Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to take up a House-passed measure to permanently authorize a Sept. 11 victims compensation fund.
The Kentucky Republican said Friday the Senate would consider the measure “soon.”
“The first responders who rushed into danger on Sept. 11, 2001, are the very definition of American heroes and patriots,” McConnell said. “The Senate has never forgotten the Victim Compensation Fund and we aren’t about to start now. Nothing about our shared goal to provide for these heroes is remotely partisan. We will consider this important legislation soon.”
The announcement comes after an overwhelming House vote Friday to approve the bill, which comes with a price tag of more than $10 billion in the first decade. McConnell met with first responders in June.
The fund pays for lost wages and other financial losses experienced by first responders sickened from cleaning up after the terror strike at Ground Zero and for those who became ill after returning to the neighborhoods and offices still impacted by dangerous air quality.
Thousands of illnesses have sprung from the aftermath of the terror attack and cleanup, particularly cancer, which will make up more than 60% of the sickness-related losses addressed by the fund in the coming years, lawmakers said.
The fund was set to run dry, forcing steep cuts in compensation to thousands of victims.
Congress has already authorized a separate fund to address only health costs that expires in 2090.
The measure passed Friday would provide funding for economic losses until 2092.
House Republicans want the Senate to add a way to pay for the measure, which adds to the deficit in its current form.
“The Senate will have to do what we did not do here,” Rep. Doug Collins, of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said. “Find that pay-for in a bicameral and bipartisan way.”
