With a unanimous vote, legislation to change Idaho’s worker’s compensation law to presume that certain cancers, within certain time periods, are job-related for firefighters has cleared the Idaho Senate and headed to the governor’s desk. It was the third time such legislation has passed the Senate, but the difference this year is that it’s passed the House, too – after 16 years of attempts. “It’s a good policy,” Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, told the Senate. “It deals with a kind of unusual type of employment where we ask them to go into these situations where we know for a fact that their risk for cancer is significantly higher than the rest of the population.”

Firefighters face sharply increased rates of cancer because they’re exposed to so many carcinogens inside burning buildings, McKenzie said, but it’s difficult to pin down which exposure caused which cancer. Under the bill, a “rebuttable presumption” would be created in Idaho worker’s compensation law that specified cancers, within specified time frames of firefighting work that vary by type of cancer, are work-related. The presumption could be overcome by “substantial evidence to the contrary.”

“This bill satisfies not only the heart but the head,” said Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa. “Their service to the community warrants this bill, but equally importantly, the science warrants the presumption.”

Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said, “The firefighters have been persistent, they’ve been kind, and they worked really hard to get to this point. And it’s with a great deal of pride that I vote aye.”

If Gov. Butch Otter signs HB 554 into law, it will take effect July 1.