House and Senate Action

The House and Senate are on recess and will not return until September 9th.

Administrative Action Spotlight: OSHA’s Proposed Rule to Replace “Fire Brigades Standard”

Earlier this year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed a rule that would replace the decades-old “Fire Brigades Standard” with a new “Emergency Response Standard” (ERS) that expands federal workplace safety regulations for first responders. While the intent of the proposed rule is to enhance safety, a number of stakeholders have expressed serious concern that it fails to adequately consider the financial and operational burden that the rule would place on emergency agencies. In comments submitted to OSHA, NSDC urged the agency to suspend its proposed rule until a thorough and complete financial analysis of the proposal is conducted. As part of its correspondence, the Coalition expressed concerns that the new rule would ultimately divert resources from core emergency response activities and services. Furthermore, the proposal’s one-size-fits-all approach could cripple already fiscally strapped fire departments and emergency services districts, particularly those with small operating budgets, as well as negatively impact recruitment and retention efforts. Moreover, the financial burden of this proposal could lead to the closure of rural fire departments that are unable to comply with the requirements.

NSDC has noted specific areas of concern with the proposed rule, including the following:

• Community Vulnerability Assessments – A systematic assessment of structures, transportation systems, and infrastructure within each Emergency Service Organization’s (ESO) geographic area of responsibility is required under the proposed rule. While NSDC appreciates the objective of this exercise, such comprehensive assessments would be infeasible for many special districts due to limited personnel and data resources. In the state of Oregon, for example, fewer than 20 out of approximately 300 fire departments in the state have access to GIS or analytics for ongoing community vulnerability assessments.
• Medical Requirements – OSHA’s proposed rule would impose a number of medical requirements on ESOs, including comprehensive physical exams for all first responders. NFPA 1582 medical physicals – which are the gold standard for assessing firefighter health – are extremely costly and, in many rural areas, unavailable due to a lack of medical providers. Likewise, behavioral health and wellness resources, which ESOs would need to make available to employees, remain inaccessible to many due to a shortage of medical providers in rural areas. Since an ESO lacks control over service access, it is impractical for OSHA to mandate anything beyond creating a service plan.
• Fitness for Duty Requirements – Unlike other occupations, OSHA does not currently mandate fitness-for-duty testing for firefighters. If such testing is to be required, careful consideration must be given to the challenges communities face in recruiting and retaining emergency responders, including volunteers.
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standards – Incorporating entire NFPA standards by reference, which organizations must adhere to verbatim, poses risks. The additional 3,000 pages of information beyond the federal standard would need thorough examination for compliance. Moreover, NFPA standards are often updated without public input and therefore create a moving target.
  • NFPA 1910 mandates that individuals conducting fire equipment inspection, maintenance, and testing must be qualified as Emergency Vehicle Technicians. This requirement poses a significant challenge for many organizations and would likely be very difficult for ESOs to fully meet.
  • NFPA 1910’s broad definition of vehicles, including privately owned vehicles, presents regulatory complexities for special districts.
  • NFPA 1910’s requirements for retiring vehicles and personal protective equipment (PPE) would place a heavy financial burden on taxpayers.

Members of Congress have also expressed concerns about the unintended consequences of the proposed rule, including Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), the chair of the Senate Western Caucus, who sent a letter to OSHA Assistant Secretary Douglas Parker. In addition, the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Emergency Management held a hearing to receive stakeholder perspectives. Additional information, including an archived webcast of the hearing, can be accessed here. The issue was also discussed before the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections on July 24th. More details on that hearing can be found here.

Administrative Action Spotlight: Joint Rule on Financial Data Standards

Several federal financial regulators recently issued a proposed rule that would establish a set of standards to promote interoperability of financial regulatory data. Among other things, the rule would require the data standards to include a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) and be machine-readable. Entities that will need to report data to the government under the standards would need to obtain an appropriate LEI, if they do not currently have such an identifier. The proposed rule would also define the semantic meaning of the data and incorporate standards developed and maintained by voluntary consensus standards bodies. It should be noted that this is the first in a set of rules that will be released over the next few years. NSDC is still determining the impact of the proposal, but the coalition expects to submit comments once the rule is formally published in the Federal Register. Pursuant to the Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022, the final rule must be issued no later than December 23, 2024.

Bill Spotlight: Fix Our Forests Act

The House Natural Resources Committee recently approved a comprehensive legislative package – the Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 8790) – that seeks to restore forest health, increase resiliency to catastrophic wildfires, and protect communities in the wildland-urban interface. The measure, which has bipartisan support and aligns with many of the recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, would accomplish these goals by expediting environmental reviews, limiting frivolous lawsuits, and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration projects. It also would provide federal land managers, including the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with additional tools to expedite forestry projects.

Specifically, and among other things, H.R. 8790 would use fireshed mapping to prioritize the treatment of forests at the highest risk of wildfire. In addition, and to increase the pace of treatments, the bill would allow agencies to conduct critical forest management work concurrently with producing an environmental analysis. H.R. 8790 also would enable agencies to adopt categorical exclusions – or specific exemptions from full National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review – for certain forest management projects. To further support rural economies, the bill strengthens tools such as Good Neighbor Authority, Stewardship Contracting, and Shared Stewardship.

In an effort to deter frivolous litigation, the measure would prevent courts from stopping a project unless substantial environmental harm can be proven. Additionally, the legislation would require litigants to sue within 120 days and to have participated in the public comment process. Finally, the Fix Our Forests Act would promote intergovernmental collaboration by creating a new Fireshed Center made up of representatives from different agencies. The Center would help to inform suppression and management decisions.

For its part, NSDC is actively engaging with the bill sponsors to ensure that special districts are included in the definition of local governments. NSDC also continues to advocate for language that would expand the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program (CWDG) to make water infrastructure for fire suppression an eligible expense.