WASHINGTON - Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.
New York officials had sought for months to hold onto the funding, originally meant to cover increased worker compensation costs stemming from the 2001 terror attacks.
But a massive labor and health spending bill moving fitfully through House-Senate negotiations would take back that funding, lawmakers said.
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The tug-of-war over the $125 million began earlier this year when the White House proposed taking the money back because the state had not yet spent it.
New York protested, saying the money was part of the $20 billion pledged by
President Bush to help rebuild after the Sept. 11 attacks. Health advocates said the money is needed to treat current and future illnesses among ground zero workers.
The Senate voted last month to let New York keep the $125 million, but the House made no such move. House and Senate budget negotiators then decided to take the money back, lawmakers and aides said.
Top New York fire officials recently lobbied Congress to keep the funding. Fire and police officials say they worry that many people will develop long-term lung and mental health problems from their time working on the burning pile of toxic debris at ground zero and they want to use the money to help them.
This is especially galling because the EPA lied to New Yorkers and worst of all to the workers who worked to clean up the World Trade Center site about the toxic quality of the air at Ground Zero. Think of this every time you hear President Dumbass say 9/11 changed everything, over and over. He lies. Constantly, reflexively, as though he were breathing. If only we had saved canisters of Ground Zero air for him.
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