Assemblyman Joseph S. Saladino announced the passage of Assembly bill 6051A that would exempt vol­unteer fire departments and other emergency first responders from the federal Commercial Driver's License (CDL) requirement in performing their officialduties. "As one of the sponsors of this bill, I am pleased to see the passage of this legislation that will greatly assist our emergency first responders. For far too long, our volunteer emergency servic­es, firefighters and ambulance drivers, have endured a plethora of extra train­ing, maintenance and costs associated with CDL requirements," said Assem­blyman Saladino. In 2005, New York state complied with federal highway laws that required all drivers operating vehicles over 26,001 pounds gross weight to have a CDL. This bill expands and allows fire­men and ambulance drivers to carry out officialduties of emergency first re­sponders in addition to non-emergen­cy duties. It provides authority for firedepartments and other emergency re­sponders to drive their vehicles, with­out CDL's, for various purposes such as training, fire inspections, public educa­tion, public events and maintenance. Those who drive heavy emergency re­sponse equipment have been trained to do so by their local departments. "Now that we have an exemption that lifts this CDL mandate, we may now enhance the abilities of local firedepartments to keep our communities safe, functioning efficiently and pro­vide

savings that can be passed along to property taxpayers," concluded Assem­blyman Saladino.