CT Delegation Discusses Funding, Staffing Issues with State Firefighters
By Bill Yelenak
WASHINGTON – Members of the Connecticut congressional delegation met with about 40 state firefighters Wednesday to discuss the firefighters’ staffing and spending concerns, homeland security matters and war with Iraq.
Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Reps. Robert Simmons (R-2), Rosa DeLauro (D-3) and Christopher Shays (R-4) talked to state firefighters about the problems they are facing in receiving funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as the support that should be given to the American soldiers abroad.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, to which the Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association of Connecticut belongs, listed the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement (FIRE) Act and homeland security as two of the main topics in their 2003 legislative issues book. The FIRE act became law last year and is designed to allow FEMA to give money to local fire departments for training and equipment.
Dodd told the firefighters that he and other members of the state delegation would keep fighting to try to make sure Congress allocates the full $900 million authorized by the act. Dodd pegged the current budgeted amount at $750 million.
Tom DiScipio, the president of the Hartford Firefighters Association, praised both senators for their knowledge of the needs of fire departments but said other members of Congress may not be as well versed.
Our senators “understand the differences between what police, public health and fire provide,” DiScipio said. “Unfortunately, that has not echoed in the halls of Congress, and I believe through Sen. Lieberman and Sen. Dodd we’ll get those problems across.”
DiScipio said the biggest problem for Hartford firefighters is adequate funding. “Money drives everything,” he said. “The only way to keep the manpower the way it is is if the federal government and the state come through and give us the monies we need to do our job.”
Dodd and Lieberman also discussed the conflict in Iraq with the firefighters. Dodd said that members of Congress are hoping for the best results but that there is no way to know for sure what will happen.
“It is something we hope will go very, very well, but no one can honestly say very certainly how these things will turn out,” Dodd said.
Dodd said even Americans who were previously against the war should be supporting their soldiers and should “keep them in mind in the coming days.”
“The young men and women in uniform now have got their lives in jeopardy, and every single American, regardless of their political persuasion, should rally around these people,” Dodd said.
Lieberman told the firefighters he had a perfect solution for all of their concerns.
“I have a simple answer, maybe too simple, to the kind of problems that you shouldn’t be facing that you are facing right now,” Lieberman said with a smile. “We need to elect a new President of the United States in November 2004.”
Lieberman also said he doesn’t understand what the Bush administration is trying to do by cutting taxes and going to war at the same time.
“We’re about to go to war,” Lieberman said. “There has never been a President who has attempted to push through an enormous tax cut beyond what we could afford when we’re going to war.”
Lieberman told the firefighters the foremost responsibility of the government is “to protect the security of the American people.”
“There’s no liberty without security,” Lieberman said. “That’s what you are all about.”
Bill Yelenak, a Boston University student, works at the Boston University Washington News Service in Washington, D.C. His telephone number is 202-756-2860 ext: 114 and his email is byelenak@newbritainherald.com.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
