BY BILL MANNING
In mid-December, 2000, we proclaimed political victory. By the first of March, it was all slipping away.
Just a couple of months after eleventh-hour, historic fire service legislation made federal funds available to strapped local fire departments in 2001, President George W. Bush threatened to take it all away in 2002 and possibly beyond. Released in February, the Bush Administration’s 2002 budget proposal, entitled “A Blueprint for New Beginnings: A Responsible Budget for America’s Priorities,” threatened to terminate the FIRE Act, calling it “unneeded.”
By considering the fire grant program phaseout a “highlight” of its 2002 funding plan for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which through the United States Fire Administration manages the grant process, the Administration demonstrated that the critical concerns of one million firefighters are not a priority. It’s a “new beginning” for the fire service, if that means tackling huge emergency preparedness challenges the way it’s always been done, exclusively with insufficient local monies.
Perhaps this slap should not have shocked us, because the President demonstrated little concern for firefighter issues during his campaign.
The Administration offered two reasons for its anti-FIRE Act position: The FIRE Act, it said, “was authorized for only two years” and “does not represent an appropriate responsibility of the Federal Government.” The first reason, a statement of fact, is a blunt reality check. Startup programs for small fry interests-even those in the interest of public safety-are easy budget-cutting targets. National fire policy issues don’t make the evening news. Fire organizations don’t maintain large political action committees (PACs), and the one organization that does-the International Association of Fire Fighters-put its PAC money into the Al Gore campaign.
In light of our political vulnerability, our fire service leaders should remember that the congressional maneuverings that stripped the original FIRE Act funding levels to the least common denominator, which we were so willing to accept because we wanted to get something, anything before time ran out, were as much a threat to the FIRE Act’s existence as they were the mechanism behind it. Our buying the promise that it was “only the first installment” put the legislation in a vulnerable position, as it turned out.
The second reason given is a tired but convenient old mantra chanted by opponents of federal aid to fire departments, which flies in the face of common sense and real need. So long as the “fire and emergency response is a local issue” argument continues to pollute the atmosphere and remain effective-so long as the fire service fails to dispel the myth through public channels-we will be forever cursed as a little bottom feeder in the political pond, a needy constituency toiling in the shadows of “more for less” local economics that has choked the fire service since the mid 1970s.
Following the new budget proposal release, some politically savvy fire service leaders issued dim prognoses. Getting a $300 million appropriation in federal grants already authorized by Congress for 2002, they said, would be nearly impossible. They weren’t wrong.
But the fire service and its friends mobilized swiftly. That’s one thing we’re learning in all this-how to be a squeaky wheel. Petitions and letters were drafted, circulated, signed, and sent to the President. Association press releases attacked Bush’s anti-fire service proposal. Our lobbyists lobbied, our leaders led. A few representatives spoke out loudly; Congressman Bill Pascrell, for one, called for a full-scale firefighter rally in Washington. Congressman Curt Weldon and 10 fire service-sensitive Republicans met with the director of the Office of Management and Budget, asking the Administration to reconsider its position on the fire grant program. Perhaps most important, Weldon and others appealed to new FEMA Director Joe M. Allbaugh.
Allbaugh, a former law enforcement officer, was a member of Bush’s so-called “Iron Triangle”-one of three individuals who served as the President’s closest political confidants while he was governor of Texas. He was the Bush-Cheney 2000 national campaign manager and before that the governor’s chief of staff and point man for emergencies and disasters in the state. Now, as head of FEMA-the position he requested of Bush-Allbaugh is a key to our future federal support.
On March 20, Allbaugh convened a meeting of representatives of the major fire service groups to announce that the Administration was restoring $100 million to the FIRE Act in 2002. “As our nation’s first responders to disasters, the fire service deserves FEMA’s support, and the continuation of this vital program acknowledges their important role,” said Allbaugh.
That’s good news, of course, even though it’s one-third the amount authorized by Congress. There are even more encouraging signs. Jerry Naylis, president of the International Association of Arson Investigators, who was present at the March 20 meeting, said, “Allbaugh made it clear he intends to advocate for even more going forward. He wants to become a greater advocate for the fire service, recognizing that FEMA and the fire service should have an equal partnership in the disaster response infrastructure.”
“I’m in a unique position,” Allbaugh was quoted as saying at the meeting. “I’m not afraid to speak to the fire service …. We made this [the $100 million for 2002] happen.” He says he is committed to a “change of attitude in how the USFA is treated” by FEMA within government.
For now, Allbaugh is helping to keep us in the game. But future success beyond 2002 relies on two absolute contingencies.
First, the USFA’s funding mechanism, currently under construction, must be implemented without hiccups. We have to be successful with the first $100 million. That means the process has to be effective and the grants awarded justifiable as in the best interests of the nation. Under the leadership of USFA Chief Operating Officer Ken Burris, there is every reason to expect positive outcomes in this regard.
Second, the fire service must quickly bring a tight case forward to Congress detailing why the grant program must extend beyond 2002, and at greater funding levels. Comprehensive emergency response data are essential in telling the real story of nationwide response deficiencies that place firefighters and the public at greater risk. We can’t do it without the data. War stories and fire patriotism are not enough. And where are these data coming from, with NFIRS 5.0 being the mess that it is?
We have some good friends in Congress, and now, it appears, in the Bush Cabinet. But in the end, it is up to us. It always has been. Either we make the case in a way politicians can’t ignore or resign ourselves to the role of political expendables, marginal players barely hanging on.
