Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentleman from Texas, Congressman Brady.

Mr. Speaker, somewhere across America, right now or later tonight, a tone is going to go off. That tone is going to go off, and a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter is going to respond. They are going to get out of their beds. They are going to get out of their workplaces. They are going to respond.

They are going to go to a place of danger, a place to help, a place, from their heart, to do something they want to do.

I remember that tone, for I used to answer that tone at Hollingsworth Volunteer Fire Department in Banks County. When you hear the tone go off, you go out not knowing what you may face or whether you will come home or not.

I am so pleased to stand in support, Mr. Speaker, of H.R. 3979, sponsored by Congressman Barletta, because it takes at least part of the uncertainty out of other things in life, when all these men and women want to do is to serve the community.

By taking this uncertainty out and not counting them as full-time employees, it gives those volunteer personnel and their chiefs less to worry about. Instead, they are able to spend more time making sure they are doing what all these great Americans want to be doing, and that is to serve their communities.

The West Jackson Fire Department in my district is really frightfully scared of this rule because it is going to cost them more than they can afford.

So all I ask is for the bipartisanship that has been shown here today. And, for those watching, when the tone goes off, the brave men and women of our country respond. What they don't need is to have a tone go off from

Washington that puts them in further jeopardy.

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