Sponsors (181)
The bill increases access to compensation for public safety officers (including retroactive claims and an evidence-driven process to add cancers) but raises taxpayer and local-government costs, administrative burdens, and risks of contested medical or legal disputes.
Public safety officers (police, firefighters, EMTs) will more easily have deaths and permanent disabilities — including listed work-related cancers — recognized as line-of-duty, making them and their survivors more likely to receive compensation and benefits.
Survivors and disabled officers can file retroactive claims for qualifying incidents back to January 1, 2020 (or within three years of enactment), increasing access to benefits for recent past cases.
The bill establishes a periodic (no more than every 3 years) scientific review and petition process to add or update listed cancers based on NIOSH, NTP, IARC, or National Academies evidence, allowing covered conditions to reflect current science.
Taxpayers and local governments may face substantially higher costs because expanding covered events and allowing retroactive claims will likely increase benefit payments.
Employers, local agencies, and programs will face increased administrative, adjudication, and budgetary burdens to process expanded claims, manage petitions/reviews, and handle expert referrals.
The presumption of work-relatedness can be rebutted, and broader definitions may produce contested medical disputes and scope litigation, delaying or denying benefits for some claimants.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates a presumption that listed cancers in public safety officers are work-related for death/disability claims, requires periodic updates to the cancer list, and allows retroactive claims to Jan 1, 2020.
Creates a legal presumption that certain listed cancers diagnosed in public safety officers are work-related for purposes of death or permanent and total disability claims, defines key terms, requires periodic updating of the list of exposure-related cancers, sets procedures and timelines for petition review, broadens confidentiality protections retroactively, and allows affected individuals to file claims retroactively to January 1, 2020 (with a three-year filing window from enactment). It also clarifies that a “line of duty action” includes actions performed at agency direction or actions the officer is authorized or obligated to perform.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by Mary Gay Scanlon · Last progress February 12, 2025