119-hr3791

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3791 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

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119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 3791

 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 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 June 5, 2025

 Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania (for himself and Mr. Mannion) introduced 
 the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education 
 and Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

 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''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 Congress finds the following:

    (1) Emergency Medical Services (in this Act referred to as 
 ``EMS'') personnel provide a critical role in emergency 
 response. EMS consists of a diverse group of health care 
 practitioners, such as paramedics, emergency medical 
 technicians (in this Act referred to as ``EMTs''), dual-role 
 firefighter/EMTs, firefighter/paramedics, and volunteer 
 personnel serving in each of such roles.

    (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 purpose of collecting, 
 calculating, analyzing, or disseminating data.

    (4) The BLS 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 the 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. REPORTS TO CONGRESS.

 Not later than 270 days after the enactment of this Act, the 
Secretary of Labor shall submit to Congress a report that details--

    (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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