Standing in the shadow of the towering rebuilt World Trade Center, scores of firefighters and police officers, led by Mayor Bill de Blasio and two United States senators from New York, rallied on Sunday to press Congress to extend a 9/11 health bill. The bill would pay for medical care for emergency medical workers and others, including police officers, firefighters and construction workers who risked their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, or in the weeks and months after to recover bodies and begin the cleanup. They were exposed to toxic chemicals that have sickened or killed many of them.
The bill would extend the World Trade Center Health Program, which is part of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The program expired on Oct. 1; another part of the act, the Victim Compensation Fund, is set to expire next October.
“We have been on the cusp of passing this bill for weeks and months,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, who was joined at the rally by Senator Chuck Schumer, a fellow Democrat. “But somehow it hasn’t gotten done. It isn’t a controversial issue.”
Lawmakers, city officials and advocates say the bill, which has broad bipartisan support, must emerge from a few important congressional committees, where some Republicans have tried to water it down. It was meant to be voted on with a transportation bill recently, but it was removed at the last minute. In order to pass before the end of the year, it must be voted on as part of the omnibus spending bill or be attached to a tax-extending bill.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York City, another Democrat who was at the rally, said about 1,700 people had died from 9/11-related illnesses, more than 4,000 had received cancer diagnoses and more than 30,000 were sick. At the rally, 9-year-old Jack McNamara held up a sign that read: “Don’t let other dads die. Pass a fully funded permanent Zadroga Bill. I miss my dad.”