Congress funds first responder mental health and suicide prevention.
S. 4819 — Lifeline for First Responders Act · Filed by Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 17, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a new federal grant program to fund mental health, stress reduction, suicide prevention, and family support services for emergency medical services (EMS) workers and first responders. Eligible organizations—fire services, EMS agencies, and dispatch centers—can apply for grants to provide counseling, peer support, and training. The bill authorizes $7.5 million per year from 2028 through 2032.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is the establishment of a federal grant program to fund mental health and suicide prevention services for EMS workers and first responders. This is a straightforward public-health appropriation with no secondary commercial, regulatory, or self-dealing provisions.
What the text implies
- Program depends on annual appropriations; authorization does not guarantee funding will be enacted in each fiscal year, so actual benefit may be lower than statutory authorization suggests.
- Grants flow through NHTSA's Office of Emergency Medical Services, which may create administrative delays or bottlenecks if the office lacks capacity to manage a new program.
- No explicit requirement for outcome measurement or evaluation; effectiveness of funded services may not be systematically tracked or reported to Congress.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
First responders and their families gain access to federally funded mental health, suicide prevention, and family support services—addressing a documented public health crisis in this workforce. The program imposes no restrictions on citizens' rights or remedies and creates a direct public benefit with no identified private carve-out or liability shield.
Who stands to gain
- Fire services (federal, state, tribal, local)
- EMS agencies
- Dispatch centers
- Mental health service providers (contracted by eligible entities)
Named in the bill
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Office of Emergency Medical Services, Federal fire services, State fire services, Tribal fire services, Local fire services, EMS agencies, Dispatch centers, Title 23, United States Code
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 8 Democrats, 1 Independents, 1 Republicans.
- Jun 17, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 17, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $227,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 52 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Sheldon Whitehouse, the sponsor, reported $52,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- International Association of Fire Fighters — $196,000 on 1 filing
- National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (naemt) — $31,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,867 characters) on Sep 26, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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