Well, there we go again. Just as they did last year, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has once gain increased their systematic behind the scene maneuverings at the state legislative levels in many states, demanding that the legislatures pass laws that prohibit all jurisdictions from enforcing the requirement for installation of residential fire sprinklers in all new homes.

As you know, the fire prevention proponents and the fire service representatives worked tirelessly for a couple of decades to finally succeed in adopting the requirement for installation of the residential fire sprinkler systems in all new homes.

We were defeated many times before due to the strong influence of the NAHB in the building construction code development process. Yet, we continued to work hard through the formal process, and we were finally able to obtain the two-thirds majority of the votes during the International Code Council's (ICC) hearings in Minneapolis, back in September of 2008.

Since then, NAHB has done all that they could, to discredit the ICC process, the fire service participation in that process, and to derail our success in enhancing the safety of our communities. They gathered all their strength to confront us once again in the ICC's code hearing in Baltimore last October. But with strong fire service participation, we obtained an overwhelming majority and were able to soundly defeat their attempts.

And now once again, we must participate at the ICC's Final Action Code Hearing in Dallas (May 14-23, 2010) to defend our success and vote to maintain the residential fire sprinklers requirements in the 2012 edition of the International Residential Code (IRC).

I briefly explained the history of this issue, just to show that we in the fire service have done all that we professionally could through the established process, and our long awaited success was achieved fair and square. Yet, NAHB has not taken the defeat well, and it is obvious that they are not accepting the majority's will in the ICC's consensus process.

The system was just fine, as long as they were getting their way for all those years. But now, they are fighting it all the way. Not being able to succeed through the ICC's national code development process, they have since shifted their focus and started mounting political pressure on the states and the local jurisdictions. Hoping that they can manipulate the politicians and get their way after all.