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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Senate has unanimously passed a bill entitled Protecting America's First Responders Act. I authored this legislation to expand benefits to first responders who are injured in the line of duty.

The Public Safety Officers' Benefit Program, or PSOB for short, offers a one-time lump sum payment to first responders who are killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. I think that legislation has been on the books since the 1970s.

I started investigating this program when I heard complaints about long delays in processing payments. Those delays reached up to 3 years, on average. It is just not understandable why it should take 3 years for somebody who is killed in the line of duty to decide if the family should have help from that program. We fixed that particular issue with my 2017 bill entitled the Public Safety Officers' Benefit Improvement Act.

However, my investigation uncovered a lot of other problems with that program, now 50 years old. The Justice Department was denying payments to folks who should have received those payments. In one case, a disabled police officer suffered a traumatic brain injury. The Department said that he wasn't disabled because he held a part-time position at Home Depot as a greeter.

In another case, again, a police officer with brain injury was denied the benefit. Why? Because the officer tinkered around with motorcycles in his garage. It would take this officer months to do simple things that would otherwise have taken him just days. Still, the Department said that he wasn't disabled. They said it. It is unreasonable.

But my bill that I described to you, which has now passed the Senate recently, will correct this problem. This legislation clarifies that first responders who are totally and permanently disabled but can still perform some very simple tasks can still get benefits. It adds a fair boost in payments to first responders who have waited years for these benefits. It provides the Justice Department with more tools so that it can process claims more quickly.

Finally, my bill extends a presumption in the law that ensures that first responders who contract COVID on duty don't have to jump through hoops to prove it, because, you know, with COVID--did you get it when you were actually policing, or did you get it when you were in a restaurant, or did you get it when you were in church?--you don't really know. This bill will go a long ways in helping our first responders where it is impossible to show whether you got it when you were actually on duty.

I would like to thank Senators Gillibrand and Booker, as well as all the other cosponsors.

I also want to thank our House counterparts, specifically, Congressman Pascrell and his staff, who led the effort to pass the bill in the House of Representatives.

Lastly, I want to thank the Justice Department for working closely with us to improve this language.

Before I wrap up, I just want to say a few words about our first responders. Whether it is police officers, firefighters, or EMTs, first responders are the embodiment of the best qualities of Americans. Their daily sacrifices make our society better and safer.

I am proud to have sponsored this legislation, and I urge the President to quickly sign the bill.

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