Bill would authorize grants to support emergency medical services

The Health Resources and Services Administration would award competitive grants for emergency medical services. Eligible applicants are career, combination, and volunteer fire departments, nonaffiliated EMS organizations, and the municipalities where they operate. Applicants must show they cannot carry out the planned work without a grant and explain how they will retain staff afterward. The bill authorizes $750 million for each fiscal year from 2027 through 2031, but Congress must provide the money before grants can be made. An applicant that already received a specified federal grant for rural EMS training and equipment would not be eligible. Each grant would last three years. The grant authority would end September 30, 2031.

Grant recipients would face limits on using grant money to hire EMS workers and could not bar or penalize those workers for volunteering off duty. Grant money could cover no more than 75% of hiring costs in each of the first two grant years and 35% in the third. A municipality could not receive a grant if its annual EMS budget were below 80% of its average for the prior three years. Recipients must use grant money to add to, not replace, certain public funding, and generally must maintain their prior spending on the funded activity. For economic hardship, the Administrator may waive or reduce some funding rules, including the hiring limits and spending requirements. The Administrator must set aside 10% of available funds for departments and organizations with mostly or entirely volunteer staff.