[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1115 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1115

 To require the Secretary of Labor to revise the Standard Occupational 
   Classification System to accurately count the number of emergency 
          medical services practitioners in the United States.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 30, 2023

Mr. Casey (for himself and Ms. Collins) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, 
                     Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To require the Secretary of Labor to revise the Standard Occupational 
   Classification System to accurately count the number of emergency 
          medical services practitioners in the United States.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``EMS Counts Act of 2023''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Emergency medical services (referred to in this Act as 
        ``EMS'') personnel provide a critical role in emergency 
        response. The EMS workforce consists of a diverse group of 
        health care practitioners, including--
                    (A) paramedics, emergency medical technicians 
                (referred to in this Act as ``EMTs''), and dual-role 
                firefighter/EMTs and firefighter/paramedics; and
                    (B) volunteer personnel serving in each of the 
                roles described in subparagraph (A).
            (2) EMS is an integral component of the response capacity 
        of the United States to disasters and public health crises, 
        such as outbreaks of infectious diseases, bombings, mass 
        shootings, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. EMS 
        personnel respond to more than 22,000,000 emergency calls each 
        year including strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrest, and 
        trauma.
            (3) The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles information on 
        the number of individuals working in roles across the entire 
        United States workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics 
        completes this work by maintaining the Standard Occupational 
        Classification system, which classifies workers and jobs into 
        occupational categories for the purposes of collecting, 
        calculating, analyzing, and disseminating data.
            (4) The Bureau of Labor Statistics fails to accurately 
        count EMS practitioners because of its failure to include dual-
        role firefighter/EMTs and firefighter/paramedics in their count 
        of EMS personnel.
            (5) Accurately counting the EMS workforce is critical for 
        government agencies in determining the needs of EMS agencies 
        and practitioners. These data are also crucial for informing 
        many aspects of policy, including preparedness for natural 
        disasters, public health emergencies, and acts of terrorism.

SEC. 3. RECOGNITION OF DUAL-ROLE FIREFIGHTERS AS EMS PRACTITIONERS.

    Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, 
the Secretary of Labor shall revise the broad description under the 
occupational series ``33-2011 Firefighters'' of the 2018 Standard 
Occupational Classification System of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to 
include the following detailed occupations:
            (1) Firefighters.
            (2) Firefighter/EMTs.
            (3) Firefighter/Paramedics.
            (4) Firefighters, All Other.

SEC. 4. REPORT TO CONGRESS.

    Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act, 
the Secretary of Labor shall submit to Congress a report that 
describes--
            (1) the actions taken in 2015 to expand the definition 
        ``29-2040 Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics'' to 
        separately account for the numbers of EMTs and paramedics; and
            (2) the implementation of the revisions under section 3.
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