Tuesday, June 24, 2025
It is essential that Congress do all it can to fully restore the World Trade Center Health Program. I commend Long Island Congressmen Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota for leading a bipartisan effort to undo the damage, intentional or not, to this program by Elon Musk’s chainsaw cuts of government health programs.
During my years in Congress, no issue was more vital or intensely personal to me than ensuring that all of the surviving victims of the attacks of Sept. 11 — police officers, firefighters, emergency responders, construction workers and civilians — receive the care they require and deserve for the illnesses caused by the toxins they breathed in at ground zero in the days, weeks and months afterward.
It wasn’t until several years after 9/11 that evidence emerged of a growing number of blood cancers and lung and breathing disorders suffered by 9/11 first responders and nearby residents and students. The concern was bipartisan. Democratic Representatives Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney and Republicans Vito Fossella and I were the original prime advocates. We introduced legislation in 2005 and again in 2007 to establish and fund a 9/11 illness detection and treatment program.
Today we know that more people have died from 9/11 illnesses than from the attacks, but in those early years, the numbers of victims weren’t yet especially high, and there was no proof of direct linkage to 9/11, which made it difficult to generate strong interest or support outside the New York and New Jersey congressional delegations.
Soon enough, however, there was too much evidence to ignore. Anecdotally, I would see FDNY and NYPD neighbors who had worked at ground zero wearing oxygen masks as they watched their kids’ Little League games or stopped by 7-Eleven for coffee.
Those scenes were repeated across Long Island and the entire downstate region, and there would eventually be victims among rescue workers who had come to New York from almost all 50 states. To make our case, we asked 9/11 heroes to visit Congress to make direct appeals to individual members. I particularly recall NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly sitting in my Washington office telling me about two cops who contracted a rare and fatal blood cancer after working together at ground zero. The chances of this being a coincidence were infinitesimal. And there were countless similar situations.
The enormity of what was becoming a 9/11 health crisis could no longer be denied. In 2008, we thought our legislation — named the Zadroga Bill, after James Zadroga, who was believed to be the first NYPD officer to die from a 9/11 illness — would be included in a large year-end package of legislation agreed on by Congress and the White House. Unfortunately the combined tumult of a Presidential election and a stock market collapse prevented it from coming to a vote, and there was no opportunity to salvage it.
After close but disappointing near-misses over the next two years, primarily because of opposition from Republicans in Southern and Western states, I and others fought furiously to get Zadroga passed. I had no tolerance for opposition from the crowd who primarily represented states and districts that received disproportionate levels of federal assistance at the expense of donor states like New York, which effectively subsidized them. Finally, on Dec. 22, 2010, the last day of the congressional session, our efforts paid off: Zadroga passed both the House and Senate.
Unfortunately the bill had a five-year limit, so we had to wage the fight again in 2015. This time the struggle wasn’t as difficult, and Zadroga was extended. But then, in 2019, we learned there were many more victims than expected, and the fund was running short. With the bipartisan support of Democrats like then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and House Republicans like then Whip Steve Scalise and
Representatives Doug Collins and Mike Johnson, Zadroga was extended to the end of the century. I was proud to be with President Trump when he signed this legislation at a ceremony on the White House lawn.
Now the fund is seriously threatened by Musk’s misplaced cuts, which, probably made unknowingly, are causing many of the 9/11 doctors and experts to be terminated, including program Director Dr. John Howard.
Though the White House has promised to fully reinstate the program, so far it has not been done. Victims are being denied necessary testing. This insanity must end. Our nation’s commitment to the victims of 9/11 must be honored!
Peter King is a former congressman, and a former chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Comments? pking@ liherald.com.
