Calls Grow to Re-Authorize 9/11 Victims' Compensation Fund

Wednesday, February 20, 2019 | 0

The announcement that the Sept. 11 Victims' Compensation Fund is running out of money and will have to cut awards to thousands of sick victims has prompted calls for more funding from Congress.

Rupa Bhattacharyya

The notification that future benefit payments will have to be cut by more than 50% “is a punch in the gut to 9/11 responders and survivors, and it's Congress' job to fix this tragic and unacceptable crisis,” said an emailed statement from Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO.

Congress established the $7.3 billion fund after the 2001 terror attacks. Responders, volunteers, residents and workers faced clouds of dust over lower Manhattan, and fires that smoldered for days. More than 40,000 people have applied for compensation from the fund, and almost $5 billion has been allotted for about half of the claimants, leaving little for those whose claims have yet to be processed, the fund's special master said in news reports.

It amounts to a sort of rationing of compensation.

Special Master Rupa Bhattacharyya said in news reports that she was “painfully aware of the inequity of the situation” but stressed that giving at least some funds for every valid claim would be preferable to giving zero.

“I could not abide a plan that would at the end of the day leave some claimants uncompensated,” Bhattacharyya said.

Some lawmakers have vowed to reauthorize the fund.

“For too many, ailments and disease from exposure to that toxic airborne brew have taken years to show up and — as the need for the fund grows — the chance it may not have adequate resources to take care of our heroes is just unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said in a statement.

Scientists can’t say definitively whether toxins at the site gave people cancer, according to reports. One study published last year found that overall mortality rates among the 30,000 rescue and recovery workers weren’t elevated. But researchers have raised concern about more deaths than expected from brain cancers and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The AFL-CIO said the need for more funding is obvious.

“We stood together as a nation on that horrific day, and shortly after we declared as a country that we would never forget,” Cilento said. “This critically important program was promised to these brave men and women fighting 9/11-related cancers and other life-threatening illnesses. It’s time for Congress to pass this bipartisan bill to ensure responders, survivors and their families get the support they so rightly deserve.”