I 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 8592 
To require the Secretary of Labor to revise the Standard Occupational Classi-
fication System to accurately count the number of emergency medical 
services practitioners in the United States. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OCTOBER 13, 2020 
Ms. WILD (for herself and Mr. KELLER) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor 
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 Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘EMS Counts Act of 
2020’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Emergency Medical Services (in this Act re-
ferred to as ‘‘EMS’’) personnel provide a critical role 
in emergency response. EMS consists of a diverse 
group of health care practitioners, such as para-
medics, emergency medical technicians (in this Act 
referred to as ‘‘EMTs’’), dual-role firefighter/EMTs, 
firefighter/paramedics, and volunteer personnel serv-
ing in each of such roles. 
(2) EMS is an integral component of the re-
sponse capacity of the United States to disasters 
and public health crises, such as outbreaks of infec-
tious diseases, bombings, mass shootings, earth-
quakes, 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 in-
formation 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 Classifica-
tion system which classifies workers and jobs into 
occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, 
calculating, analyzing, or disseminating data. 
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(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 enact-
ment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall revise the 
broad description under the occupational series ‘‘33–2011 
Firefighters’’ of the 2018 Standard Occupational Classi-
fication System of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to in-
clude the following detailed occupations: 
(1) Firefighters. 
(2) Firefighter/EMTs. 
(3) Firefighter/Paramedics. 
(4) Firefighters, All Other. 
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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 num-
bers of EMTs and paramedics; and 
(2) the implementation of the revisions under 
section 3. 
Æ 
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