STAND BEHIND THE BILL!
BY BILL MANNING
Even before Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) introduced to Congress H.R. 4229, the “21st Century Fire and Public Safety Act,” the naysayers surfaced. From Capitol Hill. From the “inside.” From special interest groups. And–you guessed it–from the fire service itself.
Early this year, Pascrell attempted to quantify the federal commitment to local fire departments. He was shocked to find that the “commitment” didn`t even show up on General Accounting Office ledgers. So he crafted a bill for fire departments that mirrors existing federal legislation by which more than $7 billion per year is passed directly to local police departments.
H.R. 4229 would award, as administered by the United States Fire Administration, $1 billion in federal grants yearly for five years to local fire departments “to better protect public safety against fire and fire-related hazards.” It seeks a matching fund requirement of 10, 15, or 25 percent from the local jurisdiction, depending on population. The bill lists 12 items for which the grants may be used: hiring firefighters, purchasing apparatus and equipment, training firefighters, funding RIT teams, fire codes enforcement, fire inspector certification, arson prevention/detection training, public education on arson, funding for fire service EMS, acquiring personal protective equipment; fire prevention programs for young and old people, and hazardous materials training.
After having been a virtual nonentity in Washington for so long, you`d think the fire service would be clamoring to carry the Pascrell flag. That hasn`t been the case. The bill has received benign resistance from the major fire service groups.
“We support the congressman`s effort. We support the concept. But I can`t say we support the legislation,” says Alan Caldwell, government affairs director for the IAFC. “When you say `support,` you lobby for it, devote resources to it. Even next year I don`t think the bill has much of a chance. It`s very doubtful that $5 billion will go to the fire service. From a practical point of view–not on the merits–the bill`s got a problem. How do I spend my time lobbying for something I know I can`t get?”
“The goals are worthwhile and realistic,” says George Burke, director of public affairs for the International Association of Fire Fighters, noting that the IAFF will work to create a national strategy that deals with this and other legislation, “but we have some priorities of our own that have to take precedence.”
I almost forgot. This is the fire service, and we must be consistent with our historically based politics of self-destruction.
In a July 17 letter to Pascrell, the “Anointed Seven” fire service organizations (International Association of Arson Investigators, International Association of Fire Chiefs, International Association of Fire Fighters, International Society of Fire Service Instructors, National Association of State Fire Marshals, National Fire Protection Association, and National Volunteer Fire Council) carefully but unquestionably took aim at H.R. 4229.
“With respect to regulatory matters, Congress can better serve the interest of the fire service by addressing the critical issues of radio spectrum for interoperability purposes and placarding of vehicles transporting hazardous materials,” the letter states. Those are indeed important issues, but, as one observer aptly questioned, can the fire organizations walk and chew gum at the same time?
One off-the-record source indicates the letter was an attempt to intercept the efforts by some fire organizations to scuttle the bill outright. Whether or not that`s true, the letter very subtly serves notice on Pascrell that the bill won`t succeed without the Anointed Seven. They`ll play ball only after the results are in from a congressional commission for terrorist incident response and FEMA Director James Lee Witt`s blue ribbon panel on the Federal Fire Programs. Does the fire service have that kind of time?
Most likely it`s true, as some insiders suggest, that the bill needs work from a practical standpoint, that it needs to be beefed up and substantiated. Perhaps, as some have nicely implied, I`m such a neophyte that I don`t know a politically good bill when I see one. But I defy anyone to argue that the bill doesn`t at least begin to account for what is most urgently needed in this fire service, as determined by the local jurisdiction, without federal strings attached: more people on the line, more training for the people on the line, better fire codes enforcement for buildings that kill firefighters, turnout gear for firefighters who operate in raincoats and dungarees, EMS service enhancement, apparatus for departments that still run with their 1958 Mack pumper–you name it. And if those are the things most urgently needed, then why aren`t the organizations that represent firefighters displaying greater urgency in their reaction to the bill?
Are the increasing fireground death and injury rates superseded by truck placarding or the stockpiling of pharmaceuticals? Are the Anointed Seven on the side of the firefighter or on the side of the Anointed Seven? It`s not an unfair question to ask, given that we`ve had decades of political failure from the same basic cast of characters throwing out the roadblocks now.
Or is it simply that there`s some embarrassment–draped by ego–in a practically unknown first-term congressman asking for what the fire service organizations should have asking for all along? Does it embarrass organizations that while they`re popping champagne corks over the $12 million pittance they got from Congress for terrorist response, some “unknown” is going for the big enchilada? Is it upsetting that the $5 billion would bypass the Anointed Seven?
The fire service must shortly get an answer to the question of whether the fire organizations are doing a good job at representing the fire service`s predominant interests or are so entrenched in cannibalistic, self-perpetuating politics that we`re destined for another two or three or seven decades of no federal money. Face it–and this is coming from an anti-big-government guy–local jurisdictions simply cannot support everything fire departments are called on to do within appropriate margins of safety and effectiveness. It`s going to require what for the fire service is big federal money. Even then, if you break it down simply, $5 billion equates to about $30,000 per department per year for five years. Maybe we need four or five Pascrell bills.
Distancing the organizations from the bill is a clever ploy. Without complete support, the bill most likely will fail. And in its failure, which they would hasten by inaction, there is for the organizations a warped justification for past failures to protect through appropriate federal initiatives the interests of their dues-paying members. If you doubt those failures, just look at the 25-year plunder of the USFA and National Fire Academy. Or the disgrace that is the Rural Fire Forces Mobilization Act.
The IAFC leadership contends that the fire service doesn`t suffer from a lack of leadership, but too much leadership. In some ways that may be true. But the groups` reaction to H.R. 4229 doesn`t smell like leadership to me.
The bill has two cosponsors, Congressman Rob Andrews (D-NJ) and Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) is not yet on board and is awaiting results of the congressional commission on terrorism response. The bill has a long way to go. Those on the Washington scene say the bill “has no legs,” but it is up to you to give it the legs it needs.
Today make three phone calls. Make the first to your loved ones. Make the second to your members of Congress in the House of Representatives and Senate. Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121, and they`ll connect you with your representatives. Tell your representatives that you support H.R. 4229. If you need a copy of the bill to study, ask for an aide who can supply it. Make your third call to the organization(s) to which you pay dues and tell them to stand behind the bill.
Battalion Chief Tom Kennedy, committee member of the Northeastern States Fire Consortium, a pro-firefighter grassroots coalition that deserves admiration–and the only organization to my knowledge that has come out in full support of the bill–has challenged the big organizations to do whatever it takes to get the bill ready by January 1999 and lobby congressional support. “If they can`t justify $1 billion a year for the fire service,” says Kennedy, “then we need to get new people as leaders.”
