[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12517]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          FIREFIGHTER INVESTMENT AND RESPONSE ENHANCEMENT ACT

  (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I am the proud sponsor of the Firefighter 
Investment and Response Enhancement Act, better known as the Fire Bill. 
It has almost 280 sponsors.
  The bill will provide competitive grants directly to over 32,000 
paid, part-paid, and volunteer fire departments across America.
  On April 12 of this year, we had a hearing on this legislation before 
the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Emergency Management 
of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. At this 
hearing, a colleague from across the aisle stated that my legislation 
does not have the support of the administration. He challenged me to 
get it. Today I am here to present the administration's unwavering 
support of H.R. 1168 to the House.
  I have a letter from Jack Lew, who is the Budget Director for the 
White House. This letter expresses, and I quote, ``the Administration 
supports passage of the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement 
Act.''
  We owe it to the firefighters of America, Mr. Speaker, who put their 
lives at risk every day to save ours, to bring this legislation to the 
floor. It is about time we took care of the other side of the public 
safety equation, our firefighters.

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