[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 18, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2976-S2977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mrs. Gillibrand):
  S. 2944. A bill to require adequate reporting on the Public Safety 
Officers' Benefit program, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
the Judiciary.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill I am 
introducing along with Senator Grassley called the Public Safety 
Officers' Benefits Improvement Act.
  When our first responders make the decision to join a police 
department or a fire department or an EMT squad, they do so knowing 
they might encounter hazards on the job that threaten their lives or 
even end their lives. These men and women work in some of the highest 
pressure and most dangerous environments--shootouts, fires, natural 
disasters, terror attacks.
  Think about your own communities back home. When disaster strikes, 
when there is an emergency, who shows up first, speeding to the scene 
and ready to help? It is our police officers, it is our firefighters, 
and it is our EMT workers. Our public safety officers know that death 
or serious injury is a real risk in their jobs, but they show up to 
work anyway, ready to help and willing to sacrifice, if that is what it 
takes to keep their communities safe.
  When first responders die as a result of their work, we all have the 
responsibility to help take care of their surviving family members. In 
1984, more than three decades ago, Congress did the right thing and 
created a program called the Public Safety Officers' Benefit Program to 
help these families.
  Whenever a tragedy struck and a first responder was killed on the job 
or passed away because of their job, these grieving families could take 
a little bit of comfort in knowing they would have the financial 
support they needed with this program. They knew they would have help 
from this program, transitioning to a life without their loved one.
  In recent years, the families applying to the program have faced 
confusing and inconsistent requirements. They have faced long delays in 
receiving compensation. Before, when a loved one died on the job, the 
family would get compensation from this program without any serious 
delay. But now the burden to claim these funds and then retrieve them 
has been placed on the families--the same families this program is 
supposed to be helping.
  As a result, hundreds of families who are already grieving now have 
to dig through public records themselves. They have to endure an 
exhausting paper chase with no guidance. And they have to go far beyond 
a reasonable doubt to prove to the Justice Department that their loved 
one did, in fact, serve as a first responder and sacrificed his or her 
life for this job.
  Last fall, USA Today reported that of the more than 900 cases they 
reviewed, the average wait for a decision by the program about 
compensation was more than 1 year. For some families, it was 2 years, 
and for some, the wait was 3 years. This even includes our first 
responders who worked at Ground Zero. Think about the unnecessary 
stress these delays have placed on our families who lost loved ones.
  We know we must fix this program. We must fix this program. These 
families of our fallen public safety officers are not getting the 
compensation they deserve, that their loved ones have earned, in the 
timely manner they need.
  This bill--Senator Grassley's and mine--is a bipartisan bill that 
fixes this problem. The Public Safety Officers' Benefits Improvement 
Act would make this compensation program more transparent and more 
efficient, and it would make sure it works.
  The bill would require the program to report publicly the status of 
every claim so that families can know if and why their compensation is 
being delayed. It would give weight to the findings and records of 
Federal agencies, State agencies, and local agencies about the cause of 
the public safety officer's death so that families don't have to 
reproduce records that already exist. And this bill would reduce the 
wait for our families to receive the compensation they deserve and 
desperately need.
  I thank my colleague Senator Grassley for his strong leadership and 
his amazing advocacy, and I urge all my colleagues here to support this 
bill. Let's fix the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program. Let's 
take care of these families--the families of our public safety 
officers--and let's do the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for 
working together on this very important issue to get justice for some 
of our police officers and their families who have been burdened by too 
much redtape. She and I have worked together on so many things, and I 
appreciate this one as well.
  In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation designating 
this week as National Police Week. As part of that tradition, tens of 
thousands of law enforcement officers have gathered in our Nation's 
Capital to honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to the 
service of this Nation.
  I rise to join these officers in thanking the men and women who have 
dedicated their lives to protecting our communities. We must never take 
their sacrifice for granted, and we need to appreciate that their 
surviving families have suffered real loss.
  In recognition of this truth, Congress passed the Public Safety 
Officers' Benefits Act in 1976. The goal of the law was to provide 
death benefits to survivors of officers who die in the line of duty. 
Over the years, the law has been amended to provide disability and 
education benefits and to expand the pool of officers who are eligible 
for these benefits.
  Looking at the 40-year history of this law, the overall intent of 
Congress is very clear: Families of fallen officers deserve a fair and 
timely consideration of their application for these benefits, and the 
word ``timely'' is what isn't being carried out right now.
  If we were in these officers' shoes, we would like to see an answer--
either yes or no--not years of limbo and lingering uncertainty. 
Unfortunately, that is precisely what too many families have had to 
endure since at least 2003, all because bureaucrats in the Justice 
Department failed to do their job and do it on time.
  Three weeks ago, I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing to examine 
this problem on the lack of timeliness. What we found was troubling. 
The Justice Department has a goal of processing these claims within 1 
year of filing. However, according to the most recent data, the Justice 
Department is failing to meet its own 1-year deadline in 61 percent of 
the 693 pending death benefit claims. Those are 423 families who have 
been waiting for more than 1 year. That rate is unacceptable for a 
program designed to support families of fallen officers.
  Somehow, the delays have gone from bad to worse. The failure rate was 
27 percent for claims that were filed between 2008 and 2013. So it is 
very difficult to understand how that could happen.
  For 13 years and counting, since 2003, the delays have persisted 
despite a 2004

[[Page S2977]]

Attorney General memorandum, despite a 2007 Judiciary Committee 
hearing, and despite three independent audits recommending corrective 
action. Not surprisingly, there have been periodic improvements in 
timeliness whenever Congress or watchdogs shine light into these 
delays. However, these improvements have been very short-lived. For 
example, in 2007, the Justice Department more than doubled its monthly 
rate of processing claims in the first 2 months following a Judiciary 
Committee hearing. However, in the ensuing 5 years, the inspector 
general found not only significant delays but also a serious lack of 
documentation and data.
  I began looking into this program last January after constituents 
informed me that families in Iowa waited more than 3 years to get a 
decision, but the Justice Department's response to my oversight letters 
confirmed that these delays persist on a nationwide scale. For 
instance, there are currently 175 pending death and disability claims 
that were filed on behalf of officers who lost their lives as a result 
of their September 11 response efforts. That is why I have written six 
letters to the Justice Department in the last 1\1/2\ years asking for 
status updates on all pending claims. Initially, after I sent my first 
letters, the number of pending claims went down at a steady pace. 
However, more recently the Justice Department has simply failed to 
respond to my letters.
  At last month's Judiciary Committee hearing, a claimant from my State 
of Iowa testified about having waited 3\1/2\ years without an answer 
from the Justice Department, but just 2 days after that hearing, that 
claimant got a phone call from the Department saying the claim had been 
approved. What was the Justice Department doing for the past 3\1/2\ 
years on that claim? And what about the 692 other families who are 
waiting for a decision? Families of fallen officers and advocacy groups 
agree, transparency leads to accountability, and the Justice Department 
should be held accountable for its handling of these claims. So based 
on this 13-year record, I have concluded that the best way to ensure 
timeliness in these claims is to permanently increase the level of 
transparency surrounding this program.
  Today the Senator from New York, just speaking, and I are introducing 
a bill that would do just that. It is called the Public Safety 
Officers' Benefits Improvement Act. This bill would require the Justice 
Department to post on its Web site weekly status updates for all 
pending claims. This way the public can evaluate how well the 
Department is performing under its goal of processing claims within the 
1-year filing deadline they have. The Justice Department is already 
posting weekly statistics with respect to the September 11th Victims 
Compensation Fund, which is a similar program. So the Department should 
be able to do the same with respect to pending public safety officers' 
benefits claims by posting weekly statistics.
  In addition, our bill would require the Justice Department to report 
to Congress other aggregate statistics regarding these claims at least 
twice a year, and the bill would make it easier for the Justice 
Department to process these claims in other ways; for example, by 
allowing the Department to rely on other Federal regulatory standards 
and to give substantial weight to findings of fact of State, local, and 
other Federal agencies.
  In short, this is a simple bipartisan bill with narrowly tailored 
provisions. Each provision is targeted to specific problems that have 
been identified over the past 13 years by independent audits, by 
committee hearings, by advocacy groups, and, of course, as we would 
expect, by families of fallen officers who wonder what is going on at 
the Department of Justice.
  So I thank Senator Gillibrand for working with me to develop this 
commonsense legislation. I urge my colleagues to stand with us in 
support of these officers and their families and help us get this bill 
done as our way of saying thank you to these men and women, 
particularly as we honor them in this particular season we call 
National Police Week.
                                 ______