Sponsors (17)
Introduced September 11, 2025 by April McClain Delaney · Last progress September 11, 2025
The bill protects firefighters and communities by ensuring training continuity, planning time, and cost recovery for cancelled Academy courses, but it adds notice and reporting requirements that can delay urgent decisions, increase administrative burdens, and shift costs to federal taxpayers or leave some local departments uncompensated.
Firefighters (career and volunteer) keep access to National Fire Academy courses, preserving skills training and improving community emergency preparedness amid higher wildfire and other risks.
Students, local fire chiefs, and Congress receive advance notice of course cancellations (specified 45/30-day windows and congressional notice), allowing planning, reducing disruption, and improving congressional oversight/continuity of training.
Fire departments can recover direct, itemized costs (travel, backfill, overtime) when Academy courses are cancelled, reducing unexpected local expenses and budget stress for departments.
Required advance-notice periods (including a 60-day congressional notice for large-scale cancellations) could delay urgent Academy decisions during emergencies, potentially hindering rapid program adjustments or timely course cancellations.
New notice, reporting, and reimbursement processes increase administrative burden and procedural costs for the Academy/USFA and for small or understaffed local fire departments required to compile itemized claims quickly.
Taxpayers may face increased federal expenditures to reimburse departments for cancelled courses, raising federal costs.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Sets notice, reimbursement, and reporting rules for large-scale cancellations of Academy training and requires a GAO study on 2025 impacts.
Requires the U.S. Fire Administration to follow specific notice, timing, reimbursement, and reporting rules before cancelling a large share of training courses at the National Academy for Fire Prevention and Control and related training programs. It defines “large-scale cancellation,” sets deadlines for notifying Congress, students, and fire chiefs, creates reimbursement rules for covered expenses, and orders a GAO study about the effects of any 2025 large-scale cancellations. The bill adds administrative procedures and definitions to the existing law to increase transparency, protect local fire departments from unreimbursed training costs, and produce a congressional report on impacts and attendance data.