Empowering the U.S. Fire Administration Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BICE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I many consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 7077, the Empowering the U.S. Fire Administration Act. This bipartisan legislation would give the U.S. Fire Administration the authority to send specialists to assist local firefighter investigators in onsite investigations of major fires.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, last year had the highest number of home fire deaths in 14 years. As was mentioned, families in Representative Torres' district know the devastation of major fires after suffering through New York City's deadliest fire in over three decades. This single fire claimed the lives of 17 residents, including 8 children.

By empowering the U.S. Fire Administration to partner with local fire departments, we can better determine the root cause of these tragedies and make sure that they never happen again.

The U.S. Fire Administration is housed within FEMA, and it has valuable and lifesaving resources on preventing, responding to, and investigating fires. This bill would ensure that State and local governments can access their expertise and, hopefully, prevent major fires in the future.

The bill directs incident investigators to examine the determined cause and origins of fires. It also requires them to assess broader systematic matters including use of codes and standards, demographics, structural characteristics, smoke and fire dynamics, costs, and associated injuries and deaths.

Additionally, the bill also requires the U.S. Fire Administration to issue a report in coordination with Federal, State, and local authorities on their findings, and to provide recommendations to Federal, State, and local officials to implement to prevent similar fires from occurring in the future.

This bill passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support in May of this year. The Senate amendment added language to ensure that the U.S. Fire Administration would not affect or diminish the authorities of other Federal agencies when investigating major fires and would not grant the administrator authority to investigate a major fire for the purpose of an enforcement action or criminal prosecution.

This bill incorporates stakeholder and agency feedback and is endorsed by the Fire Department of New York, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the National Association of State Fire Marshals, and the National Fire Protection Association.

I thank Representative Torres for introducing and leading the original bill, as well as the original cosponsors from our committee: Representatives Stevens, Meijer, and Gonzalez. I also thank Senator Peters for his work on the Senate amendment.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BICE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise again in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 7077, the Empowering the U.S. Fire Administration Act.

As I previously mentioned, the U.S. Fire Administration has valuable and lifesaving resources in preventing, responding to, and investigating fires. This amendment would ensure that State and local governments have access to these resources and that the U.S. Fire Administration has the authority needed to conduct onsite investigations of major fires without diminishing the authorities of other Federal agencies or negatively affecting ongoing or potential criminal investigations.

We cannot afford to let any more tragic and preventable fires like the one in Representative Torres' district happen in the future.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source