Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to start off by certainly extending congratulations to Representative Barletta for his persistency in continuing to bring this legislation forward. As he has pointed out, it has been bipartisanly supported, and it deserves passage. It passed unanimously, as he indicated, in both the Ways and Means Committee and also unanimously on this floor, which is no small order.
Of course, it comes in the midst of controversy. I say ``controversy'' because--well, our distinguished chairman is to be congratulated as well for not only bringing this bill forward, but also for the great victory that was won by the Green Bay Packers yesterday.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. In a moment, because I do want to continue my praise of the Aaron Rodgers look-alike.
Today, our distinguished chairman announced that he is not running for President. We think that it is so that his look-alike, Aaron Rodgers, may fill that void. I know that it was an outstanding victory by the Packers yesterday, but it was not without controversy on our own committee.
I know that Kenny Marchant, Kevin Brady, and Sam Johnson are very concerned about this, but as the chairman said, ``The rules are the rules,'' and we should proceed from there.
But I also want to thank all of those, and especially the chairman, who raised the point about volunteer firefighters. All of us have that visual in our minds, of course, of those going up the stairs so that people can come down the stairs. And since September 11, and noting that volunteer firefighters cover more than 70 percent of this country, this clearly is a bill that was worthy of the unanimous approval and consent that it received and, as I indicated, is bipartisanly supported by our entire delegation.
I want to commend the gentleman from Connecticut, Representative Courtney, who will speak later, and also the gentlewoman from Connecticut, Representative Esty, and also the National Volunteer Fire Council, which has been 1,000 percent behind this and also other tax issues that are going to be coming before our committee that have been bipartisanly supported as well by Representative Reichert, Tom Latham, and others. And I know that we share the bipartisan spirit in this.
I also would like to say that, along with firefighters, the many people who are emergency medical volunteers could benefit from a number of volunteer tax breaks that we could provide as well. I look forward to working with our distinguished chairman and, again, commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Representative Barletta.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. We are especially gratified, though, in a true show of compassionate conservatism that you reached out to the chief fan of the Jersey Cowboys--excuse me--the Dallas Cowboys, Chris Christie, to provide him with both a hug and a sincere gesture from Wisconsin.
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I really deeply appreciate the words of my colleague and fellow member of the Ways and Means Committee. Again, I want to commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta).
I want to submit for the Record a letter from the Department of the Treasury that, at the bequest of a number of Members bipartisanly submitted and they made the changes to the rules.
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I think it is both appropriate and right that we codify this and put it into a law.
With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut, Joe Courtney, one of the chief sponsors who, along with Elizabeth Esty, helped engineer this bill.
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to thank Representative Courtney also for recognizing the Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Reauthorization Act, as I mentioned earlier, which is something that has been bipartisanly cosponsored in the past by Representatives REICHERT, Latham, myself, and others.
The distinguished chairman and I, who are classmates, who came into this Congress together--he has also been a great proponent and advocate for making sure that these volunteers, who never were intended in both the case of Mr. Barletta and also in the case of the IRS, something that is administratively burdening for the IRS, this is, as Mr. Kelly so passionately said, something that is common sense, that we ought to work on together, and that we ought to provide the relief for, those who provide more than 70 percent of the volunteer aid across this country, especially when it comes to fighting fires. And our National Volunteer Fire Council is supportive of this as is the Fire Chiefs Association. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle to ensure this.
Again, with that, I commend and congratulate the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) and thank him for his fine work in this area, and I look forward to supporting him on future endeavors.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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