Bill Pascrell: “I want to thank Mr. Langevin for all of his critical work on this too often neglected issue of fire sprinklers. I…”

“I want to thank Mr. Langevin for all of his critical work on this too often neglected issue of fire sprinklers. I applaud this amendment for encouraging the installation of fire sprinklers in all commercial buildings and supporting educational programs about installing them in residential buildings. A very critical issue here. We must take every opportunity to promote the use of fire sprinklers, as the gentleman from Georgia just pointed out, which is why we introduced the Campus Fire Safety Legislation to require mandatory responses. Every university now, every college, every community college, whether it is a college building or a dormitory, any building connected to that university or institution has an obligation to tell the parents and the students what is their record on fire safety. No students should be sent to any university, any university or any college, unless their parents and they themselves know what the record is, if there are sprinklers installed, if there are smoke detectors installed. We lost three who were killed in the Seton Hall fire in New Jersey, 58 were injured. Since 2000, 108 people have died in campus fires. There are 20 campus-related fire deaths in the last 2 years. Mr. Chairman, I want to bring the attention to everyone on this as part of the educational process. I want to thank the gentleman from Rhode Island for introducing this amendment. It makes sense, and I hope everybody will support it.”