DES MOINES, IOWA (November 16, 2024) — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has announced that she led nineteen other states in a comment letter opposing a new Biden-Harris mandate that will shut down small-town, volunteer fire departments.
Approximately 70% of the nation’s fire departments are made up of volunteers; in Iowa, that number is more than 90%.
With the Biden-Harris Administration’s changes to Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Fire Brigades standards, the future of those fire departments is at risk. Firefighters are the heroes who respond when families’ homes burn, people get into car accidents, and when someone is having a medical emergency. But to keep up with the strict new mandates, fire departments will face extreme costs that threaten department shutdowns and cut off those lifesaving services.
“Volunteer firefighters are heroes, and our communities depend on them to keep us safe,” said AG Bird. “The Biden-Harris one-size-fits-all mandates might work for New York City, but they do not work for volunteer Iowa fire departments. I am calling to end the Biden-Harris mandates that drive out volunteer firefighters, hurting small towns and rural communities.”
Small-town fire departments are disproportionately squeezed by the Biden-Harris mandates. Whether a fire is in a town of 500 or a city of 50,000, the number of firefighters needed to respond to the fire is the same. The consequence is that training and equipping firefighters in the small town becomes 100 times more expensive per resident than in the city, and no new funding is provided to the fire departments to comply with the strict mandates.
The States are calling to eliminate the burdensome Biden-Harris mandates and protect the future of lifesaving, volunteer fire departments.
Iowa led the letter and was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Read the full letter here.
