Steny Hoyer: “I want to thank Congressmen Martin Sabo and Curt Weldon for their leadership not only on this amendment, but also on so…”

“I want to thank Congressmen Martin Sabo and Curt Weldon for their leadership not only on this amendment, but also on so many issues of importance to our nation's fire service. I also want to express my sincere appreciation to chairman Rogers for his support of our first responders and his assistance in bringing this important amendment to the floor. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not recognize the contributions that Bill Pascrell has made to our nation's firefighters, notably his authoring of the original legislation to establish the assistance to the firefighters grant program. Mr. Chairman, this amendment provides much-needed increases to both the fire grant and safer programs, and it moves us closer to fulfilling our obligation to ensure that our nation's firefighters have the resources necessary to guarantee their own safety--and to allow them to better serve each of our communities. This amendment brings the funding in the bill to $651 million--$541 million for fire grants and $110 million for safer. This is $357.6 million above the level requested by the president, and is a reflection of congress's commitment to ensuring that our fire departments are properly staffed, trained and equipped. However, these amounts are still well below the authorized levels, and far from meeting the needs of the fire service. Thus, we must continue to work to increase the funding levels for each of these programs--this year and in the future.…”