Welcome to IAAI’s March 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast. This month’s podcast features a conversation about legislative affairs affecting the fire service with Bill Webb, Executive Director of the Congressional Fire Services Research Institute. We’ll also introduce a new recurring podcast segment "Get A’s from Dr Q," where Dr. James Quintiere will answer your questions about fire science.

While topics like healthcare reform, bailouts, and stimulus dominate the headlines coming out of Washington, DC, many fire investigation professionals may not know that every day, Congress is considering pieces of legislation that directly impact the fire service. Currently, Congress is tackling a diverse range of fire related issues, including reauthorization of the Fire Grants Program, collective bargaining rights for public safety officers, fire scene employment-related adverse health exposures, and a fire sprinklers incentive program. The Congressional Fire Services Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute that educates Members of Congress about fire and life safety issues. Bill Webb, the CFSI Executive Director, is with us today to talk more about how Congress’ actions affect fire investigators. Bill, welcome.

BILL: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Q: So why should fire investigators be interested in legislative affairs? And how does Congress, what they do or do not do, affect the individual fire investigator?

BILL: There’s a lot of interesting issues up on Capitol Hill that deal with funding for the fire service and that includes arson investigators, that includes fire service personnel, that includes the training facilities, and, you know, as Congress grapples with these issues, everyone involved in public safety really has a vested interest in the outcome of Congress’ decisions. If you look at the budget proposal submitted by the Obama Administration, they put $305 million in there for the Fire Act and they put $305 million in for the SAFR program. Fire last year was funded at $390. At one point it was funded at $750 million so the trend is downward, and again, against this backdrop of mounting federal budget deficit, if we just kind of sit on our hands and be complacent, you know, we can’t expect to maintain funding let alone try and bump up funding for the programs.

On April 28th-29th the Congressional Fire Services Institute will host the 22nd annual national fire emergency services dinner and seminars program. We’ll have about 2,000 national fire and emergency service leaders in town for this program including a large number of arson investigators. We will have the leaders of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus including Congressman Steny Hoyer, who is the House majority leader, Senator McCain, Senator Carper, Congressman Andrews, Congresswoman Emerson and a whole host of other members of Congress and administration officials speaking at both the seminar program and the dinner itself. It’s a great opportunity for the fire service community to show who they are in Washington, DC. When you get 2,000 of your leading fire and emergency services officials in Washington, DC up on Capitol Hill on the same day, it sends a strong message just about the efficacy of the fire service and emergency services in terms of advocating these issues in one voice, and again, that’s what April 28th and 29th is all about, and information about that event, again, is available on our website.

Q: What is the Congressional Fire Caucus?

BILL: Well, the caucus and the institute, if you don’t mind, the institute is one thing and the caucus is the other. The institute is a 501C3 non-profit, non-partisan policy institute that was set up in 1989 to educate Congress about the big picture, the big picture of the fire service, the issues that affected the chief, the union, the volunteers and the academies. We look at the issues that impact everybody the same. The caucus, on the other hand, is comprised of members of Congress. It’s the largest caucus in Congress with over 300 members, both sides of the political aisle, republicans and democrats. In fact, we have some independents on board as well. We have four co-chairs on both the House and the Senate side and there are four republicans and four democrats. So it’s a bipartisan driven caucus that takes a lot of the partisan politics out of the public safety issues, and so you get, you know, leaders from both sides of the aisle addressing the fire service issues, again, in a bipartisan fashion.

Q: So what are the current hot issues CFSI is working on with Congress?

BILL: There are a ton of important issues that we’re dealing with right now. Again, the appropriations for fiscal year 2011, and that’s funding for the Fire Act, it’s funding for SAFR and let’s not forget the United States Fire Administration that does a great job up there in Emmetsburg under the leadership of Fire Administrator Cochran. We’re also looking at the reauthorization of both those programs, both fire and SAFR. They’re up for reauthorization. We’ve been working for the past six, seven months with the Fire Caucus leadership and the chair and ranking members of the oversight committees up on Capitol Hill with the reauthorization process, and the House did take action last year to pass a reauthorization measure and now the focus is on the Senate side. We’re waiting for the Senate to introduce a bill and hopefully it will mirror the house version. If that’s the case, then it will glide right through the Senate and be signed by the President. If there are any differences between the House and the Senate bills, then they do have to be worked out in a conference, and that can kind of like protract the process, so that’s one issue, that’s another issue.

We’re working on the fire sprinkler incentive act, a great piece of legislation. We live in a reactionary society. It came about as a result of the tragic fire in 2003 up in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that claimed the lives of a hundred concert goers in a non-sprinklered concert venue. It would accelerate the depreciation on automatic sprinkler systems in public buildings from approximately 35 years down to five years. We’ve been working on that bill for seven years with a coalition of sprinkler advocates.

We’re also working on a public safety officers benefit program. If a firefighter falls in the line of duty, if a public safety officer falls in the line of duty, and they will and the family members will collect a benefit to the tune of about 300, oh gosh, $340-$350,000. Legislation was approved I believe about three, actually about four or five years ago which would grant the benefit to firefighters who fall in the line of duty as the result of a stroke or heart attack. The administration was slow in fulfilling the intent of Congress when it approved the PSB legislation, again about five or six years ago, and so it’s something that we continue to monitor to make sure that, you know, when a firefighter does die as a result of a heart attack or stroke that those benefits, that there’s no delay in getting those benefits out to the family members. So those are pretty much the priority issues that CFSI is addressing with the other national fire organizations.

Q: How can fire investigators stay current on what is happening in Congress?

BILL: Well, you know, my message to the investigators and everyone, you know, a lot of great websites out there. Again, if you look at our website, www.cfsi.org, if you look at all the other major organizations, they have a list of all the legislation that they are monitoring, and you’ve got to know who your members of Congress are. Your representative might be serving on the Homeland Security Committee in the U.S. House or on the Senate. Your member might be serving on a ways committee or a ways and means committee or the finance committee. If that’s the case, those committees have under their jurisdiction the most important pieces of legislation that we’re looking at right now, and again, that’s reauthorization of fire, SAFR and the sprinkler bill. If your member sits on the appropriations committee, they are the ones that are going to be setting the figure for the grant programs. So, again, you really need to understand who your members are and you need to establish a better working relationship with them.

Q: You know, you mentioned finance, Bill. How do fire investigators find out about current federal grant opportunities?

BILL: Well, again, if you go on the USFA website, they do have information on the various federal grant programs available. Again, and if there’s another agency, all the agencies have great websites. All the agencies, you know, will have on their websites a listing of their grant programs. You know, it’s not going to be on the front page of those websites. You might have to do a little investigative work, but heck, well you know, arson investigators, that’s their line of work, but again, I would start with the USFA and go onto their website and they’ve got, you know, they’ve got postings for fire and that includes prevention research, investigations, that includes SAFR and so that would be my first recommendation is to go on that website.

Thanks, Bill. We appreciate you joining us today and the good work that you do over at CFSI.

In the upcoming podcast, we’re beginning a new feature, "Get A’s from Dr. Q." Dr. James Quintiere is the John L. Bryan Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is well-known in the fire science community as a leading scholar in fire behavior. In future podcasts, Dr. Q will be answering your questions about fire science, fire behavior, the mathematics of fire calculations, the physics of fire or just about anything you can ask related to fire science. To submit a question for Dr. Q to answer in a future podcast, please email askdrq@cfitrainer.net. That’s askdrq@cfitrainer.net.

Finally, we’ll close with some news from IAAI. The IAAI Annual Training Conference is fast approaching. The time to register is now so you can make your plans to attend ATC from May 16-21, 2010 in Orlando, Florida. In addition to seminars on the hottest topics in fire investigation, this year’s ATC offers the opportunity to earn and test for the new Fire Investigation Technician credential at the conference. IAAI has released a video preview that highlights the classes, speakers, and Orlando attractions. The preview is available at cfitrainer.net/OrlandoATC. Again, that video preview is available at cfitrainer.net.

That concludes this IAAI CFITrainer.Net podcast. We’ll see you again next month.