Bob Menendez: “this amendment is to reauthorize the Firefighter Cancer Registry, which was passed unanimously by Congress and signed…”

“this amendment is to reauthorize the Firefighter Cancer Registry, which was passed unanimously by Congress and signed into law in 2018. The Firefighter Cancer Registry improves our Nation's ability to conduct research and gather data on the cancer risk associated with firefighting. It is a vital program, one that furthers our understanding of how to protect the brave first responders who run toward danger when everyone else runs away from it. And yet, on October 1 of last year, the program expired. My bipartisan, commonsense amendment would reauthorize the program for an additional 5 years while bringing it into line with the current appropriation level. Supported by Senators Murkowski, Brown, Klobuchar, Fischer, Rubio, and Tester, it would benefit both career firefighters as well as volunteers like my constituent Edward Diaz. He was the son of Eduardo Diaz, a North Bergen firefighter who tragically passed away in 2017 from pancreatic cancer. Today, he carries on his family's legacy of service as a volunteer firefighter in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. I submit to my colleagues, the Diaz family, along with their fellow brothers and sisters in the profession, are the reason we should all support this amendment today. Firefighting is more than a job. It is a calling, a calling that sometimes takes your life as we saw in the loss of two Newark firefighters within the last month.…”