Rep. Andrew Garbarino: White House working to reverse firing of WTC health leader

WASHINGTON — The White House has begun working to reverse the firing of the director of the World Trade Center Health Program and specialists outside of the program who worked with it, Long Island Rep. Andrew Garbarino said Wednesday.

Those key figures for the WTC Health Program, which provides services for 137,000 ailing 9/11 first responders and survivors across the country, were among 10,000 Department of Health and Human Services employees who are being let go this week, lawmakers said.

News of the firing of Dr. John Howard, the WTC Health Program director, and other National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health staff who worked with the program broke Tuesday evening, prompting an angry reaction from backers of the health program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Senate sponsor of funding and other bills for the health program, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) blasted the Trump administration for the WTC Health Program firings.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed in a phone interview with Newsday to ensure that the staff cuts are restored.

"I’m going to do everything I can to fight it. It is callous and cruel to tell our first responders who risked their lives for us that we’re pulling the rug out from under you and taking away your health care," he said. "If this isn’t restored, people will die."

Garbarino (R-Bayport), who last month took the lead in getting fired WTC Health Program staff members rehired, told Newsday in a phone interview that he met with a White House legislative team in his office Wednesday about the layoffs of Howard and NIOSH staffers.

He said he was told that those conducting the layoffs made sure no one at the program would be laid off, but they did not understand that several people who worked in NIOSH roles also had roles unofficially with World Trade Center.

"Dr. Howard, who's the [WTC Health Program] administrator, was accidentally let go with some of the NIOSH layoffs," Garbarino said. "He had several titles. They missed his role as administrator. They did not know that that was part of his duties."

He added, "We are working with the White House to have it reversed. They understand the importance and they are treating this with as much speed and importance as an issue probably can get."

Garbarino said White House staff had a meeting with officials of the Health and Human Services Department. "I believe they’re having a meeting, I think, today, with HHS to try to fix it," he said. "This is at the top of the list of issues that have to get rectified."

Ben Chevat, executive director of Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, who has worked to create and maintain the World Trade Center Health Program, said, "We applaud Congressman Garbarino’s continuing efforts on behalf of 9/11 responders and survivors to get the White House to fix this, again. But you have to ask, why does it keep breaking?" 

Chevat said that since Donald Trump won the presidential election last year, he and his administration have dealt three setbacks to the WTC Health Program that its supporters have demanded to be addressed.

In December, at the urging of Trump and his cost-cutter Elon Musk, the House pulled back a massive short-term spending bill that would have changed the funding formula to increase benefits and avoided a projected $3 billion shortfall for the program.

In February, the Trump administration fired 11 WTC Health Program staff members who were on probation only to reverse course when met by strong protests from the New York delegation and other lawmakers in Congress.

And this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered layoffs that included the leader and key members of the WTC Health Program.

Schumer rejected the idea that these were mistakes. "This was not an accident," he said. "This was done on purpose."