CONGRESSIONAL CLIPBOARD
BY the time this article is published, the Senate will have voted on the budget for the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Aeademy. In all likelihood, the Senate will have restored two full-time employees who the administration cut and resolved the issue of site administration at the National Emergency Training Center. This would cost about $100,000. No, not $1 million, or $100 million, but S 100,000. Not to trivialize the value of a dollar, it is nevertheless worth noting that the U.S. Fire Administration must have one of a very few programs over which Congress quibbles about any sum that is not a round million.
To understand the obstacles the fire service faces in securing federal resources, one has to see the needs of the fire service in relationship to competing programs, since that’s how Congress sees them. Each year when Congress passes the budget, “pork barrel” spending provisions are inserted to serve representatives’ interests back home: S2 million for a study here, S5 million for a demonstration project there—they’re strewn about appropriations bills like rice at a wedding. Apparently nobody considers fire safety to be of “special interest” in their home state, hence the battle to keep the USFA’s budget alive.
The FY90 House appropriation for FEMA, for example, emerged from a committee having reduced by two the current staff of four full-time employees in the Fire Prevention and Arson Control program. At the same time, the committee awarded the hazardous materials program 11 additional full-time employees who were never requested and for whom FEMA has no immediate use. This was clearly the result of a strong lobbying effort on somebody’s part—somebody other than FEMA and the fire service.
There are obviously members of Congress, not to mention the public, who, when they view the fire problem in America today, do not see it as meriting a significant dedication of national resources. Robert Cassidy, editor of Research and Development magazine, is among them. In his July issue, Cassidy maintains that the Hotel-Motel Fire Safety Act, introduced by Congressmen Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Doug Walgren (D-PA) to promote the use of fire-safety devices in hotels and motels, is diverting Congress’ attention from really important issues, such as “highdefinition television.” The fact that hundreds of people have died in fires in unprotected hotels and motels is of no importance compared with the thought that millions of Americans may, even now, be watching blurry television.
As it so happens, Cassidy cannot complain about the resources devoted to high-definition television research. This month, the House authorizing committee earmarked S300 million over a three-year period for research into HDTV. In contrast, the federal government will appropriate roughly one-fifth that amount for the USFA and NFA, which together comprise the primary federal effort to address the fire problem. I haven’t seen any figures on how much it will cost if we lose the HDTV market to the Japanese, but I’m certain that you won’t be able to count the toll in human lives. All this does not prove that federal funding is misdirected; it simply proves that a unified agenda and an active lobbying effort are things you can take to the bank.
I should note that the FY90 appropriation passed by the House restored two programs that had been more or less gutted in the Administration’s budget proposal, fire prevention and arson control and the student stipend program for travel to the National Fire Academy. The latter, of course, would have been a severe blow to the fire service and would portend the demise of the academy. Both of these programs have been protected by the House and will most probably be protected by the Senate as well.
Each year, however, protecting the public becomes an increasingly complex task for the fire service. As the proliferation of chemicals, nuclear waste, and toxic materials alters our environment, firefighting likewise becomes more hazardous and the issues involved more complicated. Fifteen years ago, the Federal Fire Prevention and Arson Control Act advanced a vision of strong federal involvement in fire safety efforts. Today that effort has been reduced to a somewhat feeble answer to the problems facing the fire service. If we only manage to hold the line for another 15 years, those efforts will sound more like the death rattle of attempts to implement America Burning.
Millions of dollars in “pork barrel” spending provisions are strewn about appropriations bills like rice at a wedding.
Understanding and working with the budget process—whereby federal money is first authorized, then actually appropriated for expenditure—is a key that opens many doors. A great deal can be accomplished with the support of the congressional committees that authorize and appropriate money for fire programs, and very little without it.
Naturally, every problem cannot be solved with a big check from the federal government, but then many problems do not require one. A major issue in the FY90 FEMA appropriation has been keeping the National Fire Academy’s contribution to site administration at the National Emergency Training Center on the budget of the NFA. The Administration’s proposal to make that money a separate item in the budget, significantly reducing the NFA’s control over expenditure of its funds at the NETC, can only be changed by the appropriating committees. Whether or not the committees fully understand this concern will determine whether the budgets of USFA and NFA shrink by nearly S5 million and 34 employees.
As you discuss fire safety issues with your representatives, remember that some of those concerns can and must be addressed through the budget process. Ultimately, the corollary of more legislation affecting firefighters must be the dedication of more federal resources, or the streamlining of existing resources, to implement that legislation. Title III of the Superfund Reauthorization Act Amendments is convincing evidence that legislative solutions often carry a high price tag. These costs, if not borne by the government, will logically fall on the fire service in one way or another. Remember that if you find yourself watching an American-made HDTV three years from now.
