Congressmember Claudia Tenney is joining volunteer firefighters across her sprawling rural district in calling on the federal government to reconsider burdensome training regulations.
Fire departments sounded the alarm at a conference in Syracuse in mid-June. The proposed changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s regulations include doubling the number of hours for basic firefighter training, changes to medical screenings, and numerous operational mandates.
Tenney says it will exponentially increase the cost of providing fire protection to communities that can’t afford it and could force some departments to close. The regulations have been in the works for several years, and are the first changes since the 1980’s.
