The House passed legislation to permanently authorize a Sept. 11 victims compensation fund following weeks of intense lobbying from first responders and an impassioned plea from comedian Jon Stewart.
The measure now heads to the GOP-led Senate where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must decide whether to take up the House bill or pass a Senate-authored measure.
Stewart, who helped push the measure in the House with an impassioned July committee appearance, stood by lawmakers Friday as the House voted on the bill and urged Congress to clear it.
The House bill, which would cost more than $10 billion in the first decade, adds to the deficit.
“It’s very difficult to watch a House and Senate with a trillion-dollar deficit try and balance that budget of $10.2 billion over 10 years on the backs of 9-11 victims and first responders,” Stewart said.
While every lawmaker who came to the floor Friday announced support for the bill, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, warned the measure as written won’t clear the Senate because it is not paid for.
“The Senate will have to do what we did not do here,” Collins said. “Find that pay-for in a bicameral and bipartisan way.”
The bill passed the House five months after the fund’s special master announced it was nearly depleted and victim compensation would be slashed by up to 70%.
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 sickened 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 clean up, 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 EPA repeatedly assured us the air around the World Trade Center was safe to breath,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said. “We knew it wasn’t. And the federal government kept insisting it was.”
Congress has already authorized a separate fund to address only health costs that expires in 2092.
The measure passed Friday provides funding for the other losses until 2090.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thanked Jon Stewart, saying his appearance in Congress, ensures the bill “will be received positively by the Senate.”
McConnell has not signaled when or if he will take up the House bill. He met with impacted first responders in his office in June and told them the Senate would vote on a victim compensation fund measure in August.
