Spending bill's collapse leaves money for 9/11 health program uncertain

WASHINGTON — The funding bill the House rejected Thursday evening stripped out the permanent funding fix for the World Trade Center Health Program that had been part of an earlier plan.

The bill proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) dropped the long-sought fix for the 9/11 health care program as Republicans sought to streamline the funding bill to keep the government open through March, slimming the original 1,547-page bill to 116 pages.

The House and Senate now must find a way to fund the government at least until next year as a shutdown looms during the Christmas holiday that begins this weekend and extends through the New Year’s celebration in the coming weeks.

The bill that Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had negotiated earlier this week had a wide range of spending and legislative items, including the fix for the health program to address a projected shortfall beginning in 2027.

Schumer worked with the other three top leaders in the House and Senate to attach the funds for the health program to the bill to keep the government open. But President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday opposed the bill after complaints by billionaire Elon Musk, who he tapped to cut spending.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport), the lead sponsors of the legislation, had celebrated the inclusion of the fix, which would have changed the funding formula to increase benefits and would have avoided a projected $3 billion shortfall.

"Sen. Schumer worked across the aisle to successfully secure permanent funding for the 9/11 first responders health program in the original bill Republicans put out last night. Now, at the very last minute, they have stripped it out of the new proposed bill," Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefaro said in a statement.

"It is critical that Long Island’s Republican House members Mr. [Nick] LaLota and Mr. Garbarino let their Speaker know that they will not support this package unless the 9/11 permanent funding for the 9/11 first responders is fully restored," Roefaro added.

Gillibrand and Garbarino did not immediately comment.

Gillibrand on Tuesday said the funding fix would have gone into effect in 2025 and would provide substantially more funding for first responders and community members who are in the program and would keep up with inflation.

In a September news conference, Gillibrand and Garbarino projected a $2.7 billion shortfall because of inflation and increased participation by first responders and survivors. Other estimates put it as high at $3.5 billion.

The World Trade Center Health Program provides care for more than 132,000 firefighters, police and other responders, as well as residents and others in lower Manhattan, with ailments caused by toxins that spread when al-Qaida terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001.

Benjamin Chevat, executive director of Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, who has worked with Congress to fully fund and expand health care for 9/11 first responders and survivors, expressed disappointment in the new development.

"Clearly, we are disappointed by this. We know that Speaker Johnson and New York Republicans were committed to dealing with the impending service cuts to injured 9/11 responders and survivors, but the events of the last few hours stopped their effort as it approached the finish line," Chevat said in a statement in response to a request for comment.

"We wanted to avoid the need to have sick and injured responders from having to walk the halls of Congress to get this done again," he said. "But we may be forced to ask them to come to return, just as they did 14 years ago to get the original bill passed, to get the reauthorization in 2015, to get the [Victims Compensation Fund] extended in 2019. And that is a shame."