Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Science Committee Hearing On Firefighter Funding COVID-19 20240712

Work on a more normal basis, well continue to try to meet remotely so that we can play our part in slowing the spread of covid19. I want to also announce a couple of reminders to the conduct of this hearing. Members should keep their video feed on as long as they are present in the hearing, and members are responsible for their own microphones. Just be mindful that you probably have a little bit more responsibility than usual than if we were in a regular meeting space. And please keep your microphones muted unless youre speaking and finally if members have documents they wish to submit to the record, email them to the committee clerk. But if you dont have it, we can make sure you do get it. I welcome you to the science, space and Technology Committees First Virtual hearing. Today were discussing the impact of covid19 on the Fire Service Community and how we can best leverage existing federal programs to expedite assistance to Fire Departments during the pandemic. I appreciate our witnesses being here under these unusual circumstances but these are very important issues and we look forward to your testimony. In 2018, medical aid calls totaled 64 of all the firefighter and ems responses. Actual actual fires accounted for 4 of those calls. And the medical Emergency Response, Hazardous Material response, and enhanced technical rescue and active shooter incidents, all of these missions require additional equipment, additional training and additional staffing. Covid19 is exacerbating what was already a chronic lack of sufficient funding for fire and ems response given their broad mission. During the covid19 crisis, were relying more than ever on our nations fire service to provide emergency medical response. From those suffering for zero cases of covid19 diseases, firefighters are sometimes the First Health Care workers they come in contact with. Sadly, many Emergency Responders have arrived to arrived to find such individuals have already passed away in their homes. Whether they are attending to the sick or to the families of those who just passed, firefighters are risking their own health to serve their communities. Lack of adequate ppe has led many of our firefighters to fall ill with covid19 and some sadly have died. These deaths represent a failure by the policymakers to provide adequate protection to our First Responders. The assistance to firefighters grant are the afg program was established in 2001 to provide federal assistance directly to local firefighting and Emergency Response efforts. Today, this funding is needed to purchase ppe and for other equipment and Training Needs related to covid19. In response to the crisis, congress provided 100 million in the c. A. R. E. S. Act for sul y supplemental funding. Fema received more than 2,000 actions requesting a total of 228 million in funding. We understand those awards will be announced soon. Unfortunately this funding only begins to address the tremendous need. The house passed heroes act proposed an additional 1 billion for the afg program and its Partner Program for adequate response or the safer program. I look forward to todays discussion and hope that we can understand more clearly what were facing. Covid19 has resulted in significant cuts to local and state tax revenues and other sources of support for Fire Departments leaving some departments facing the hard decision to layoff firefighters in the midst of this crisis. We remain in the middle of this dual health and economic crisis at the same time that our country is confronting its long history of racial injustice. On top of that, we are in the early days of an ominous wildfire and Hurricane Season mike youre not on mute, paul. Im sorry. We remain in the middle of this dual health and economic crisis at the same time that our country is confronting its long history of racial injustice. On top of that, we are in the early days of an ominous wildfire and Hurricane Season. This is a time of great uncertainty yet through it all, our communities are counting on us to ensure that our nations First Responders have the tools and support they need to do their job well and safely. I look forward to todays discussion of how congress can help ensure these brave men and women have the resources that they need. And so now, is mr. Lucas yes, i see him. I recognize you for an opening statement. Thank you. Good afternoon from washington, d. C. Several members are present participating in todays virtual hearing and i can assure you we are all following cdc guidelines. In improving virtual hearings, the rules can be recommended to house committees make accommodation to health and safety recommendations. Many of the members of this committee are here in washington today. We have plenty of room and this hear could easily have followed suit. I want to urge chairman johnson to urge that Going Forward. I want to welcome and thank our witnesses today. We have three of the nations top First Responders on the panel to discuss fire and Ems Department needs during the covid19 pandemic. As covid19 continues to spread in pockets around the country, our nations First Responders are the front lines and vulnerable to contracting the virus. Fire and medical emergencies dont stop during a pandemic. Many americans have sheltered at home for the last few months, our First Responders dont have that option. We must ensure they have the resources and equipment they need to stay safe, healthy and on the job. Firefighting activities and funding are primarily the responsibilities of state and local communities. However, for the past 18 years, the federal government has awarded competitive federal grants directly to local Fire Departments and Emergency Medical Services organizations to help address a variety of commitment, training and other related needs. The awards provide funding for equipment and training to ensure the safety of your nations First Responders. Safer awards have the departments hire, recruit and retain firefighters and increase the number of trained firefighters in local communities. This Committee Led reauthorization of those programs two years ago out of recognition that it was in the National Interest to have wellstaffed and equipped Fire Departments in the case of a national emergency. We didnt anticipate then what we would be now. Who would have guessed that covid19 is now testing the nations Emergency Preparedness system. The c. A. R. E. S. Acttomg which pa on a broad partisan basis, including 100 million to supplemental funds that help Police Departments buy or be reimbursed for personal protective equipment. I understand that fema is processing those applications and will be making awards in the next few weeks. I know thats not as fast as many of us would like. For a program not designed to make emergency awards, they moved with rapid speed. We have witnesses from organizations and Fire Departments large and fall, oklahoma, kansas, illinois. All the departments have different needs and i look forward to their input on how we can improve the safety of your men and women on the front lines during this crisis. I thank the witnesses for being with us virtually and for their service to our nation. With that, i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Lucas. If there are other members who wish to submit additional opening statements, your statements will be added to the record at this point. At this time i would like to introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is fire chief gary ludwig. Hes the president and chairman of the board of the International Association of fire chiefs. Hes also the fire chief for champagne, illinois, Fire Department. Prior to his service in champagne, he served in the city of st. Louis for 25 years and retired as chief paramedic of the st. Louis Fire Department. Hes also served ten years as deputy fire chief for the memphis Fire Department. After chief ludwig is mr. Roy sander mcgee. Hes the International Association of firefighters district 11 representative representing firefighters in the state of oklahoma, texas and the pana panama canal zone. As an iaff Vice President , he provides advice, consultation, Organizational Resources to over 300 local affiliates in district 11. He served 25 years as a firefighters in tulsa, oklahoma, and retired from the Police Department as fire captain. Our third witness is mr. Steve hersh. He serves as chair of the National Fire council. Hes also a Training Office thomas district number four and the Fire Department all of which are 100 volunteer Fire Departments. He also currently serves as first vice chair of the Kansas State Firefighters Association after serving as secretary from 2000 2000 to 2018. You will each have five minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be included in the record. When all of you have completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions and each member will have five minutes to question the panel. I will start with chief ludwig. You can begin your testimony. Thank you and good afternoon, chairwoman johnson and distinguished members of the committee. Im the president and chairman of the board for the International Association of fire chiefs and the fire chief of the champagne Fire Department illinois. The nations fire and Ems Departments are at the tip of the spear in the fight against coronavirus. Fire and ema personnel are providing aid to victims of covid19. When a person suffering from covid19 calls 911, they must be met in their homes, provide aid and transport them to the hospital. Fire chiefs across the nation are working tirelessly to protect their staff by supplying them with the necessary n95 masks, emergency gowns, and other supplies. 55 fire and ems personnel have died the in the line of duty and more than 1,000 fire and personnel have been infected. Were having trouble getting critical masks, gowns and sanitizing agents. Our firefighters were not considered a hire priority for ppe or testing which led to quarantining firefighters while they awaited results. Were concerned were run into obstacles when vaccines are developed. Fire departments are getting crushed by covid19. When firefighters are exposed to covid19, we quarantine them for 14 days. We covering these staffing shortfalls with overtime and back fill pay. The costs of n95 masks have increased. This situation resulted in reduced service to communities and layoffs. The isc surveyed its membership in may, Fire Departments expect to suffer 16. 9 billion in budget shortfalls across the nation in 2021. Our survey also found that approximate 1,000 Fire Department personnel had been laid off and additional 30,000 firefighters may be laid off in the next 12 months. If theres a second wave, Fire Departments will need federal assistance to fight this plague. The c. A. R. E. S. Act included a special appropriation of 100 million for the afg program. Fema has moved quickly to open the application period for these grants which closed on may 15th. Dhs waived requirements for 2019 and 2020 safer grants to make it easier for Fire Departments to hire firefighters. As the nation fights the covid19 pandemic, firefighters still need federal assistance. The heroes act includes 500 million each for the afg and safer Grant Programs. The funds will help Fire Departments purchase ppe. The safer grants funds will allow Fire Departments to rehire and retain firefighters. It waves other requirements to help firefighters apply for these funds. We ask the senate to pass these provisions. Fire departments must be Top Priorities for receiving ppe and sanitizers. Congress and the Administration Must Work Together to ensure a secure a supply chain that purchases and delivers necessary equipment to local Fire Departments. In addition, chinese counterfeits are flooding the u. S. Creating confusion. Fire departments must be top priority for testing and vaccines. In march, the u. S. Public Health Service listed First Responders as second level and third level priorities due to the shortage of covid19 tests, it was difficult to obtain tests for fire and ems personnel. Fire departments need to have access to rapid testing. Congress should ensure that fire and ems personnel are Top Priorities for a distribution of covid19 response. Fire departments must be are possible for funds can be used for covid19. The Fire Departments need to know about potential shortages so they can work with state and local authorities to develop alternatives. Congress should support local volunteer firefighters. Firefighters are providing covid19 response to their com exposure and endangering their families and being unable to attend their jobs. The heres act would exclude state and local property tax and up to 600 hours for volunteers. We ask the senate to support this provision. Congress should repeal the auction of the Public Safety spectrum of the t band. For example, new york city, los angeles, have relied on the communications the 911 law enforcement, fire and ems response. The heroes acted addressed this issue. We ask the senate to support this provision. In closing, i thank you for voting todays hearing on fire and ems response. We need heroines to help us fig this unseen enemy. Thank you again. Thank you, thank you, chairwoman johnson, Ranking Member lucas and distinguished members of the committee. Im the district 11 Vice President for the International Association of firefighters. Representing more than 27,000 professional firefighters and emergency medical personnel in oklahoma and texas who serve as frontline workers to the covid19 pandemic. As Prehospital Health Care providers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel are often the first workers in physical contact with covid19 patients. The nature of their work requires they be in close proximity to patients in uncontrolled environments. Responders performing their dangerous work must be properly protected both to limit the spread of the virus itself and to ensure they remain healthy and able to serve their communities. Yet in far too many places, we are relying on firefighters, paramed paramedics and emts to respond without the proper protection. Fire departments across shortage of all types of personal protective equipment. In texas, ppe shortages can be found in communities of all sizes. According to the Texas State Association of fire and emergency districts, twothirds of Emergency Service districts are concerned about a lack of ppe and half said an inability to procur enough ppe has affected responders. In dallas, firefighters are refusing n95 masks many times, a practice which we know reduces their effectiveness and places firefighters at risk. At the same time, Fire Department budgets have been hit hard by the current economic crisis as local governments are facing decreased tax revenue and other significant pressures. This is particularly true in states such as texas and okay which rely on sales tax revenue to fund public services. As a result, many Fire Departments are facing deep budget cuts with some already forced to layoff and or furlough firefighters. My hometown of tulsa, oklahoma, relies primarily on sales taxes to fund public services. The economic slowdown at the start of the pandemic led to a revenue reduction for the city. Were currently expecting a budget short fall of over 2. 7 million. Layoffs and furloughs are challenging as we deal with the covid19 virus. As firefighters experience highrisk exposures to affected individuals, they are put in quarantine or isolation placing further stress on the department and make maintaining full Staffing Levels even that much more important. They provide a lifeline to departments facing such chan challenges. We are grateful that Congress Provide Money through the c. A. R. E. S. Act to help local Fire Departments to obtain ppe but we know that Fire Departments will continue to have significant unmet needs in the wake of the recession. We are pleased that the house concluded an additional 500 million in afg and 500 million in safer to hire, retain and rehire firefighters in the heroes act. Fire departments should be granted waivers from certain statutory requirements under afg and safer to allow those departments with budgetary challenges the flexibility they need to obtain necessary equipment and personnel. For safer in particular, departments should be allowed to use funds to rehire firefighters. We believe they should receive waivers from certain requirements including the period of performance, cost share, maintenance of expenditures and funding caps. We also support waivers of bu budgetary requirements as well as funding caps. Together these waivers will help Fire Departments save thousands of firefighter jobs and ensure firefighters receive personal protective equipment that they need. Absent these waivers, the restrictions under the programs will likely dissuade Fire Departments facing fiscal challenges, those departments which need funding the most for applying for grants, potentially allowing funds to go to waste. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today and i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Mcgee. Our final witness is mr. Steve hersh. Thank you. Im training chief for the kansas Fire Department. The National Volunteer fire council represents the nations volunteer fire, ems and rescue services. I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you about the challenges that the nations fire and Emergency Service organizations face related to covid19. And the role that the afg and safer Grant Programs can play in helping us meet these challenges. Im one of 745,000 volunteer firefighters in the United States. That represents about 67 of the nations firefighters. All and mostly volunteer Fire Departments account for 82 of the nations Fire Departments and protect 32 of the nations population. My remarks will focus on the covid19s impact, especially in smaller communities, where volunteers are most common and how the afg and safer Grant Programs can help. I could not be prouder of our volunteer firefighters and ems providers in being the leader this organization that represents them. They have been running a survey to assess the impact of covid19 on our volunteer fire and ems agencies. What we find is that 62 of the respondents have reported that theyre running low on personal protective equipment or ppe, while 23 report that theyve run out completely. 46 will report that they have staff who are unable or unwilling to respond. 50 report the inability to recruit new volunteers to be a significant problem. And, 49 report that not being able to fund raise as being a major challenge to their department. The inability to train, to recruit and fund raise are overlapping issues since they typically involve facetoface interactions that covid19 has curtailed. Our primary concern, of course, is keeping our personnel safe. In a twomonth period from the end of march through the end of may, there were 54 documented fire and ems covid19 related fatalities, including 18 who have been identified as volunteers at this point. Fire and ems personnel at a heightened risk of exposure. Volunteer firefighter and Ems Departments have been forced to reuse ppe and repurpose other items to serve as makeshift ppe. Congress provided a hundred million in afg funding for the purchase of ppe and related supplies. The c. A. R. E. S. Act funding will address ppe shortages for the hardesthit Fire Departments across this nation. While many Fire Departments will be helped by this funding, it should be noted that based upon the number of anticipated awards, that less than 5 of the nations Fire Departments will be likely to receive a grant. The reality is that more funding is needed. On may 15th, congress the house passed the heroes act which provide additional funds for ppe purchases and to help Fire Departments hire firefighters. It waived requirements associated with both afg and safer. The nbfc is on record of supporting the waiving of the local match. Without these waivers, many Fire Departments would not be able to accept grants. The nbfc is opposed to language that would eliminate in the law a requirement that volunteer Fire Departments receive at least 25 of the appropriated funding. The set aside of 25 for volunteer Fire Departments ensures that volunteer Fire Departments are mostly competing for funding against other volunteer agencies. Changing this, i believe, will hurt volunteer Fire Departments ability to get Grant Funding. One of the major challenges that fema has faced in administering the afgs funding under c. A. R. E. S. Is that theyre in the midst of the cycle. Theyre doing reviews for grants remotely and that has sped up the process of getting these grants reviewed and ultimately awarding them. The application periods are open for a month each which require departments time to collect the required data, develop naifrt narratives and put together an application. Speeding up the grant schedule without reducing the complexity of the application will result in fewer applications being submitted, especially from smaller Fire Departments. Fire and ems agencies across the nation are suffering from a huge revenue short fall, a combination of increasing costs, reduced Financial Support from local governments and an inability to fund raise. Simply put, we need more money to be able to fulfill our mission. During this pandemic volunteer fire and ems agencies have stepped up in amazing ways to help out their communities. I say amazing but yet thats what volunteers do. They step up to the plate time and again to protect their communities and their neighbors when they need it the most. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to answering any questions that you might have. Thank you very much. At this point well begin our first round of questions. But before we do, i would like to ask that each person keep their screens on and im going to ask the staff to help us how to acknowledge the next speakers. At this point, i yield myself five minutes for questions. The assistance of firefighters, Fire Prevention and safety and safer Grant Programs have helped Fire Departments meet training equipment, trainee equipment and staffing needs for many years. As you all have indicated the needs were already great and growing and the programs have been chronically underfunded to meet these needs. And then came covid19 and fire and Emergency Partners across the country are under unprecedented stress. Funding was provided to afg in the c. A. R. E. S. Act, but much more is needed, whether it comes from the federal government or from the states or local jurisdictions. What would be the consequences of policymakers failing to provide emergency funding to Fire Departments in the coming months . I will start with any of the witnesses that would like to begin to respond. I can speak for the volunteer fire service, certainly. Many of the volunteer Fire Departments have to do fundraising, pancake feeds, things of that nature in order to survive. A lot of them dont get tax revenue. Its been impossible for them to go out and do those fundraising activities. A lot of them do doortodoor solicitations. They cant do those. In those communities that rely upon tax support, those Revenue Streams have also weakened considerably. Whether or not well see any impact in my own district because were proper tax supported is probably not going to happen until next year because most of those Funding Sources are already set. Thats one. The other is, is that in the volunteer service, again, we rely upon recruiting volunteers 24 7, 365, because we can never allow ourselves to get behind in having staffing in our volunteer agencies and weve now taken about two months out of this process where it was very difficult for volunteer Fire Departments to be able to recruit folks. If we dont have adequate funding, the system can completely fall apart. Thank you very much. Mr. Mcgee, let me ask you something about Mental Health. The International Association of firefighters operates the center of excellence for Behavioral Health treatment and recovery which offers treatment to firefighters and emergency medical personnel for ptsd. The funding provided provided u c. A. R. E. S. Act may be used to assist in the cost of Mental Health evaluations. Can you expand on how covid19 is impacting firefighter and emt Mental Health and how aft funding can help . Yes, thank you very much for the question. Behavioral Health Issues havent stopped just because were in a pandemic. And in fact they have been somewhat magnified. The pressure and stress that First Responders are under as they respond to the pandemic lends credibility to that. The issues that were having are related to social distancing rules and our ability to travel and go places and seek the treatment that we need. For instance, at our center of excellence facility in upper marlboro, maryland, the intake of new patients has slowed simply because of travel restrictions and the social distancing requirements. And we think thats a problem. Consequently what were trying to do is find local areas or Treatment Facilities on a local basis for our members and firefighters to be able to receive the treatment that they need. If we dont have adequate funding, those kind of resources are going to dry up and were not going to be able to find or receive the training that we need or the help that we need, i should say, for Behavioral Health issues that are magnified by our response to the pandemic. So, we appreciate the money and the revenue thats available and has been made available from congress. Well, thank you very much. I believe my time has expired. I need some help with that. So im going to now recognize mr. Lucas. Mr. Lucas. Slowly but surely, chairman, youre going to get me. I appreciate your patience. Ill turn to the entire panel for my first question n. Your testimony, youve all made different recommendations for the best way to distribute emergency supplemental funds to local Fire Departments. How do you recommend congress balance the speed of getting the funds out the door with making sure resources are going where theyre needed the most in a fair process . Any of the three . Feel free to step into that. I can certainly speak for the volunteer fire service. This grant program, the Grant Programs have been administered by the u. S. Fire administration through fema. Theyve worked remarkably well the last 18 years since weve had these programs the in place. The reason that they work so well is that we do peer reviews. In other words, other firefighters actually sit in on the reviews of those grant applications and that has worked amazingly well. Were sort of the experts in this field and its worked tremendously well. Now that theyre able to do peer reviews in a remote setting, i think those are going to move fatherly quickly. And ill add from the International Association of fire chiefs, we fully support the current afg and safer programs, the way thats been delivered its a very clear and transparent process. Theres no middle agency, middle person. The funds go directly from the federal government to Fire Departments. There is a very transparent and clear process with that with the peer review process that steve spoke of. And it has been a proven system that has worked for multiple years, 18 years or so, and we support that process wholeheartedly. Ranking member lucas, i dont have anything to add other than what my fell he panelists have already said. Absolutely. And with that, mr. Mcgee, i would note that its always nice to have a fellow oklahoman on the panel. As you know whether its any of the counties, weve had an ongoing set of challenges in the country side. Yes. Youre well aware of that. As you all know i represent the half of the oklahoma with many small volunteer and ems Fire Departments. Although weve been very fortunate to have compared to the rest of the country a limited number of cases of covid19 in the Third District of oklahoma, what have been the particular challenges for oklahomas rural firefighters during this pandemic . Weve not faced anything quite like this in my lifetime. Sure, thank you very much for the question. Youre right. We havent faced anything like this in our lifetimes, and it has this pandemic has posed particular challenges to fire and Ems Departments regardless of their size. What we found so far as this pandemic has unfolded in front of us is the availability of ppe varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some Fire Departments are better supplied than others. Some have sufficient ppe. Others do not. And we find that that holds true whether its in a rural setting, a volunteer setting, a combination setting, or a metropolitan Fire Department. What goes along with this difficulty in obtaining ppe in those areas where it is difficult is response protocols. Fire departments, regardless of size or location, have had to develop protocols on the fly. That holds true for volunteers, combination departments, and career departments. Firefighters have done what weve always done. We adapt to the situation and respond as best we can given the circumstances. Some departments are better situated than others, and i think that comes down to a local leadership or a local jurisdiction issue. But thats also why funding to allow for the proper equipment and staffing is so important. For instance, in stillwater, firefighters today are not permitted to wear n95 masks on a daily basis. Rather, they are mandated to wear surgical masks, which we know has a limited application. And they also are not afforded the appropriate number of suits. They are only allotted a certain number per rig. And what we find, congressman, is that these kinds of situations are all over the map, and it depends on which particular Fire Department youre talking about. But those kinds of situations are not uncommon all across the state. Mr. Her sh, if you wouldnt mind following up, how does that track with what youre seeing in volunteer departments nationwide . I think very similar. Interestingly enough, of course many of our Fire Departments in the southwest part of kansas are working hand in hand with departments in northwest oklahoma. They cross those lines with some frequency. Oh, yes. Because fires dont seem to know where the state line is. But, you know, things just as simple i guess that would come to mind would be when rural Fire Departments are responds to Motor Vehicle accidents out on the roadways, we dont know whether someones got covid or not so we have to take the proper precautions on those scenes. And thats been a challenge for a lot of departments, you know, making sure that we have appropriate ppe. Weve been very fortunate to not have barely any cases in our particular region. But we could never let our guard down because the primary thing is to protect our people. With the volunteers and it doesnt matter whether youre in oklahoma or kansas or massachusetts or alaska, you know, theyre leaving their jobs during the daytime, theyre leaving their families at night, and theyre running the risk that they bring home to their families the career people are the same but theyre also running the risk that they may not have a job if they contract this stuff, or worse yet, things that we have faced, very small departments, if you get one or two that contract covid19 all of a sudden youve got a Fire Department or Ambulance Agency that are completely shutdown. Its a big concern and a big fear. Absolutely, absolutely. With that, madam, chair, i appreciate the insights of our witnesses, and i yield back. Thank you very much, mmr mr. Lucas. Thank you very much, madam chair. And mr. Lucas, i think this hearing is very helpful. I have heard your testimony. All of you spoke about the need to eliminate the match requirement. I couldnt agree with you more. To thats really a barrier to getting the help to where it needs to be right now. So, i think your testimony was excellent and persuasive, and i hope we can get that done as soon as possible. I would be remiss if i didnt also thank you for all youre doing for our country, each one of you. This is a very tough time, challenging time for our country. And for First Responders to step up for our community, its really so admirable and we are so grateful to you. I have a question. Here in california, we worry not just about covid19, but were entering the wild fire season, and were being told by the National Interagency fire center that its going to be a very hot, dry weather droughttype condition across the western United States. How does the were going to have above average wild fire potential. What unique challenges does the covid19 present in fighting these wild life, wild land, urban interface type of fires. Have you thought through that . Is there advice you can give us on that . Any of you . All of you. I can take that question. Yes, in fact, the ifc has a covid19 task force, and were looking at a multitude of issues that impact us with this. But one of the areas that weve brought on to the task force is a member that is very well experienced and very much of a subject Matter Expert on wild land fires because we do have concerns. We have Major Concerns about the wild land fire season thats coming up. As an example, we need to be able to protect firefighters in those base camps from infection. Weve got to worry about evacuating and sheltering civilian population while maintaining social distancing requirements. We have to ensure that the federal and local firefighters have enough of the appropriate ppe and supplies to prevent that infection. Theres also tactical considerations about transportation of the fire land wall while maintaining social distancing. And between texas and oklahoma, the the mutual aid between the jurisdictions that could be hampered as a result of the covid19. So, yes, we have a lot of concerns about the upcoming wild fire season and were trying to look at this and address this. What steps could we take and could congress support to provide tools to address those important issues that you just outlined . Well, certainly the funding is something thats so absolutely important to this because if we dont have the proper ppe, the things that i just described about exposure to infection, evacuating and sheltering the civilian population while also trying to maintain social distancing requirements. Those are all things that are going to require money. So, the federal money is so important to make sure we keep our firefighters and civilians safe during the wild land fire season. Just one quick question. I think it was mr. Mcgee who talked about the need for consistent protocols. That makes sense to me. Obviously not every place is the same. But is this an area where the National Fire Protection Association should be asked to develop and some protocols that they could distribute out to departments around the country . We have the iaff has been utilizing every resource available as we develop and assist Fire Departments developing protocols. The primary Governmental Agency weve been relying on to the best of my understanding is the cdc. Our recommendations have been following their guidelines organizationally. And as we assist our local affiliates with that kind of a question, so we believe that utilizing those federal government guidelines is very important to give us a kind of a universal baseline from which to work from. And we think those are very important. Finally, i was disturbed, mr. Mcgee, to learn that people who need Mental Health assistance because of the trauma that theyre encountering were not able to always get it because of travel restrictions and the like. And im wondering, is there a role to play obviously the center is the Gold Standard for treatment. But is there a way to get people in need of treatment into more locally available resources . Wha what can be done because i can just imagine repeatedly encountering the kinds of things that firefighters are encountering these days. They need support. Yes, they do. And prior to the pandemic, we were working and still are on ways to make Available Services more readily available to firefighters. One of the things that we have found out is just talking about Behavioral Health issues makes and allows a scenario for more affected individuals to feel safe and comfortable coming forward. But we havent been able to fully develop the programs to expand our footprint, so to speak, that is more important now just based on the travel restrictions in finding the right clinicians and the right resources that we can send our folks to. Were working on that. There are some, what i will call groundbreaking areas of concern there and programs that were developing. But theyre still in the development stages. Theyre not ready to role out. Its a challenge for us. Very good. Madam chair, i see my time has expired. I yield back. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Posey. Thank you, madam chair, for holding this hearing. And i appreciate very much the witnesses coming and sharing with us in more detail about what your needs are. I wish there had been a standalone bill. I think it would be unanimous through the house and the senate as well. I dont know a Single Member of congress that doesnt appreciate our firefighters. Ive got several of them in my family, so serious as a heart attack about that. But recently the nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine mentioned how Space Centers are working with private companies to help our nation respond to the covid pandemic. And wouldnt you know somebodys ringing my phone. You forget to turn the thing off at your house and it goes off. A poll apologize. There was one project he mentioned that nasas Glen Research center helped to develop and test. That product helps decontaminate spaces such as ambulances in under an hour. It helped guide the development and production of the product in 2015 and is conducting Additional Research to maximize the effect of the product on covid19. Have you all heard of the product, and are you aware of Fire Departments using this product to decontaminate ambulances and their gear . I have not heard of that product, and im not aware of anybody using it. And i im with sammy on that. I have not heard of that product, so sorry. I cant help you there. And i would echo that as well. Well, my next question was going to be where, but you havent heard of it so we dont know. I might suggest that we ask nasa to kind of reach out with that a little bit. It sounds like its really got great redeeming qualities. In addition to the supplemental assistance to firefighters grant, funds provided in the c. A. R. E. S. Act, how have the u. S. Fire administration and the federal Emergency Management agency assisted Fire Departments in resources to help them respond to the covid19 crisis . Any, all. So, ill answer that. I must tell you that the United States Fire Administration has been a champion through all this. The administrator keith brian has been superb and his staff has been superb. I spoke about the covid19 task force that the ifc has. We have a member of the United States Fire Administration that sits on there and provides us with subject Matter Expertise. Additionally when we were suffering early on with the lack of ppe and getting issues through the supply chain, the administrator keith bryant who helped us bridge that gap with fema, and we had an hourlong phone call with the administrator and the fema administrator about supply chain issues that we were having a lack of ppe for Fire Departments. I cant say enough about the current fire administrator and the administration about how theyve been responsive through this. Thank you. We hear so many conflicting reports about the administration and its good to hear that things are connecting the way they should be from washington to the homeland. Yes, again, i cant say enough about the administrator and his staff. Theyre outstanding. Thank you, madam, chair. I yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you for holding this hearing. I want to start out by talking about an issue of coordination. In my district, there are few suburban Fire Departments coordinating together in mutual aid box alarm system. I supported their joint application for a covid19 supplemental grant so they could continue their regional approach to sharing resources including ppe as needed across the region. So, those relationships also allowed me to share best practices and ppe protocols so that as they respond to calls to gather in their communities, they can conflict their colleagues are taking the same safety precautions. I know many departments across the nation Work Together side by side in the field. They dont have a formal partnership. Im wondering if any of the witnesses have thoughts to share about regional standardization of policies for proper use of ppe . So, congressman, im from illinois like you are, and im future im very familiar with the mavis alarm system. Im in division 28. But we also use best practices as recommended by the cdc and also the w. H. O. Also has best practices. When we try to standardize our approach to ppe across regions, we try to follow the experts leads in that regard. And i think the volunteer fire service has done much of the same as far as following the guidelines. Its a little more difficult in volunteer organizations because they are pretty much stand alone and dont have a whole lot of organization with other than in illinois where mavis exists. But a lot of us dont have that. Im not aware of any formal programs in the area that i serve, but we are certainly open to the idea and further discussion on that issue. All right. One other question i wanted to ask is, you know, i represent chicago but i also have a lot of suburban areas that have a number of smaller Fire Departments, Fire Districts. Do you have any chief ludwig, do you have any suggestions about how these smaller departments and districts can remain competitive for these grants because thats an issue that theyre always asking about. Sure. So, thats an interesting question, and i thank you for the opportunity to address that. Certainly the need to be competitive also is reliant on the person whos writing the grant and their way of enumerating the value and the need of getting the grant. So, one of the things that i think would help is some type of grantwriting program or some type of process for which they can be schooled in how to write a proper grant because it is under peer review process by which our individuals within our own profession review this. So, it is not wellwritten, if its not wellarticulated, if its not wellspelled out, that grant even though it may well be needed may go and be rejected. I would recommend some type of program to help those who are writing those grants. That also highlights the need for keeping the 25 set aside for volunteer Fire Departments. Most of these people that are preparing grant applications, theyre people who work in the Grocery Store and people who work in the Farm Implement dealerships and they dont have a lot of time to do this but they do it out of love for their neighbors and their communities. Keeping that set aside is very important for volunteer service. Very good. Thank you, and i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Webber. I think ive got my microphone on. Can yall hear me okay . Can you hear me . Yes. Okay. Thank you chairmwoman, i appreciate. Lots of question i know theres been talk about the inability to get ppe. Of course were dealing with a pandemic that we talked about it earlier weve never seen anything like this before. And so it was really interesting to get caught in this predicament. Youve got federal government and state governments and local governments. One of the lessons ive learned, and ill let our witnesses weigh in on, is the fact we need a very, very Good Relationship between the federal government, between the state governments and i would argue the state governments in this instance more for the protection of their citizens because theyre closer to the cities, closer to the counties, and closer to, you know, the effects that are happening in their particular state. We reached out to the Texas Department of Emergency Management to see that they had a very, very good supply a lot of this equipment. Unfortunately i think the smaller communities werent able to reach out and even some of the medium communities werent able to reach out on a level with ppe because they were probably satisfying some of the larger communities. But i hope that we all learn a lesson and that we have a better supply chain or communication chain or process where we go at least especially from the states to the counties to the cities. To the witnesses, are yall seeing that now . Steve, lets start with you. Certainly early on in this the supply chain was pretty weak. The folks that we would normally buy stuff from, those supplies were gone. And then they became rather expensive. I dont know that its as major of a problem out in my part of the country as it has been simply because we just havent had the covid cases in this part of the world. But, you know, i think Going Forward, one of the things thats going to be important is at least in my own, supplies that were bought 10, 15 years ago then became outdated because no one was watching to make sure those items were kept up to date. And i think thats going to be important for us Going Forward is to make sure that, you know, we have a turnover of those supplies on a regular and periodic basis. Right. Good point. How about you chief ludwig . So, ill echo what steve said. Quite frankly there were a lot of issues early on. I talked to rain chiefs who buy raincoats and ponchos or whatever they could get because they needed something to protect their firefighters. And the Strategic National stock pile was completed early on of ppe. And one of our concerns and what we saw and what i heard a lot was what was coming from the federal government into the states and going into their caches of supplies was being prioritized. Firefighters were not in the health care chain. Health care workers, home Health Care Workers, people in the hospitals were priority. And i know several fire chiefs had conversations with state officials who outright told them youre not the priority. And that was disconcerting because quite frankly when we saw the wonderful work being done on tv by doctors and nurses and the hospital, those patients got there through the Fire Department. Absolutely. Somewhere along the line, the state level reprioritized. One state e are received 2. 9 million n95 masks but the fire chief told me they received 40 of those masks, 40. So, that was disconcerting. So, somewhere theres a breakdown when it comes to the federal government and the state. If i could just take one more second to say that, you know, when the federal government allocates funding for highway transportation, theres conditions attached to that. And i am of the opinion somewhere in the future if the federal government is going to issue ppe to states, there should be conditions with that. Thank you to that. Sandy, well jump to you. Thank you for that. I dont have much to say other than the iff has identified the priority of firefighters as being an issue and has been working with congress and members of congress to raise that level of priority and youre 100 , that lack of priority in the supply chain process caused a lot of issues early on. And even there are still some of those supply chain issues today but not as bad as they were simply because of a priority. Thats why i think its important as you said that we had a Better Process identified in the eventuality that this happens again or as we continue to deal with the pandemic. Thank you for that. Im going to close by saying its going to happen again. I think were expecting it to come back around the fall. T thank yall for what yall do. All the First Responders and Health Care Workers and Nursing Homes and stuff, thank yall for what yall do. This is all greatly planned out for perhaps round two in the fall. With that im going to yield back. Thank you so much, chairwoman johnson, Ranking Member lucas. Thank you to our witnesses. We know that the funding from the c. A. R. E. S. Act was so desperately needed but certainly not enough. Here in oregon were worried about understaffed Fire Departments and firefighters dangerously exposed because of a lack of ppe. Im glad were talking about this issue. My state is already operating according to the Oregon State Firefighters Council about 1,200 firefighters below recommended Staffing Levels. Here in northwest Oregon Valley fire and rescue has paid close to a Million Dollars for ppe and sanitation supplies. Theyve applied for a supplemental afg grant under c. A. R. E. S. But even if they receive the full amount, it wont even cover half of that. Chief derekwise told us theyre prepared for a resurgence in the fall is extremely difficult when theyre still trying to figure out how to cover the expenses theyve already incurred. I share ms. Lofgrens requirements, but mr. Mcgee, as supply chains start to normalize, are you concerned that departments might not be able to purchase adequate ppe because of limited funding . And do they have access to some best practices regarding how to distribute supplies and ppe when we have unpredictable need over uncertain period of time . Certainly, the supply chain, the availability, and the cost of ppe is important, especially for these locations that were talking about that are already cash strapped. And this reality that were living in where personal protective equipment and the cost have been marked up is just unacceptable, and we would hope those issues are able to be addressed as we move forward into our ability to respond. We all certainly hope that. And i know here in oregon as well as many places, there are many strong price gouging provisions that can be enforced. We need to make sure all our firefighters have access to ppe as well as all of those frontline workers. Its so important. I want to just follow up a little bit on the conversation we were just having in response to mr. Webbers comments about how firefighters and emergency medical personnel are really the Prehospital Health Care providers and often the first workers in physical contact with infected individuals. And we know covid19 is disproportionately affecting africanamericans, latinx community, people with Underlying Health conditions, and also people over the age of 65. So, im going to start with mr. Mcgee but ask the others as well what is being done to make sure Emergency Care needs of these communities are met, and does funding through the Fire Grants Program help to meet the specific needs and urgent care required of these highrisk communities . Certainly afg and grant money as it applies towards the purchase of ppe would be utilized in those communities as well, in every community. So, the level of response and the type of response dictates the level and type of ppe that is required. So, information coming from our dispatchers as were responding to potential Covid Patients in highrisk areas is invaluable information for us to have. Thats why its important for Fire Departments and governmental agencies to Work Together so that we can share that information and the respond responders that are going into those situations know what theyre getting into so they can then wear the proper level of protection. Thats the most important thing is information so that we know how to prepare. Thats great. And chief ludwig or mr. Hur sh, you want to talk about the importance of this Grant Funding to meeting the needs of those particularly vulnerable communities . Look, ill just add that whats so imperative is the safer funding. As i like to say, theres no 912 on the phone dial. After you dial 9 11, if no one shows up, theres no one else to call. Its great to have those in need, those disadvantaged, those at high risk. Were looking at potential of 30,000 firefighters being laid off over the next year. Safer funding would help that. Were not asking for additional firefighters. Were asking to retain those through safer funding. Safer would help volunteer Fire Departments in the fact they can use that for recruiting and retaining firefighters. So, its important that the safer funding be there to respond to those that are in need and those disadvantaged as you asked. I know, you met in your testimony, you talked about the issues of recruiting and how thats really challenging because of physical distancing and restrictions on gatherings. So, how is recruiting going . Well, you know, we have got significant problems in the number of volunteers all across the nation. Anecdotely and statistically speaking. This certainly isnt going to help that. Weve seen a decline in the number of volunteers over the past 20 to 30 years. And this is going to then weve taken two months out of the process here of being able to recruit people. But i will tell you too that Fire Departments are theyre amazing bunches of people who will make due. Theyll take the lemons and theyll make lemonade out of it. We recruited people during the pandemic. We were doing in my little rural Fire Department in very rural remote kansas we were doing zoom meetings every week in lieu of doing inperson meetings. And we actually recruited people in that fashion. Theres ways to do it. But certainly we have to recruiting is one of those 24 7 365. If you ever get behind the curve in the volunteer service its all over because you always have people coming and going. Youve got to keep them coming in the front door all the time. Yes, and i have rural firefighters here. I really appreciate the need to recruit and make sure that we can keep all of our communities safe. Thank you for the work you do. I yield back, madam chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Babin. Okay, thank you, madam chair. Can you hear my voice . Yes, we can. We can see you too. Okay, all right. Good, good, thank you. Appreciate it, madam chair. And i just want to say thank you to all three of our witnesses for being here with us today and a special thanks to our First Responders, in this case our firefighters. I have tremendous amount of respect for the work that these men and women do every single day to keep us safe. As a representative of Southeast Texas im too familiar with the dire circumstances that many firefighters find themselves working in during Hurricane Season. And that is storm rescue and recovery. My district from the Eastern Suburbs to the Louisiana State line continues to be hit by 200year floods and record rainfall. I have a number of volunteer Fire Departments, one of which, pasadena, texas, which is probably the one of the largest if not the largest single municipality volunteer Fire Department in the country. But when these hurricanes hit, firefighters and First Responders are always there no matter the condition. Were entering into yet another Hurricane Season. One Tropical Storm just came through last week in louisiana. We have the resources. Theyve got to have the resources they need to respond to these disasters if they do happen. And its not a matter of if. Its a matter of when. My question to all three witnesses here today is simply this. What is needed to better prepare or fruirefighters for Hurricane Season . And what does the Current Resource cache look like for Disaster Preparedness across the country and specifically in our state of texas . Thank you. Ill go ahead and tackle that as best i can. I dont know how specific your cache of supplies looks like in texas, but i do know one of the most valuable resources that the fire service has during a hurricane is the youth teams, the urban search teams. Theres 20 teams federally funded throughout the country. It just wouldnt be texas where they would pull the teams from. They would pull them from memphis, memphis has one of those federal teams. They have teams in california, arizona, florida. I know that the team in memphis was pulled down during Hurricane Katrina and others like wilma and rita. Its so important that those teams are supported not only financially but also administratively. Because so Additional Resources are truly needed during a hurricane or some other event like that. I dont know i can necessarily address hurricanes either be a flatlander out here in the middle of kansas. Certainly the same types of thoughts go through my mind and went through my mind when we first started going through this because were in tornado alley. While its not to the degree of a hurricane, it is something we sit down and plan for as well, how do we handle those type of Natural Disasters in the event that were still in the middle of covid19 response . Its a difficult thing to plan for. Im a little familiar with the hurricane response in texas. Ive responded, been there in a state for every hurricane thats come across texas since 2004, i believe. Once of the biggest issues in relation to hurricane response, Disaster Preparedness certainly is equipment and people. Those are the two biggest things that we need. Organizati organizationally, the iaff has a Disaster Relief program where we can assist firefighters and others as they come out from under the storm response. But one of the issues that we found is communication with existing state agencies. Were an organization that has resources that are available, and the state has resources that are available and coordinating that is a bit of a challenge. So, i see that as something that really needs to that we need to work on as we coordinate our relief efforts during these kinds of storms. Okay. Well, those are all great answers. I want to say just how much i appreciate and how valuable our volunteer Fire Departments and ems folks are to this country, especially in my district. So, with that, madam chair, ill yield back and say thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam chairwoman, and thank you to the witnesses for your service to our country and to your communities. I know that the chairwoman brought up the issue of Mental Health as well as my colleague from california and ms. Lofgren. One of the approaches we had precovid working with iaff and local departments was this bill we put together, the h. E. R. O. Act, helping Emergency Responders overcome. And it really was looking at piloting programs within stations to create peer support within each station, that could proactively reach out to firefighters and First Responders as well as be a confidential resource. So, someone they trusted with, that they worked with in creating a Train Program in these fire houses. I actually have my staff send that bill around to each of the offices, but it is endorsed by iaff and ifc. And its a good, smart approach and a confidential way gives some of these First Responders ability to reach out and talk about what theyre seeing on the job. And we really have seen an uptick precovid in the level of stress with our firefighters, the number of suicides with firefighters. Its because were asking them to do much more. You know, i see it here in Northern California where weve now had disastrous forest fires that are the norm and youre asking folks to go out and fight those fires. Youre asking folks to continue to work overtime hours. And again, that does take its toll. Layer in covid19 and what were asking our firefighters to do and our First Responders to do and what theyre actually seeing, its just going to create an additional level of stress. So, anything we can do to address the remembers you seeing. Sure, thank you very much. I appreciate your leadership on this issue. Its important. Its an important point for us, getting people to talk about their internal struggles and stressors and triggers that make their behavior somewhat out of the norm is a challenge in and of itself regardless of a pandemic type of situation. The iff has Peer Support Training Program where we train firefighters to recognize issues about Behavioral Health from their peers and their coworkers. And im sad to say but happy to report also that its our most productive and most requested type of training because this is a real issue in the fire service, just recognizing it and getting people to talk about it is a huge obstacle. And then once we talk about it, having these kinds of programs and the Resources Available to direct our members to, to get them the help they need is really important. In light of the covid pandemic, one of the things that we have been doing is offering an online peer to Peer Support Program and training program. And that is the result of your leadership and the issues that were facing and trying to address during the pandemic. Congressman, if i may, one of the unique things about the volunteer fire service, of course, is that these are neighbors helping out their neighbors in their worst possible time which also means that the folks that were responding to their incidents are probably people that were related to or neighbors to, we go to school with, were in sunday school with them, we teach them in sunday school. And that adds an additional layer of stress to the volunteers. But i also think the volunteer fire service has stepped up to the plate on this. The 1033 foundation which i believe is headquartered in california has been at least in my stateway has been very giving of their time and resources and theyve helped out volunteer firefighters across this country. And then the National Volunteer fire council with our share the load program where volunteers have the ability to call a toll free number to reach assistance from federal First Responders and then referred out to other professionals. And in fact we just came up i dont know whether its even out yet a reference book of professionals in the Mental Health field across the country so that we can put that in the hands of fire chiefs so that they can provide that support to their local volunteers. Very, very big topic. Incredible important. I see im out of time. Madam chairwoman, i will yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Biggs. Is mr. Biggs still present . Well, well move to mr. Baird and come back to mr. Biggs if he comes. Is mr. Baird there . Yes, yes. Okay. Thank you madam chair and Ranking Member lucas, we appreciate the opportunity to be on this call and certainly appreciate all that the firefighters and First Responders do. So, i really want to add my support to the expressions appreciation in that regard, and especially what youve done during this pandemic. I guess my question, i live in a predominantly rural area of west central indiana. So, my questions deal with the aspects that impact those rural Fire Departments. I guess, steve, ill start with you. You mentioned the 25 for volunteer Fire Departments. You also mentioned that in some ways these rural Fire Departments might be disadvantaged. So, would you care to comment on that . Well, sure. Again, the volunteer Fire Departments, these are the people in your community. They dont have fulltime staff to apply for grants. These are people who are not just responding to calls but now raising money. And i guess its not just those people who are doing grants. In many Fire Departments, those are the people who are doing the bake sales, who are doing the pancake feeds week in and week out in order for those departments to even have money to be able to respond on a regular basis, let alone to have to respond to covid19 calls. Very unique. Thats why maintaining that 25 set aside for volunteer Fire Agencies are very important. I might add that some of those pancakes arent really bad either. I mean, they do a pretty good job. That is correct. Im vulnerable to that. Anyway, gary, would you mind commenting . You mentioned something, i think, in your testimony about not having access or having shortages of some of the medical medications . Could you clarify that so i make sure i understand what you were talking to or making reference to there . Yes, congressman. There are certain drugs that we require that we use and use those in advanced life support procedures. And quite frankly this drug shortage has gone on for at least 10 to 12 years that i know of. You might have the fda that stops a line based on some type of quality issue. You might have a drug company that decides that youre not making a profit on this type of drug so theyll switch to another type of drug. So, weve seen this drug shortage for an extended period of time. Then when the covid19 hit, it really exacerbated the problem quite frankly. So, critical drugs that we need for the, for instance, as we sedate patients because those drugs were also needed for the ventilators that were needed in the hospitals. We needed that same type of drug to sedate our experiences. Weve experienced for quite a long time including critical drugs that we need to give patients such as glucose, epinephrine, and other types of drugs. So, maybe we need to coordinate that with the ppe to make sure you have access to that on a regular basis. Is that yeah, theres yes, thats correct. And theres just a multitude of issues that complicate that including us not even receiving notice from some of the drug manufacturers that theyre shutting down a particular line and all of a sudden we is ray sudden disruption of that supply chain. It needs to be some type of advanced notice of that. Madam chair, i cant see my clock. If ive got another minute i do have another question or two. You can ask another question. Thank you. So, sandy, on the protected ppe equipment and so on, are there additional things that you think we need to help protect firefighters . I mean, weve already discussed how many times theyre the first ones there and interact in close proximity to some of these people you take care of. So, sandy, im asking you if youve got any additional thoughts there of the kind of equipment that maybe we dont have or what we are providing is adequate. I think congressman, thank you for the question and the opportunity to respond. I think the important thing is the equipment for sure, but i also think that the experience of the First Responders, firefighters, fire chiefs that have already developed some protocols and the experience that they have obtained during this initial Pandemic Response is going to be important as we go forward. All of the money that is allocated by congress in afg to be quite frank is appreciated but is simply not enough. And the type of equipment that we need, the supplies are short to begin with. And being able to plan and develop our requests and our needs early on is important and thats why this funding is so important. People and equipment are the two most important things that we have as we try to deal with this response. So, ill defer to others that have more expertise in the type of equipment that we need. Put personal protective equipment is the most important thing. Thank you very much. The clock i see now shows that im out of time. I think the clocks wrong, but anyway, i yield back. Thank you very much. Ms. Fletcher. Thank you very much, chairwoman johnson, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today and for your testimony. Its been very helpful, and i join with many of my colleagues, all of my cloolleagues, who commented about the importance of the Fire Departments in all of our districts and our appreciation for your critical work. My own brotherinlaw is a volunteer firefighter in our district and i see the Critical Role firefighters play in the community. Im in houston so we see the vital work done by the houston Fire Department, a rather Large Department across my entire district every day including just this morning when we had an explosion in the middle of the night and our firefighters were on the scene responding right now. So, one of the things that we see here pretty constantly, and i think mr. Mcgee, you touched on it in your testimony, and mr. Ludwig, you just mentioned this as well, is the Critical Role that the emts are playing in the Fire Departments in rendering medical aid and transporting patients with covid19. And i think in your testimony, mr. Mcgee, you mentioned that firefighters and emergency medical personnel are Prehospital Health Care providers, often the first workers that are in physical contact with infected persons. And i think mr. Ludwig, you mentioned that as well when we were talking about ppe and how important it is. So, following up on my colleagues questions on that issue, i would be interested if you could just share with us a little bit more about that role and how that is affecting your role as well. Of course we all anticipate responding to the fires, but what i think i read in your testimony was that the National Fire Protection Association reported that 68 of Fire Department responses in 2018 were actually medical calls. So, can you talk a little bit about the breakdown of emergency 911 medical responses. Has that changed during the covid19 pandemic . Are you seeing more . Are you seeing less . And what are you doing or what do you think you need more help to be able to do to protect your firefighters and emts from the virus whether its additional funding . I would love to hear from everyone with that role with the time i have left which is about three minutes. Thank you for that question. Im not aware that the response percentages have changed since the pandemic, but im also not i havent viewed any of the latest reports. I dont really know. And as i believe the chief said earlier, you know, fires and other types of calls that firefighters respond to havent stopped simply because were in a pandemic. I shouldnt say, simply. Because of the pandemic. So, the percentages, im not sure have changed. It wouldnt surprise me if its a little more elevated as far as ems response goes. What weve found in houston is i dont want to bring up a sore subject. But what we found is a battle between our firefighters and the city of houston in relation to ppe. Our leadership for houston firefighters has had to go to Great Lengths to identify for the City Administration their own ability to utilize funds that have been allocated for the city of houston from the federal government and to buy the proper equipment. Were talking about a lack of gloves, face shields, body isolation suits, and for a city of 4 million people, thats a real problem. And so what we would like to see is the availability of the revenue without the waivers for afg to make it easier for a city like houston with their vast resources to be able to purchase appropriate equipment for firefighters and responders. And the other part that id like to leave you with is our firefighters actually partnered with the department of health in hughes to be to check on the well being of nursing home patients. And they did that on a voluntary basis. And they did that also knowing that they might not have the appropriate level of ppe. So, were all in. Were ready to respond to our c constituency so to speak, and having that afg funding without the waivers is going to help us do that. Thats helpful. Thank you. Chief ludwig, would you like to weigh in . Ill kind of echo what sandy said. And the waivers are so important that they need to be waived. In my own community here in champagne, illinois, weve lost significant revenue with sales tax money. Were the home of the university of illinois, and when you send 55,000 students home and they stop buying the pizzas and all the other things that College Students do, we have a lack of sales tax money revenue coming in. So, i dont have the extra abundance of money in my budget to go ahead and pay for those matches. So, its so important that that be waived. And again, we recommend wholeheartedly that be done through that direct program from the federal government directly to the Fire Departments. Thank you so much for that. I know that these were important priorities when we were talking about the h. E. R. O. S, act, how we can help and get funding for the issues. Im optimistic your testimony will be helpful in moving that forward. I see i have used up all of my time so i thank you very much for your participation and comments today. Madam chairwoman, i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Balderson. Thank you, chairwoman johnson. Thank you for holding this hearing today. And thanks all our panelists here. Very grateful for everything that you all do. My first question is for mr. Hersh, you mention you have concerns with legislation solutions at disadvantaged rural and Fire Departments wrote this crisis and know that they face unique challenges. Could you elaborate on what congress could do legislatively. It would help these departments the same extent that it helps all types of Fire Departments . Sure, you know, when the fire Grant Programss first started, there was a considerable larger pool of money that was put into those programs and what you see and when the pie gets smaller a gets a lot of the pieces get a lot smaller for people. Thats part of whats happening in the volunteer fire service is that as the pie got smaller and the pieces got smaller, some departments just flat gave applying because they would try year, two, three years in a row and be turned down and then they finally decided its a waste of their time to do that. Mr. Balderson, can you turn your camera on . Im sorry. Okay, we see you. Okay, so, you know, when you take the pie and make it smaller and then you cut the pieces even smaller, it makes it very difficult for volunteer Fire Departments and thats why its so important to keep that 25 set aside. You know, i would add to that one of the unique challenges, and ive mentioned this before with the volunteer especially the ems agencies, you know, ive got a county that youve got ten or 12 people who are volunteering their time to protect the health of their community. It takes only one or two of those two contract covid in the entire agency is shut down. They covered 900 square miles as it is, how are you going to be able to provide ems service in that community to those people . Thats why its so important to protect the health of our personnel. Thank you very much. Mr. Hirsch, ill have you get a followup here. One issue that his struck out to me is that various types of departments are hailing widely different challenges. Given the expertise we have testifying today, could each of you and i guess i will start with you mr. Hirsch, tell us what you feel is the Biggest Challenges for your respective organizations and how it would Work Together to find solution so that all types of Fire Departments . Thank you. Our biggest challenge is financing and as i mentioned in my testimony, weve got to put more money in this program because thats the only solution. Weve got departments will and departments in your state that will survive entirely upon fundraisers and are unable to do that. Thats going to have the spinoff effects. Its not just the response to covid, now they can no longer have the money in the bank to provide equipment for responding to structure fires. They can no longer agree the fire truck they need to upgrade and then they are making choices about whether or not the only way thats going to be emboldened with proper financing. Chief ludwig, wed like to follow up . I pretty much what stephen said. Financing is so important, my own budget has made overtime. Its been decimated by the supplies weve gotten by. I talked to a chief yesterday in new england and he told me hes already cut his budget 10 and took another 10 coming. Ive talked to fire chief who are totally cut five, ten, 15, even 20 of their budget because of one, weve expanded our overtime budgets. Ive expanded my overtime budgets and now we have an economic downturn, which shut down the economy were municipal governments rely on Fire Districts who rely on that revenue coming in from taxes and thats gone. So again, that is the biggest component that i might add and i would echo with what i said with the financing issues. Thank you and madam chair, i yield back. Thank you very much. Miss stevens . Thank you madam chair, this is an incredible hearing and what an honor to be with chief ludwig and mr. Mcgee and mr. Hirsch. Ive learned so much from all of you so far. As you may know congresswoman tlaib and senator gary peters have taken action around addressing the waiver requirements for safer grants. This is forthcoming legislation in the house through congresswoman tlaib, relief for local fire fires departments during covid19 and we are so proud of our Fire Departments here in michigan and the way that they have stepped up in this pandemic. I think back to last summer being with my friend, bill, who runs the plymouth township Fire Department at the Highland Department for fires and the technology, the innovation, thats what we do here on the Science Committee. What goes into those trucks and, you know, doing things so quickly and you need to know where everything is and its great operations and the safer grants and the afg need grants, frankly. They are so critical for us being able to execute and congress township, in particular, my colleague township supervisor, david scott with his Fire Department. We got a big safer ground, rochester hills, big safer grand, but lets just talk about and mr. Mcgee, you can kick us off. Can you discuss for me the importance of ensuring that our Fire Departments are adequately staffed in the role that having ensured that with the safety and what this waiver requirement, you think its necessary and if so why or why not you know, what we want to get at is we did that a part of it, we have forthcoming legislation and we need to get you the best technology possible, so will start with you mcgee. Thank you very much for that question. You are correct, that the technology is very important but also whats important our people. It takes people to put out fires, it takes people to do cpr, it takes people to respond to car wrecks and every other disaster or situation that firefighters respond to. People and personnel are really important and the number of personnel is important. Which is why i know my firefighters. laughs i live up the street from one of my home station. Very good. There is quantifiable evidence that has been produced by the federal government to shell the proper number of personnel and people. The number of it takes to do every job we have, whether its pulling autos, springwater, whether its doing cpr, whether its administering drugs, there is a quantifiable process that we have gone through to show the proper number of people. The fact of the matter is, the fewer number of people that we have, the less work gets done, the last sake the work and the less efficient we are. The waivers are important for saving so that we can retain firefighters and rehire firefighters. I might be going out on a limb here but we dont think that a lot of Fire Departments are going to be hiring firefighters in the future, simply because of the economy that we feel like we are going to be in. The waivers to allow us for the retention and rehire of firefighters that are laid off is the most important thing. Also the equipment that we get from afg, so its not an either or situation, its both of these programs working hand in hand for this kind of response. Fabulous. Chief ludwig, did you want to chime in at all . I would just say, again, i echo what sandy is saying. I used the illustration of the three legged stool. If you have the people, you have the equipment and then you have the procedures that you knew that you do adequately with a reasonable amount of time. You are going to have Success Stories there. If you remove one of those legs, the stool falls over, so its so important and so imperative that we have the proper funding for people, proper funding for equipment and the proper training to do the things we do, which we take care of the training, we just need the people in the equipment and we need the funding for that. Training, training, training with madam chairwoman, madam chairman, i have to yield back my time. Thank you all, this is so spot on hearing for all of us today. Thank you very much. Mr. Olson . Good afternoon everybody. Can you hear me . All right, i am assuming you can hear me. There we go. We are Going Forward. Thank you chairwoman johnson. Thank you to our three witnesses. The suburbs of houston texas, southwestern suburbs, id like to follow up on the line of questioning from my colleague brian about Hurricane Season. As you all probably no, it started on june 1st so just 12 days ago. That surprise me with the current situation. We had to storm develops before. We had Tropical Storm arthur, and Tropical Storm burger birth a formed on may 20. Seventh. Tropical storm crystal ball, which shook new orleans and went up through albany, wisconsin, the First Time Ever and the first time as the storm happened before january 2nd, im sorry, june 2nd. My question to you all, on a federal program, its called the 1033 program. It supports local communities, local Fire Departments, local First Responders. Its a program that allows a local entity like a city, a Fire Department, a Police Department, a First Responder to buy surplus the armed military vehicles. The vehicles are worth nothing to dod they are dr. When someone goes to their local waterbirds, gets this draw as a spit wad, thats all these things can do. These things are very important after hurricanes for example, Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. A big town which about 133,000 people had three fire trucks get flooded out. They had the steady amount, they did that knowing they flood, but theyll have problems in the future. This program has some controversy, but again, its very valuable to our local communities so like what all of you to discuss how important the 1033 program is to have you guys do your jobs in times of hurricanes, floods, disasters, fires, whatever. Lets start with mr. Mcgee. Tank you for the question congressman. I have no experience at all with the 1033 program and i wouldnt feel comfortable commenting on it. It sounds like its something that we need to learn more about. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Ludwig . Think you. I have no knowledge of the 1033 program either. I do know that the ifc has a Software Program where we are trying to get states to buy, and be part of it its called in mask. Its a national and so we used Safari Software and every software, so we share those resources where resources can be shared. If you have a fire truck thats flooded out, that maybe you can call for fire trucks and surrounding communities to use this type of Software Program. I have to add, i dont know anything about the 1033 but, hopefully the states all come on board and use our in match system. Mr. Hirsch, thered strike. 57 years ago when my father started the Fire District in North Central kansas, they were very fortunate to receive a number of pieces of ex military equipment, five tons military juice. That served as a backbone for the Fire Services in those communities for many years and they still do to this day. We have Fire Departments all across kansas, all across america that are using access military equipment to fight fires and, personally, for me, out here in the plains, ive used those times to get through snow drifts. Theres no use going through snowdrift one other stuff wont go through. Very important program. One final question. This is also about Hurricane Season. As you all know, weve had a lot of covid pop up here in the region, most hit retirement homes, senior homes, those people have to evacuate, they will be welcomed, hey, stop here. So what are the plans because you will be exposed to keep your firefighters protected with more gear, how can we help make sure thats a smooth transition and get them out of harms way . Its a big deal, they have to get out of the area for sure but those exposed First Responders, they may be exposed so any sort of plan for disasters and evacuation of being exposed to covid19 . Ill take that question. I can tell you that i know that there is a National Ambulance Company Called dmr sometimes known as amr. They have 1800 different agencies around the country on contract that if they have to move in ambulances or other types of transportation bands into a certain area, they have the set of resources and quarantine there for fema. Its still imperative and still important that we perfect our people and so its important and Strategic National stockpile, that the supply chain be good and that Fire Departments that are part of that system the National System also had the proper equipment and the funding to buy that equipment. Thank you. Mr. Mcgee, i wont put you on the spot for texas, oklahoma. The university of tulsi. University of tulsa. I yield back. Thank you very much. Which one is next . I dont have the i know that mr. Mcnerney and mr. Foster have been here a long time. Miss horn . Yes chairwoman, im here. Okay, you are recognized. Thank you very much madam chair and sandy, its great to see you even if its virtually. I appreciate all that you are doing as a fellow oklahoma and you should know mr. Olson tries to strip the red river rivalry all the time and it is a university of tulsa graduate, ou beach texas any day. Thanks to all the witnesses here today. Its a very incredible subject. Sandy, i want to start with you if i could. Just following up on miss stevens line of questioning about the flexibility and the afg program. Speaking with many of our Fire Departments here in my district that have big, big departments such as Oklahoma City and small rural departments across my district and volunteer departments know the importance. In terms of the flexibility, i know that the proposal gain some flexibility but it strikes me as one of the core issues in the need for flexibility is the ability to reputation. We know that Oklahoma Citys rely slowly on sale taxes to find these Poor Services and in order to avoid the laws of critical fire fighter capacity. Can you speak to the most important waivers in this safe for a grant, the afg Grant Programs. Yes, thank you congresswoman and it is good to see you, even if it is remote via remote meeting, yes. The waivers that are most important well theyre all important and the waiver and as we already discussed Fire Department in cities are going to have, if they are not experiencing that means they are going to be looking at the biggest cost and thats always people. Unfortunately, thats the reality that we find ourselves in so the ability to retain or to rehire firefighters that have already been laid off is very important. Also, the cost share provision, or waiver, if we could take for instance the city of tulsa. The city of tulsa is in a hiring freeze right now. We already talked a little bit about the revenue shortfall. They could apply for a safer grant. They are going to have nutrition in their next budget year that they already know is going to occur but the grant, the rules as they are currently presented, dont help them, so they are just not going to apply for that kind of assistance. If we could get that waiver enacted into law, it would help cities. Im sure there are others around the state, if not around the state, around the country, that are similarly situated to tulsa. Those are important. Thats the flexibility im talking about. Yes, and to follow up on that, for our small or Fire Department to have ten or fewer firefighters in some cases, the safer grants in those cities could that is that making the difference between whether or not a community could retain professional Fire Department or literally making the difference between whether or not they are continuing to keep their Fire Departments going or not . It could. It actually could. The cost associated with hiring firefighters and personnel, we all know that its expensive but weve already experienced for lows in pauls valley. Furloughs in mccollister, the possibility of furloughs and layoffs and chick shea. These are not big cities, these are small towns, Rural Communities in our state and every department, every department of size or even if they are a combo department or a volunteer department, they can all benefit for a safer program. Recruitment, retention, firefighters, that program, the value of cannot be stressed enough. So yes, even small departments and Rural Communities benefit from the program and we always encourage them to apply. Thank you very much. I just have a few seconds left i wonder if for any of our other witnesses would care to comment. Thank you very much sandy. I dont think theres anything i would add to that. I appreciate that support. Thank you very much. I appreciate it and i know that i just wanted to add that Mental Health, i really appreciate mr. Bairds comments and the Mental Health component something id like to follow up on as well to make sure we take care of our firefighters. Madam chair, i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Sherman . Thank you. I want to thank the chair for putting together this hearing on safer and afg. I had excellent questions but my excellent colleagues, particular in california, have asked most of them. Phil we had an excellent point about the urban wildlife interface and that has of course been affected by Global Warming and bairds comments on focusing on taking care of the firefighters who are under such stress. I would like to take just one minute not on firefighting in particular and that is the role of the Science Committee and science in dealing with this covid crisis. We are the center of supporting congress for support for scientific research. Across only one quarter of 1 ahead of the money that has been enacted so far its going to research on therapeutics, prophylaxis and understanding the covid disease. Great work is being done, unprecedented work is being done but its still only one quarter or 1 of the money and there are a lot of things we could be doing that we are not researching and most of the professional medical researchers are sitting at home since all of the non Covid Research has been deferred. Also i preserve on the Foreign Affairs Committee Just for the last 24 years. This covid disasters going to hit the third world, has hit the third world. The biggest thing we can do to help the whole world is through research. Im hoping that many people listening to me now will support a letter to leadership urging that we defend in negotiations and the five and a half billion dollars, thats five and a half billion out of three trillion in the heroes act for covid scientific research. I know i spoke to the chairwoman about this and ill be circulating that. As to firefighters, this is what they are funded in part of local government in most cases. Not only are the costs higher for the ppe etc, but there is this huge decline revenue for sales tax, commercial property tax, income tax fraud and weve got to fight for the money for state and local government but we probably wont be successful in doing enough and so we have to provide more flexibility for the funds we do provide. There are a number of requirements in the grants and one of those is the 25 for volunteer Fire Departments. I put that aside, i think theres a lot of support for that. But then there are the other acquirements and another times are important, but may not be good to have now. The first of these is the matching requirements and weve heard several witnesses say that we need to wave that. A second is that the c four grams can be used only for new and additional firefighters not to retain currents data. How important but is that would be waived in the heroes act . How important is that we wave that in the year or two after the covid crisis . I wonder if any of our witnesses could address that . I think its important, mister congressman that if congress does indeed adopt the waivers that we are suggesting or the lack of, however you want to say it, i think going into the future is important because this is going to linger around the effects of the pandemic, i think im going to linger in our economy for a while. Im not an economist or an expert, just speaking from practical experience that it will take a little while to recover. I expect that we will fully require recover. It will take a little while. If the waivers are granted as we are suggesting not just for this current fiscal year or the heroes act, but also into the future, i think its going to go a long way to address your concern about how we deal with this Going Forward. And in my prior life i headed the largest state tax agency and ill tell you, the commercial property tax revenues, which some cities rely upon, are going to be a hard hit for several years. Im hoping the sales tax in the income tax rebound, but of course this year is just going to be a terrible fiscal year for all our state and local governments. What about the maintenance of effort requirements . There are a host of those built into these bills and built into these programs. Should those be suspended or retained in these two Grant Programs . Do we have a comment from any of our witnesses . Im in favor in the ifc is in favor of suspending those and that they should also be waived. The iaff is as well. Okay. Finally, theres been a report that some 64 of fire response Fire Department responses for medical aid back in 2018, now we have this covid crisis, im wondering how that is affected the mix between Firefighting Foam and the departments that you are doing . Ill just say that we put more oxygen than we do water for. laughs there is no doubt that we are mostly ems agencies, but we need those fire resources in place because we need to know how to manage that. One of the things that i have talked to my colleagues around the country about and that is theyve actually seen an increase of cardiac arrest in homes because people who might have gone to the doctor that has some preexisting condition, asthma, hard condition have waived that. They have not gone to the doctor. They havent seen any type of medical type of consultation or any type of medical treatment and so they try to stick it out at home and got to the point where it actually affected their conditions. They wanted to cardiac arrest. Most cardiac arrests, less than 1 of all calls for firefighters are cardiac arrest calls. Ive talked to some of my colleagues around the country, they were running up to 12 but where cardiac arrest calls were at home because people were delaying treatment. They were responding going to their doctor, going to the clinic, going to the hospital because of their fear of going on and being exposed to covid19 disease. It really, really impacted our Fire Departments and ems agencies where the critical types of calls. I believe my time is expired. Thank you madam chair. Thank you very much. But mr. Mcnerney . Thank you madam chair and i think the witnesses. That has been uninformative cynthia, i wasnt on the importance of the waivers. Thank you for that. Like my other california colleagues and i think my colleagues in the gulf states are concerned about femas ability to respond to Natural Disasters during the pandemic. In order to encourage them to prepare, i cold led a by camera letter along with senator kamala harris, which was signed by 81 of our colleagues requiring fema to outline their Natural Disaster preparation and Recovery Plan for the covid19 pandemic. We still havent heard back from them so im getting anxious that they have been done the right preparation. Chief for ludwig, you believe that the federal partners like fema and the u. S. Force service are doing enough to share information in this practices in preparation for the wildfire season . Typically we werent sure of the department of forestry and the bureau of Land Management. Now fema has a role somewhere in there and typically they are very responsive to our needs. I cant speak for the preparation right now. I dont know where they are at with things but i can tell you in the past, they are typically responsive. Most of our interactions with the department of forestry in the building of Land Management when it comes to wildfires. Thank you. Mr. Mcgee, this has been discussed at length really about the shortages of all types of ppes. How do these needs varies across the different departments . Without sounding tried, its just all over the map. There are departments that have adequate supply of rubber gloves but they dont have face masks. They might have face masks, they dont have gloves or suits. Its hard to categorize the type of ppe shortage on a universal basis, if that makes sense . Its really a question of each department and their own needs and what they have prior to the pandemic and how theyve had to utilize their equipment during the pandemic, i think is going to go a long way in helping them identify what they need for the future. Thats really all the information that i know so far. You talk a little bit more about the non fire related responsibilities that local Fire Departments now taken that the average american might not know about . Yes, thank you congressman. One of the things we like to say we are all hands on deck response. We respond to not only fires but ems calls, we respond to hazard material events, we respond to high angle rescue events, dives, accidents, you name the gamut. We are an all hands on deck response type of agency. When we use the word Fire Department although the world fire is in there, there are a bunch of sub sites or bunch of equal distributions of our responsibilities across the board and so its so important that, again, we maintain the staffing to do that, we maintain the equipment and thats why its so vitally important that these federal programs be place for us financially to support those operations. Thank you. Mr. Hirsch, i would love to hear your perspective as well. They have served often world communities in non fire related waves . I dont think there is probably a difference between the Rural Volunteer department and the we are all handling the same type of calls. But you now have people who are the volunteers in that community who are taking their own time away from their families, away from their jobs, actually spending their own money to make sure that they can be volunteers for their neighbors. That why the Grant Programs are so important to us because it allows us to carry on our mission, which, as gary said, all hazards. When any different to the volunteer service that it is for the career. It is clear to me that Fire Departments are providing services well beyond their original intent. I applaud them for doing so. However, we should do more then applied, we should find. I am proud my office has provided 83 support for afg support. Chief ludwig, i would like to know from your perspective a fire chief, can you describe the process for applying for a afg grant . So what happens is the grand director, our fema, makes the announcement lets me go back, congress improve the funding for that so you are our heroes when you do that, quite frankly. Its so important that once that funding is done, the grant director announces it, its a public announcement. Theres a period of time where Fire Departments then can apply and so there are an application process on line and Fire Departments will submit that Application Online including the narrative and why they need the grant. Then that goes through a tourist system where, i dont know what the algorithms are to that but eventually those are selected and move forward our Peer Reviewed and once they are Peer Reviewed their warrants i made by the grand directory. Thank you. How about the firefighters perspective, mr. Mcgee . Is the process of applying foreign afg grant . I will defer to chief ludwig as far as the process goes. We typically get involved when we have the ability to work with our fire admin on a local basis to help them with their grant writing. We have Resources Available also as an organization to help Fire Departments as they propose in apply for these grants. Just very quickly, how does a grant writing process for a Fire Fighting volunteer department . It doesnt. Its the same process, same application, same types of data, its just that now you are dealing with people who are having to give more of their time, their families time and their business time. To compile all those statistics to, write those narratives and get them submitted. Thank you. Again, thank you to our witnesses and thank you to our chair. Madam chair, great hearing and thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Wow miss casten . Thank you. Thank you madam chair. Thank you all for everything that you do, for being here today. Chief ludwig, we got a lot of upstate representatives on this committee but its night to see an illinois on whos here. I want to ask if you could, in the ppe that you have been able to support, have you predominantly been able to source ppe by fema . By the states . Has it been predominantly from your own sources . Where have you found the most to secure the ppe . Early on, quite frankly, the supply chain was not there. We were putting in requests to the state agency and sent requests to the federal level and the supplies are not coming back. We were forced to go outside and look for our own resources. Our mayor has contacts with the company and so we were able to secure some from their. I have people reaching to me that they had n95 and gowns. I talked to some like colleagues around the country and they were receiving anything. They werent receiving full box of gloves, they were receiving five or six pairs of gloves, so they didnt have the resources that we might have had to go and finding stuff. It was really, really challenging for us early on and really challenging for a lot of my colleagues around the country, the Fire Department, ppe quite frankly from anywhere. I just might take another second, our Covid Task Force 19, our task force at the ifc, we had an extra owner who was looking at fake n95s coming out of Southeast Asia and at one point we were detecting about 90 , quite frankly have all the equipment of and 95 that were coming out of Southeast Asia, china, malaysia, some other countries like that. Were fake any fives. We actually had webinars on how to spot fake any five masks. You mentioned earlier, this that still the case . Where you sourcing from now . We are in much better shape at this point. The curve has flattened and supply chains have become better. Local companies in the United States have also been given manufacturing production act, the supply chain has become better. So, those resources are now available the state level. Is the state running that program for you . Or you doing it independently . How it typically works, we will put a request in through our county, we then pushed to request a state of emergency agency, and if they have that equipment in the National Stockpile within our state, we can allocated it from there. If not they are pushing the request up to the fema at the federal level. The reason i ask, april 6th we have these periodic briefings, and on april 6th we were on the call with fema that they told us that they were prioritizing ppe in hotspots. I asked them on that call we didnt have enough testing to understand, and i was promised to reply, but i remain concerned that if fema is in fact prioritizing on a local state, states are fighting with each other which is not efficient. This is a little bit of a precise question, in early april did you see any significant change in how fema was responds in. Its ironic you ask me that, we did have an hourlong conversation with the administration on those exact words that were used reprivatize and, we were concerned that they were seizing equipment from Fire Departments. And that they were actually ordering supplies from a supplier. He denied that. But he did states that they were reprioritizing what they needed. So, that was a concern for us because obviously our priority here locally, and in some other community is a priority. That was the problem. There was much more demand than there was supply. Thank you. For everyone on the call, the concern i have is that we were testing everyone in the country, or that anyone wasnt symptomatic, it was hard to know how fema was prioritizing. And i still have my spider senses tingling. It is like the same thing i did, im sorry you had to go through that. Let us know if we can help with that. I yield back. Thank you very much. Doctor foster. Thank you madam chair. I would like to change the subject to research standards. As you all know the Fire Protection develops consensus and Standards Development for the fire service. Codes and standards are very important when we are facing threats like covid19. When many of the Health Threats are not obvious. Could you elaborate, first on your organizations involvement on the Standards Developments process and covid19 related some research, and how the whole system has been working in crisis. Do we actually know the standard of care and what it should be . Take that in any order. Well, speaking for the National Volunteer fire council, we have never of Board Members who have served on the different committees. And we monitor those all the time. It is very important part of the process for us. Some do you get realtime information and updates . On what is safe, and handling a covid positive patient, or suspected positive. The understanding of what is safe and what wasnt has evolved rapidly over the crisis. Are you getting a good level of information . Is there room for improvement there . I am sure theres always room for improvement. But i think most of the volunteer Fire Services are relying on the guidance of the cdc. Chief ludwig . I will just echo, are colders on those consensus committees for standards, they are also a part of the Traffic Safety administration, when they evolve team medical care, they were also stakeholders for that. The standards that we use from where we protect ourselves whether it is a covid patient or a blood Borne Disease or airBorne Disease. Those standards are universal. We use universal precautions and all patients. What we were fearful of is the fear factor. How spread will is this disease . How transmittable . Can it hang in the air for five or six hours after we leave a room . Those were concerns earlier on that the science and technology maybe didnt exist. All we did is rely on our National Standards of medical care. And also the cdc recommendations. Im okay. Congressman, i dont have much to say about research but some these groups are working hand in hand with fema and cdc, with health and Human Services and other governmental agencies to work through the development of protocols as we have already talked about in any Research Related effectiveness of ppe would be welcome. More research, since we dont know a lot about the virus itself is certainly welcome and anything we can learn about to help reduce the transmission of the covid virus and protect firefighters, organizationally and professional firefighters we are very interested in that. And very interested in what programs could be developed to help us accomplish that. Some obviously, the standard of protection for you guys some has to be a lot higher than the average citizen because you are handling potentially very dangerous virus. Im just trying to understand if there is a highly responsive system to make sure that you get the information in a timely manner. I will change subjects a little bit, i am supportive of all the emergency room firefighters, but to maintain the support and have a bigger piece of the pie for everyone, it has to be seen as fair. Chief ludwig, your small town or medium sized town in illinois, often what we are seeing is that because you are in a Large Population state, you end up being punished. For example, in wyoming there is a similar sized town that gets five times more money. This sort of thing, i was just wondering do sense that when you are making grant applications and trying to get the money that you need, that all said you find that being a Large Population state that you are disadvantaged because the nature of the grant allocation on the state holds . Quite frankly, im not aware of how they allocate that. Any type of process that they use on a distribution of that money, i was thought it was based on the need him. Based on the practicality of their application and demonstrating that need. I didnt know, forgive my lack of knowledge, i did not know that there is a certain amount that was allocated in certain places. If that is the case, im not sure that is a fair process. And it should be based on need and demand. Basically the number of people under your protection in your district. The federal assistance to citizens shouldnt depend on where they live. Anyway, thank you again. I yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Buyer . I want to thank all of you for hanging in there to the very end. We saved the best for laughed. Would you mind doing a second round . Im just kidding. I met with my fire chiefs in fairfax alexandria recently. Interesting, ppe never came up. They said theyre in very good shape. Im not sure whether our state had planned well but they did talk about lots more cardiac incidents. A lot more strokes. People are baby postponing going to their urgency room until the fire emergency as they come to their home. This is the hardest part by far is staffing. The sick, the overtime that was necessary. I have a specific question for you. What is the biggest thing, going on with police brutality. Black lives matter and all these things that have come up with First Responders. You hear that there are big websites of Inappropriate Police behavior. We know that 95 are doing a good job, but we are trying to deal with the other 5 . How can we dont hear this about firefighters . You are out there responding to dangerous situations them. You are 100 percent right. Thank you for the question. I think it might just be related to how we are trained. Im not sure about that. We respond on a daily basis across the u. S. With our Police Counterparts that usually goes off without a hitch and no problem. I cannot really speak to why the fire service is not experiencing the same issues that the Police Service is, other than to say it could be related to the type of training we received and the way that we operate on a daily basis. Firefighters work as a team. We fight fire together. We work on ems calls together, we eat, we train, we do everything together. It only serves in my mind, that is why there is a difference. But i am only speaking anecdotally. I have no basis in fact, it is just my own opinion. I didnt mean to hold you guys up for what we can expect and hopefully that our Police Departments will evolve into. I want to thank all of you for the suffering that 1000 plus firefighters who have gotten sick, and the 55 who have died, that is a lot of suffering. And i respect you all for that. Some i have visited many Fire Departments my area, i will give it to 30 a few nights ago, there is a big fire truck pulling down next to my house. I didnt hear the sirens. I realize later that they were responding to a medical emergency. If 64 plus of the responses are medical rather than fire, widely seen the big trucks with four or five people every time somebody has a chest pain or feed . Him you are talking about a deployment, quite frankly, what aspects of that is that since we are all hazard, we respond to those medical emergencies but you never know what you are going to need. Maybe needed extra k shun tool. Maybe someone wont answer the door. There is a variety of things. We strategically employing no matter what the emergency is whether it is a fire or ems call for somebody who is trapped in a collapse of a building. Whatever the case may be, we show up at all the resources that we have. You might need it. You dont want to wait for another truck to come from a further distance. That is a Deployment Model that is economically efficient so that you dont have multiple trucks serving multiple roles. Multi response capabilities. Thank you. Steve, one quick question. Firefighters gave up smoking and now covid 19 is a lower lung disease, how is that anti smoking culture evolved within firefighters . I dont know if it has evolved in the volunteer fire Service Rather than the general population from, we know that it is not good for us so we just dont. But you know, historically, career firefighters essentially had to retire when they reached age 50. That wasnt a magic number, what it was is that we lapped the equipment to be able to protect our lungs. And if we cutter handsome bleed for a little while it heals within a week or two. Lungs are not that way. They dont ever heal. We have to protect our lungs. Firefighters are uniquely situated to understand that, perhaps thats why weve seen such a good reduction in the use of tobacco products. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you very much. I think that is our last witness. Before we bring the hearing to a close i would like to thank our witnesses, for testifying today and the record will remain open for two weeks for additional statements. Four members or any other additional questions that you may want to ask the witnesses. The witnesses are now excused. Our meeting is adjourned. Tonight we look at dolly madison. Watch first ladies influence an image tonight at 8 pm eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. What do you think we can do about that . With police reform, protests and coronavirus continuing to affect the country watch our live unfiltered coverage with briefings from the white house, congress and governors and mayors from across the country updating the situations