9/11 responders, advocates continue quest to solidify funding for World Trade Center Health Program

WASHINGTON — They remember the solemn pledges of "never forget" that echoed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But the group of 9/11 first responders and advocates who made their way through the halls of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday also say they worry that the public and lawmakers are slowly forgetting the acts of service that followed the attacks.

With the World Trade Center Health Program facing a projected $3 billion funding shortfall over the next 15 years, a coalition of first responders and recovery workers, many from Long Island, made their way through the Capitol complex Tuesday to talk to lawmakers about the need to keep the program fully funded.

They were often greeted by congressional staffers born after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a downed airliner in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and lawmakers elected long after the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act was passed by Congress in 2010 to establish a federal health program and victim compensation fund. Those initiatives support first responders and survivors of the attack who have fallen ill with cancers, respiratory diseases and other rare maladies stemming from their exposure to toxic air emanating from the attack sites.

"In two days every member of Congress is going to say something patriotic, and they’re going to say ‘never forget the heroes.’ These men and women are the heroes," said John Feal, a 9/11 advocate from Nesconset as he stood next to nearly a dozen former first responders in the Rayburn House Office Building. "They didn’t die that day, but a part of them died that day, and a part of them dies every time they come here to advocate for those who can’t be here."

Last summer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) co-sponsored bipartisan legislation aimed at fixing the funding gap, but an attempt to include the funding in a year-end congressional spending package was thwarted last December when newly reelected President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk urged congressional Republicans to vote against the overall spending bill in the final days of the Biden presidency.

Gillibrand and Garbarino have been working to negotiate another bipartisan deal with their respective colleagues in the U.S. House and Senate that would allow the funding to be passed.

Garbarino, who met with the group of first responders, told Newsday the work of 9/11 first responders and advocates is critical because "there are a lot of members of Congress that were not here" when the Zadroga legislation passed.

The pleas for support also come during a turbulent period for the World Trade Center Health Program. A number of program staff were laid off as part of Department of Government Efficiency-led cuts across the federal workforce. New York lawmakers pressured the White House to reinstate the positions, but advocates say several of the program’s longtime staff never returned or accepted buyouts.

Advocates have also raised alarms that a nearly 24-year-old advisory panel of doctors, first responder union leaders and advocates has stopped meeting, after the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a communications pause preventing World Trade Center Health Program officials from meeting with the group, Newsday has reported.

Andrew Mussler, a retired FDNY firefighter from Huntington, who was among the first wave of firefighters to arrive at the lower Manhattan attack site, said he was compelled to lobby lawmakers on Thursday because "everybody, not just first responders, have been affected by the dust."

"We were told that the air was clean and non-toxic and it wasn’t," Mussler said. "A lot of people are coming down with cancers, sometimes two types of cancers. We have to ensure that everyone who needs help, receives help."

Retired NYPD Officer Glenn Tarquinio of Holtsville, who survived cancer linked to his time working in lower Manhattan after the attacks, said he and other survivors are worried about the long-term security of the health program, which connects enrollees with health screenings and treatments.

"We survived our cancers and our illnesses but the fight that we’re taking up is for the others that are still to come," Tarquinio said. "My cancer was diagnosed 19 years later. A lot of the cancers that are being diagnosed are now just coming to the surface more than 20 years later. We don’t know how many more cases are still waiting out there to be diagnosed."

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.