Page 19 - Volume 19

sors, but Senators Portman and Brown have yet to cosponsor the bill. IAFC President John Sinclair issued a call to action for fire service leaders to contact their Senators and urge them to cospon- sor S. 829. The IAFC is waiting for the House to introduce and start considering a companion bill to S. 829.
Tax Reform and the
Fire and Emergency
Service
As Congress begins to consider
tax reform, the OFCA and IAFC are urging members of Congress to include legislation to help volunteer firefighters. The Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act (H.R. 1550) would permanently exclude any property tax benefits and up to $600 other state and local benefits from federal taxation. This legislation has 38 cosponsors, including Representatives Renacci, Ryan and Joyce. We are awaiting introduction of the Senate companion bill.
In addition, we support the Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act (FSIA). This legislation would allow small- and medium-sized businesses to retrofit their buildings with automatic fire sprinklers and deduct the costs under section 179 of the Internal Revenue Code. In addi- tion, the owners of high-rise buildings would be able to use a 15-year deprecia- tion to recover the costs of retrofitting their buildings with sprinklers more quickly. The Fire Sprinkler Incentive
Act (H.R. 1481) was introduced by Representatives Tom Reed (R-NY) and James Langevin (D-CT). It has four cosponsors, but none from Ohio. The Senate companion bill (S. 602) has two cosponsors, but none from Ohio. We are working to include both the VRIPA and the FSIA in any tax reform legislation.
The Firefighter Cancer
Registry Act
There also has been progress on the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act (H.R. 931). This legislation, introduced by Representatives Chris Collins (R-NY) and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), would establish a voluntary registry of firefighters at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This anonymous registry would include information about a firefighter’s years in service; role as a career, volunteer, or paid-per-call fire- fighter; number of responses and types of incidents; and other demographic information. The information in this database then would be compared to state cancer registries to determine the correlation between firefighting and cancer. Due to the high prevalence
of cancer in firefighters, the hope is that medical researchers will be able to develop efforts to mitigate the risk of cancer in firefighters.
H.R. 931 has 163 cosponsors, includ- ing Representatives Johnson, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Renacci, Ryan, Stivers and Turner. Senator Brown cosponsored the Senate bill, S. 382.
JULY/AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 • www.ohiofirechiefs.org InCommand 19
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health subcommittee held a hearing in support of H.R. 931 on May 17. We look forward to a mark-up of the bill in the near future.
It’s still early in this session of Congress and there is a lot of work yet to be done. Nevertheless, the OFCA has played an important role in this recent progress. The Chiefs who visited Washington D.C. in early April played an important role in protecting FY 2017 funding for federal fire programs, like the USFA and the grants programs. In addition, the OFCA’s letter of support for S. 829 helped to have Senator Portman vote to reauthorize the FIRE and SAFER grant programs during the mark-up. The IAFC and OCFA will keep fighting to get our legislative and funding priorities passed on Capitol Hill and keep you informed about what is happening. u