and well-being to help ensure that, when disaster occurs,
folks in the community are safe. I know this well because my daddy
served as a Kansas State fire marshal for many years.
I have spent significant time on the House floor talking about the
unintended consequences of passing the President's health care law,
which allows the government to take control of the health care
industry. This is another one of those unintended consequences.
The President's health care law will penalize volunteer firefighters
and EMTs by counting them as full-time employees and possibly
subjecting their departments to the employer mandate tax.
Penalizing volunteer fire departments should not be the intent of the
President's health care law, and the effects could be disastrous. In
Kansas alone, there are 550 volunteer fire departments that are staffed
by 13,000 volunteer firefighters. It would be a terrible mistake to
jeopardize the status of these departments and the communities they
serve by penalizing them under the Affordable Care Act. Given the
commonsense nature of this legislation and the bipartisan support of
it, I remain committed to ensuring that this gets fixed.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentlewoman from Kansas.
I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).
Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his leadership
on this important issue.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the more we learn about ObamaCare, the
more disappointing it becomes. The American people continue to be
disappointed that President Obama's health care law is not only
wreaking havoc on their families and that it is not only wreaking havoc
on small businesses and on our economy but that now it could be
endangering our communities that rely on emergency response services
provided by volunteer firefighters and EMTs. This is impacting
volunteer firefighters in my home State of Kentucky.
Just this morning, despite a windchill of negative 5 degrees,
firefighters in Anderson County, Kentucky, rushed to the aid of fellow
citizens to battle a barn fire that was threatening to spread to a
nearby home. As their equipment and even the water froze in the extreme
temperatures, these brave firefighters courageously took shifts to
protect their community.
It is not unusual for these heroic men and women to routinely perform
acts of bravery. It is also not unusual for them to hold pancake
breakfasts or chili dinners simply to raise enough money to pay their
electricity bills. These volunteer companies are now being asked to
provide coverage under ObamaCare's costly employer mandate, which
Anderson County Fire Chief Mike Barnes warned could force them to lay
off heroic, life-saving personnel and leave communities like
Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, in Anderson County, without adequate fire
protection.
So, while fire departments work tirelessly to provide essential
safety services, we must do everything we can to ensure that our
emergency services volunteers are not forced to be counted as full-time
employees under ObamaCare. It is a cost they simply cannot absorb.
The project of ObamaCare is the project of the entire Obama
Presidency. It is a project to determine whether or not Big Government
can solve big problems. It is a project to determine whether or not the
Federal Government can micromanage one-sixth of the American economy.
With this issue with these volunteer fire departments, we now find out,
once again, that ObamaCare and the project that it embodies is an
abject failure.
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, may I have a time update, please.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has 10
minutes remaining.
Mr. BARLETTA. I would like to yield at this time to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Collins).
Mr. COLLINS of New York. I would like to thank my friend from
Pennsylvania for taking up this important and timely issue.
Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare has proven to be the devastating law that many
of us predicted. The recent debacle of the online exchange roll-out and
the negative impact the law has had on our economy seem to be only the
beginning of the problems we face. Every few weeks, we hear about more
unintended consequences of the law, which are hurting the very people
the President and the Democrats in Congress promised to protect.
The IRS considers volunteer emergency responders, including
firefighters, employees for tax purposes. Under this employee
designation, large
[[Page H68]]
volunteer fire departments will be subject to the ObamaCare employer
mandate. This will force them to provide health insurance to their
volunteers or to pay a significant penalty. These unnecessary costs
will cripple the strong volunteer fire community that protects western
New York and the rest of the country.
In November of last year, I wrote a letter to the Acting Commissioner
of the IRS, seeking a specific exemption for volunteer responders, but
my office has yet to receive a reply. Since the administration has not
corrected this disservice to America's volunteer EMTs and firefighters,
we must act legislatively.
I urge the House to take up H.R. 3685 and address this issue as soon
as possible. We must protect our volunteer emergency service responders
so they can continue to protect us.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman from New York.
I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers).
Mr. STIVERS. I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
would like to thank him for his strong leadership on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 3685. The health care law
could cause many communities to lose fire service because of an
unintended consequence of the law that would treat these volunteer
firefighters as employees and that would require them to have health
insurance.
Volunteer firefighters risk their lives every day to provide our
safety. They provide important emergency services in many of our
communities. In fact, in Ohio, 70 percent of our fire departments are
either fully or partially staffed by over 16,000 volunteer
firefighters. Unfortunately, we could risk service in some of our
communities if these communities are required to pay either a penalty
or provide insurance. My district towns, like McConnelsville, Ohio, use
volunteer firefighters, and they raise money. Every year at a dinner,
they raise about $10,000 to help pay for the costs associated with
their volunteer firefighters. If they had to pay penalties and
insurance on top of that, it could cause them to lose service. I think
these families and these communities that are served by volunteer
firefighters deserve the same service as other communities and
shouldn't lose their services as a result of the health care law.
We don't want to put American families and Ohio families at risk of
losing their fire service, which is why I am a proud cosponsor of H.R.
3685.
I would like to thank the gentleman for his leadership, and I hope
everyone will support the bill.
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, may I have a time update again.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has 6
minutes remaining.
Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Meadows).
Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for
his leadership on this commonsense approach to solving a problem that
was unintended.
Mr. Speaker, when it really gets down to it, our firefighters and our
first responders deserve our attention and our support. They are the
ones who, quite frankly, are missing birthdays, anniversaries, who are
called out in the middle of the night to serve their communities. My
communities in western North Carolina are served by some of the
greatest volunteers that a country could want; and here we are tonight,
debating this over something that should be common sense.
I would just urge my colleagues across the aisle to join with many of
the fire chiefs whom we talked to today--over 13 of them--from large
counties and small counties alike, Democrats and Republicans. Every one
of them without exception, Mr. Speaker, said that we need to address
this because it will hurt the people that they serve.
{time} 1915
I think it is time that we come together in this Chamber and make
sure that we correct a wrong that has been done.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr.
McKinley).
Mr. McKINLEY. Thank you, Congressman, for your leadership on this
matter.
According to Tom Miller, the West Virginia representative to the
National Volunteer Fire Council, 95 percent of all fire departments in
West Virginia are staffed by volunteers.
To pay for their training, equipment, and operating costs, these men
and women are forced to raise money through bake sales, pancake
breakfasts, steak dinners, and standing in the streets, humbly, at the
stoplights, holding their boots out and asking people to put money into
those boots. And now these financially strapped fire departments have
been told that they may have to pay health care costs.
Mr. Miller has projected that the added cost of paying for this
health care for these volunteers will force some departments to close
their doors, putting families and businesses at risk.
Mr. Speaker, cutting emergency services upon which rural America
depends is clearly an unintended consequence of ObamaCare. Therefore,
we must exempt our volunteer emergency responders from this additional
cost by bringing this bill to the floor as soon as possible.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman from West Virginia.
I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).
Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for yielding and
for sponsoring this. As a 30-year-plus State-certified volunteer EMT
and rescue technician, on behalf of my brother and sister firefighters
and rescue workers, EMTs, EMS folks, thank you for your leadership on
this.
Just very quickly, our volunteers are not employees. Our volunteers
are neighbors helping neighbors. Our volunteers are community servants.
They are trained professionals today. They are heroes. They are willing
to walk into burning buildings when everyone else is running out. But
they are not employees. And it is time for the Obama administration and
the IRS to give us that clarification.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
I yield to the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Mrs. Noem).
Mrs. NOEM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I rise today as a cosponsor of H.R. 3685, the Protecting Volunteer
Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act. I am very proud to do so.
In my home State of South Dakota, there are nearly 8,000 volunteer
firefighters and over 350 volunteer fire departments. These men and
women are on the front lines protecting our families, our homes, and
our businesses. Nearly every one of them fulfills that duty while
holding down a full-time or part-time job that oftentimes covers their
health insurance coverage.
I had one constituent from Rapid City drive home the point to me,
talking about the shoestring budget they operate on. Many departments
raise money privately at community events and dinners to make ends
meet. Requiring them to cover health insurance, as the Affordable Care
Act may do, would be extremely detrimental.
Emergency service volunteers are essential to our safety and well-
being for South Dakota families and businesses. That is why I am proud
to support this bill and proud to speak on its behalf today.
Mr. BARLETTA. I thank the gentlewoman from South Dakota.
Mr. Speaker, I had sincerely hoped that we wouldn't have to be here
this evening to take up the valuable time of this body, but the flaws
in the Affordable Care Act and the deafening silence from the IRS on a
question so basic and obvious compels our attention.
Over 1,000 different groups have received waivers from the Affordable
Care Act, covering over 3 million people. Don't our volunteer
firefighters and the communities they serve and protect deserve at
least the same consideration?
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________