'They can exhale’: extension for 9/11 fund clears Senate

Thousands of emergency workers who rushed to the rubble of the World Trade Centre after the Sept 11 attacks will be granted health care and other compensation for the rest of their lives. The Senate on Tuesday gave final approval to legislation that would care permanently for those who have grown deathly ill from the toxins of ground zero.

>> Emily CochraneThe New York Times
Published : 24 July 2019, 02:20 AM
Updated : 24 July 2019, 02:20 AM

White House officials said President Donald Trump was expected to sign it. Even before the Senate’s 97-2 vote was gavelled to a close, retired New York firefighters and police officers, advocates and Jon Stewart, the comedian who championed the legislation, had leapt to their feet in the usually hushed chamber to lead a standing ovation.

Outside, they choked back tears, embraced and clapped one another on the back.

“The country has moved on and rightfully so,” said Michael O’Connell, a retired lieutenant with the New York Fire Department. But “it’s in front of our eyes,” he added. “We’re in hospices. We’re seeing people pass away right in front of our very eyes.

“It’s nice to know that they’ll be taken care of,” he concluded.

The legislation would ensure that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is funded for the next seven decades at a cost of $10.2 billion over the next 10 years. It would offer financial stability as the number of medical claims from emergency personnel who worked for months in lower Manhattan after the 2001 attacks surpasses 22,000.

The measure is named after three emergency workers and advocates who died because of illness contracted as a result of their labour: Detective James Zadroga, firefighter Raymond J Pfeifer and Luis G Alvarez, another former New York City detective who died last month after pleading with Congress to pass the legislation.

“I’m going to ask my team now to put down your swords and pick up your rakes and go home, and hopefully, we don’t have to come back,” said John Feal, a demolition supervisor at ground zero who worked tirelessly for the bill for nearly two decades and wept after the vote as he embraced Stewart.

Stewart said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon that working with the men and women who had responded to the Sept. 11 attacks had been “the honour of my lifetime.”

“We can never repay all that the 9/11 community has done for our country,” he said. “But we can stop penalising them, and today is that day that they can exhale.”

The celebration was bittersweet, saddened by the memories of the firefighters and police officers who had rallied for the legislation but did not live to see final passage.

As the senators debated the measure, mourners were attending a wake on Staten Island for Detective Christopher Cranston, a father of five who died because of the work he did among the steel rubble at ground zero and Fresh Kills Landfill.

“This should never have been a fight,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who championed the legislation along with her fellow New York Democrat, Sen Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. “This should never have taken this long.”

Senators rejected two amendments that sought to curtail the measure’s cost in the face of the federal government’s climbing deficit, even as some lawmakers fretted about the surge of deficit spending that would come from a budget deal reached Monday.

One of those amendments, introduced by Sen Rand Paul, R-Ky., would have offset the cost of the legislation with spending cuts. Another, proposed by Sen Mike Lee, R-Utah, would have capped the fund at the Congressional Budget Office’s $10.2 billion estimate over the next 10 years.

Instead, lawmakers passed the bill with few spending constraints, as a promise to survivors, their family members and advocates that they would no longer have to traipse to Washington to beg for the fund’s extension. Lee and Paul were the only “no” votes, with Paul explaining on Twitter that he could not “in good conscience vote for legislation which to my dismay remains unfunded.”

The legislation’s passage was the culmination of a lengthy fight to preserve the fund and its teetering finances, as more of the emergency personnel, volunteers and survivors who inhaled toxic fumes, dust and smoke at ground zero have fallen gravely ill.

Between the fund’s reopening in 2011 and May 2019, about 22,400 claims have been awarded, and the share of awards granted because of cancer has grown to 45%, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. About 17,600 claims are under review, and the bill includes about $4 billion to ensure that claimants who received smaller awards because of declining funds will be reimbursed.

In February, the special master administering the money announced that payments would have to be cut in half for those who had already made claims and by 70% for any future applications. More than $5 billion of the $7.4 billion allocated in 2015 for the next five years has been spent.

“These are tough times for America,” Schumer said after the vote. “Sometimes we doubt its goodness. And it’s awfully hard to have that goodness shine through, but today it did.”

Sen Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, the Senate majority leader whom Stewart and other advocates recently targeted as an “impediment” to the measure, was one of the first senators to give the bill a thumbs-up. In a floor speech Tuesday, he recalled how a group of emergency workers gave him Alvarez’s badge when they went to Capitol Hill to urge a vote on the measure.

“Congress can never repay these men, women and families for their sacrifices,” he said. “But we can do our small part to try and make our heroes whole.”

After the news conference, the firefighters, emergency responders and advocates joked that it would hopefully be their last trip to the Capitol.

Brian McGuire, 41, who was forced to retire as a firefighter because of lung issues from his work on Sept 11, grew emotional as he thought about what was next.

“I’m going to spend time with my kid,” he said, holding back tears. “I’m going to be able to watch him, hopefully for a long time.”

c.2019 New York Times News Service