Closer To Justice: House Panel Moves
To Reopen Fund For WTC Victims & Heroes
NY Daily News 7/31/09
The House Judiciary Committee has
taken a big, welcome step toward giving thousands of sick Ground
Zero rescue and recovery workers their due.
Marking the first congressional approval of national assistance
for the forgotten victims of 9/11, the panel voted to support
reopening the World Trade Center Victims' Compensation Fund. The
vote was especially encouraging in that three Republicans joined
the committee's Democrats in backing the measure.
Reps. Dan Lungren, Ted Poe and Thomas Rooney, of California,
Texas and Florida, recognized America's obligation to citizens
who rallied from across the country in a time of crisis and have
suffered terribly for it.
Congress established the fund to compensate families of the dead
and those who were injured in the attack. It closed well before
many more became ill, mostly with lung damage from breathing The
Pile's toxic air.
Well over 11,000 individuals have filed federal court suits that
will take years to resolve, waste hundreds of millions of
dollars in legal fees and bankrupt the contractors who stepped
up to execute the cleanup.
Reviving the fund would be the just, practical and
cost-effective way for the U.S. to make good on its obligation
to the rescue and recovery workers while protecting firms that
were drafted into service from ruin.
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