A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
On
9/11, thousands of first responders rushed to the Twin Towers. As people
were running out, they were running in. Many didn't make it out and are
listed as one of the 2,996 innocent victims of that day. However, many of
these first responders worked on the pile for the weeks and months to
come. From the initial search and rescue efforts to fighting the fire
that lasted for months to remove the debris and rubble from the pile, thousands
of firefighters, policemen, and EMS worked days and nights in conditions that
no one was prepared for. I remember the smell of that smoke. The smell
lasted for months. It hung over lower Manhattan like a cloud. The
smell even extended across the river and into Brooklyn and parts of New
Jersey. Anyone who smelled it, who saw the smoke, knew, instinctively,
that the air was not right. Something was wrong with the air that was
being breathed by all of us.
In
our society, we have a social contract with first responders. You risk
your lives for us, and we are supposed to support you. Support you with
giving you the best training, the best equipment, the best information.
And if you fall in the line fo duty, we are supposed to take care of your family.
On 9/11 and the days since, we have broken that contract with our first
responders.
First,
on 9/11 and the immediate days that followed, our first responders were not
even provided proper equipment. I remember news reports that many of
those fighting the fire, or searching the pile, or removing debris, did not
have proper respiration equipment. They did not have proper equipment to
keep them safe! While we may not have been prepared on that day, there was no excuse for that failure to last for several weeks.
Second,
the government lied to them and to all of us! The government told us
the air was safe. Christy Todd Whitman assured all of us that the air around
the WTC was safe and not toxic. That has been proven false. I
remember as the New York City Law Department was preparing to move back to our
offices one block from the WTC, City and the Feds brought in experts to tell us
how safe the air was to breathe. That there was nothing to worry about
and there never was. More absolute lies.
Third,
when these brave first responders got sick because of the work they did for us
and because of the first two failures of our government, it took nearly 18
years for Congress to permanently pass a victims compensation fund so that we
can in some way try to fulfill our obligations to them? Congress did it
really take more than a decade of hearings, the harsh words of a
comedian, and a parade of the dying to finally bring you to your
senses? Shame on those like Rand Paul who voted to stop the passage of
the Victims Compensation Fund. Such politics should never have been
allowed to enter this discussion.
Recently, a memorial to the First Responders who have dies
since 9/11 has been installed at the World Trade Center Memorial.The six granite slabs are known as the 9/11
Memorial Glade, are not inscribed with names, like the black granite that
surrounds the Memorial pools because the victims that this memorial is paying
tribute to is not set in stone.It is
estimated that the number of first responders who will die because due to some illness
related to 9/11 exposure will exceed the number of first responders who died on
that day.
As a society, we must remember our social contract with our
first responders. We cannot fail them like this and expect them to protect us
when we need them.
Construction remains at a near standstill on the WTC Museum. The anticipated September 2012 deadline will be missed and it's looking like mid 2013 is the earliest that anyone should expect the museum to be opened. That's perhaps being optimistic considering the money involved and that the Port Authority and the Museum Board, which includes Mayor Mike Bloomberg are fighting over the development costs that differ by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even if both sides are able to work out a deal, there's no word on whether entry fees that could be as high as $25 per person will be imposed to help cover the $50-$60 million annual operating costs. As it stands, Congress appears completely unwilling to foot that bill, even though this was the site of the worst terror attacks in world history and more than 3,000 people were killed in the attacks (and subsequently falling ill and dying of injuries sustained from working on the Pile).
This is a big deal to many emergency personnel and construction crews who worked in and around Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks and have since been diagnosed with cancer. The health care panel created by Congress to determine whether ailments should or shouldn't be covered under the James Zadroga Act voted to cover cancer under the Act's compensation provisions:
Hundreds of 9/11 first responders could receive compensation for their cancer treatment after an advisory panel voted Thursday that the disease should be covered under the Zadroga Act.
The 15-member panel, appointed by Congress to review research and decide which health conditions are linked to toxins at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 attacks, believes research clearly shows a link between 9/11 exposure and cancer, said panel member Catherine McVay Hughes.
"The committee agreed that cancer should be included [in the Zadroga Act]," said Hughes, who is also vice chairwoman of Community Board 1. "This is a major step in the right direction."
The panel will now draft a list of all the specific cancers they believe ought to be covered. Based on the existing research, the preliminary list discussed at Thursday's meeting would include blood cancers, lymphoma, leukemia, lung cancer, mesothelioma, multiple myeloma and others, Hughes said.
The panel, called the World Trade Center Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, will submit a final recommendation on cancer to the federal government within the next couple of weeks.
Dr. John Howard, the World Trade Center health program administrator for the federal government, will make the final decision by early April on which cancers, if any, should be covered, Hughes said.
If cancer is officially included in the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, those who are sick with cancer and the families of those who have died from the disease will be able to apply to the $2.8 billion 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to cover their medical expenses, as well as pain and suffering.
It was literally a bolt from the blue. The skies over New York City were a crisp bright blue with nary a cloud in a sky. It was a morning full of promise.
New Yorkers were heading to the polls to vote on the next mayor of the city. People were talking baseball and the upcoming football season. All while the region was stirring for the day ahead, al Qaeda's terrorists were already on board four jets bound for New York and Washington DC and had already overpowered the crews.
I was on a NJ Transit train with my dad when I first noticed something wrong at the WTC out of the corner of my eye; it was smoke coming from the upper reaches of the tower.
The damage done on that morning was nearly impossible to comprehend. In the mere blink of the eye, nearly 3,000 people were condemned to death and the World Trade Center would soon be reduced to a pile of rubble that burned for weeks on end. But the death rattle of the Twin Towers would continue for nearly two hours and victims trapped above the fires had to make the choice to stay and choke on the heat and smoke or jump to a certain death. All too many make that decision to jump. Firefighters on the ground also succumbed before the towers fell - falling debris hitting firefighters and fleeing people alike.
All too many would unfortunately follow him - and not by their own choice.
Lower Manhattan was engulfed in smoke and debris as the towers fell. Emergency personnel, still choking on the dust that would swirl through Lower Manhattan for days and weeks to come, quickly moved to seek to help those who may have been trapped beneath all the rubble. They formed bucket brigades, moving debris a handful at a time. Occasionally, the remains of a victim would be discovered and crews would solemnly remove the remains.
There were moments of heroism all around, and not just from emergency personnel. MTA subway workers made important decisions independent of their superiors to evacuate passengers from areas around the World Trade Center saving countless lives in the process.
Emergency personnel would be at Ground Zero around the clock for weeks on end before officials would claim that the site had officially been cleared of remains. Many of them would later become ill from the effects of breathing in all the dust and debris that was pulverized by the collapsing towers, and it is one of the sadder chapters from 9/11 that we are still burying victims of the attacks to this day, including James Zadroga (even as some medical experts dispute that Zadroga died of exposure at Ground Zero.
People who risked their lives to save others and to help families who lost loved ones find remains of the victims are themselves victims of the attacks. The Zadroga Act isn't perfect by any means and it has come too late for some, but it's a start to compensate and aid families of responders who are suffering from all manner of ailments (but not cancer to this point) attributed to Ground Zero exposure.
We cannot allow petty political differences prevent the delivery of critical aid to these emergency personnel and those who selflessly strode into the unknown to help provide rescue and recovery from the debris of Ground Zero all while environmental agencies proclaimed the air was safe to breathe - it wasn't.
Even after the fires were being put out and officials claimed that the site had been cleared of remains, it turns out that victims' remains would be discovered months and even years thereafter on buildings surrounding Ground Zero including the rooftop of the former Deutsche Bank building. The death toll, which was once feared to be more than we could bear - in the tens of thousands, would eventually drop to around 2,742 at the World Trade Center. That count may rise once again as more and more emergency personnel working at Ground Zero succumb to ailments attributed to exposures at Ground Zero.
Efforts to quench the pile and enable crews to begin searching for remains was an all but impossible task in the immediate aftermath of the attacks since most of the water mains in the area were destroyed by the collapsing towers. That meant that the heavy lifting had to be carried out by FDNY fireboats supported by the John J. Harvey, a retired fireboat with a civilian crew. The Harvey, alongside the city's two active fireboats pumped water nearly continuously over the next several days as crews raced to repair fire hydrants to get more water on the fires. Just a few years earlier, the Harvey was set to be scrapped but for the new owners who restored the boat.
Since then, the City has received funds to buy new fireboats, and there are reports of teething problems since the two fireboats (The 343 - in honor of the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11 and the Firefighter II) were christened on September 10, 2010.
Thomas Franklin, the Record's photographer who caught perhaps the most famous photo after the collapse (the firefighters raising an American flag that harkened back to the famous Iwo Jima flag raising) has put together a series of photos and recollections of his own along with other photographers who were witnesses to history.
Video footage has encompassed nearly every aspect of the attacks, but every now and then new footage shows up that presents a different vantage of the attacks.
More recently, FEMA released video taken on 9/11 and the rescue efforts beneath the fallen World Trade Center, including investigating tunnels, the PATH station, the shopping mall, and other areas for survivors or victims.
But the report, released by Dr. John Howard, the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said that there was very little evidence to go on, as there have only been 18 published research studies on the attack that even mentioned cancer, and only five of those were peer-reviewed. The results of the peer-reviewed studies were mixed.
Even if it appeared that the events of 9/11 caused cancer in certain people, it would be hard to prove because cancer is widespread in the general population. In the United States, the probability that a person will develop cancer over a lifetime is one in two for men and one in three for women, the report said.
“Drawing causal inferences about exposures resulting from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the observation of cancer cases in responders and survivors is especially challenging since cancer is not a rare disease,” the report said.
The report was required by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which took effect on Jan. 2; it provides $4.3 billion over the next five years to monitor, treat and compensate people who were exposed to the fumes and dust.
The act provides treatment and compensation for a specific list of illnesses, mainly asthma and other respiratory diseases. As part of a political compromise needed to pass the bill, cancer was not included. A provision of the law, however, specified that the administrator of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health would periodically review the evidence to determine whether cancer, which could be one of the most expensive illnesses to treat and compensate for, should be added to the list.
This goes to basic epidemiology. Scientists have to look at the specific incidence of a given disease and determine whether there is an increased rate. Then, they have to see whether there's more than a casual connection with exposure at Ground Zero.
The NIOSH will periodically review the findings, but it will take further studies to show that there's an actual cancer link between 9/11 and the responders' incidence of cancer. So, while a link hasn't been shown to date, this doesn't mean that within the next several years that the link wont be proven.
All this is cold comfort to those who are suffering from cancers they believe were the result of service at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks, and who believed that they would be covered by the Zadroga Act.
Dr. Howard may be the official responsible for not including cancers among the compensated illnesses, but that doesn't mean that other doctors treating Ground Zero responders aren't finding a connection.
Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, head of a 9/11 treatment, monitoring and research program at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said Tuesday that the possibility of cancer in the responders increases as time goes by. Mount Sinai, he said, is tracking the rates of 60 different cancers, and will be feeding that information to the federal government.
Dr. Landrigan said his researchers were looking especially hard at multiple myeloma, because they had already found eight cases — an unusually high number — in responders younger than 45. Usually, he said, myeloma is found in people who are older.
Landrigan and his fellow doctors have to publish their findings and get others to confirm those findings, before it can be added.
The scaled-down $4.3 billion agreement to aid ill 9/11 responders is set to be approved by the Senate as soon as Wednesday afternoon. The initial Zadroga bill called for a 10-year, $7.4 billion treatment and compensation package. To win GOP support, the proposal was trimmed down to 5 years at $4.3 billion.
The last-minute deal also opens the 9/11 Victims' Compensation Fund, but caps lawyers fees at 10%.
And it bars ailing responders from double-dipping on payouts from the recent 9/11 health settlement.
The bill cuts the time frame that the VCF will remain open to five years, which is the main reason that the fund cost is decreased. This doesn't mean that Congress wont go back and reopen the fund, just as they're about to do with this measure.
What it does is it leaves the VCF open for another five years to allow for new claims- which allows responders who become ill up to 13/14 years after the attacks to file claims. The health registry will also be funded.
Mind you that there are still questions about what ailments are actually attributable to Ground Zero exposures. Proponents of the Zadroga bill say that hundreds have died from Ground Zero exposures, while epidemiologists and medical experts are divided on the actual number of cases attributed to 9/11 exposure.
What will be interesting is how people who were involved in the 9/11 suit with the City respond - with no double dipping, some may lose out on the additional compensation via the VCF. That's going to be a major source of trouble. Rescuers and others who worked at Ground Zero after the attacks were told to take that deal because the $712 million deal would be the best they could hope to get from the City of New York and its co-defendants. If these personnel choose to receive compensation from the settlement, that would prevent them from taking part in the VCF, even if their ailment expresses itself within the next five years.
These people are in a no-win situation.
UPDATE:
Curiously, the readers at Hot Air are miffed at the Republicans for rolling over and accepting even this deal (such as here, here, and here). They are fit to be tied over spending $4.3 billion, ignoring the fact that these people went into the Pile to rescue and recover thousands murdered on 9/11 and were reassured that the air was safe to breath by the US government (EPA) and state and local officials. They are suffering ailments from exposures and now these people think that this is somehow an entitlement for unions and Democrats?
Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it.
The government had a responsibility to look out for these responders and provide compensation for illnesses suffered as a result of their exposure. This bill makes sure that many of these people will get compensated for their health ailments. This isn't a sop to unions or Democrats, and it isn't in the same class of out-of-control spending as the stimulus package or even the Omnibus bill that was defeated. Republican obstructionism did not do the GOP any favors and the reduced price tag on this bill wasn't worth the cost politically.
UPDATE: The bill has passed on unanimous consent. Because different versions are involved, it has to go back to the House for ultimate passage - but I think this version will ultimately be passed.
Both the House and Senate must approve the bill before the end of the year. If they do not, the matter gets kicked to the new, more Republican Congress in January, where prospects for passage are slimmer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is vowing to do everything possible to get the new version of the bill passed in her chamber before the lame-duck session ends, though it is not clear there there will be time to do so. (The House passed the $7.4 billion version of the bill in September.) Over the weekend, Schumer urged the House to stay in session to pass the bill.
The bill got 57 votes in a recent Senate test vote, three short of the 60 it needs to break a Republican-led filibuster. One of those no votes, however, was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who switched his vote at the end so that he could bring the bill up again. That means only two votes need to be picked up for passage, assuming no senator switches from yes to no.
The new version of the bill addresses Republican objections that it amounted to a corporate tax increase, the Associated Press reports. They objected to a requirement that multinational corporations pay taxes on income earned in the United States even if they are incorporated in a tax haven.
The new version pays for the costs of the bill with a fee on some foreign companies that get procurement contracts from the U.S. government. It also calls for an extension of some visa-related fees.
The newer version would reduce the cost of the bill from $7.4 billion to $6.2 billion without reducing the benefits that go to the Ground Zero responders by adjusting tax provisions.
The bill would reopen the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund for Ground Zero responders and provide additional funds for those responders and additional medical screening services.
Even before the nine responders had a chance to start visiting senators' offices - where they intended to stay until meeting with lawmakers - they were greeted by Capitol Police, who had been called by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.).
Collins apparently reacted to a story in Thursday's News, which quoted a letter to senators from 9/11 advocate John Feal. It warned that he and others planned to sit in offices until they got meetings - or the police made them leave.
Collins is among the senators the 9/11 community hopes will come over to their side, but her call to authorities left them wondering if they could succeed.
"I'm deeply disappointed in Sen. Collins for calling the Capitol Police, but they welcomed us with open arms," said Feal, although he wound up with a police escort for the first stops on his visit.
"I'm more disappointed that Susan Collins is hiding behind ideology, and now the police, to stop from helping us. And the people she called to stop us are just like us. It's a little ironic."
Officers eventually determined he and his team were not threatening and left them alone.
This is legislation that should have had bipartisan support and passage should have happened long ago. Politicians are playing this issue for political advantage, and the health of the thousands who labored on the Pile for weeks and months following the attacks is an afterthought. Republicans are blocking approval, primarily through parliamentary tactics and claiming that this legislation would get a vote if other legislation, particularly the tax package, is passed first. Democrats aren't blameless here either, as they could have had a clean vote on the Zadroga bill, but instead attached it to the defense bill along with DADT rather than treating the bills separately - increasing the chances of passage.
These are workers who have found that workers compensation isn't working; many of the affected individuals are finding it hard to obtain workers comp claims. For instance, one worker, who claimed he was ill as a result of working as a volunteer on the Pile for 28 days couldn't receive workers comp because the NYS Workers Comp Board didn't find sufficient evidence.
Illnesses resulting from 9/11 exposures (and the resulting cleanup) may not show themselves for years or decades, although some people (some figures may be in the hundreds) have already died from what they and their doctors are saying was 9/11 related illnesses.
The Zadroga Fund would provide additional compensation and would be set up like the general VCF administered by Ken Feinberg. It would further complement the $712 million settlement between the city and plaintiffs who sued over Ground Zero exposures. The Zadroga bill would also provide funding for additional screening and medical studies to track potential diseases resulting from long term exposures.
The causation issue is the biggest hurdle, even if the bill gets passed. The bill includes monitoring, and considering that workers came from all over the country to help recover remains of those murdered on 9/11, a national registry is necessary.
The text of the bill includes screening-eligible criteria, including those who were WTC responders and WTC survivors, and has a WTC registry along with an application process.
According to advocates for the responders and their families, approximately 900 people have so far died from ailments contracted while working on the pile, and that first responders are currently dying at a rate of three a month. James Zadroga, a New York City police detective, is the first known Ground Zero responder to die, in 2006, from illness contracted there.
The number who have claimed 9/11 related illnesses is much greater, and among that number, there may be cases that are unrelated to service at Ground Zero - firefighting results in exposure to chemicals and materials that could lead to respiratory ailments or other diseases being seen among those claiming 9/11 related ailments. It's up to the epidemiologists to discern whether the ailments are resulting from exposures at Ground Zero and time exposed at Ground Zero.
Complicating matters is the fact that some personnel opted not to use rebreathers or masks, and others were using inadequate masks, while still others chose not to use the masks on the EPA claiming that the air was safe four days after the attack.
Using the full oxygen masks (carrying the tanks on their backs) greatly reduced time on the pile and some personnel made the decision to forgo the masks perhaps on the basis of claims that the air was clean 4 days after the attacks. You can see from photos later on 9/11 after the collapse that firefighters were already on the pile and in the vicinity of the collapse without masks. Heck, I was walking past the site a few weeks later (while the fires were still burning) without a mask and probably was exposed to some level of contaminants - as was pretty much everyone else who lived downwind of Ground Zero while the recovery efforts were ongoing (and that includes Lower Manhattan, parts of New Jersey and Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The politics that have held up a compensation package has been asinine because as Jon Stewart has said - the politicians will say that these workers were heroes, but now that they need the government's backing to provide assistance in their time of need, the politicians are no where to be found to vote on legislation that would provide a measure of compensation for their service.
I expounded on this back in 2006, when the issue of Ground Zero workers was becoming a major concern. We owe it to these workers to not let them be turned into the US version of the Chernobyl liquidators who were left in the dark about what dangers they were exposed to and the ailments they and their families had to live with and die from.
Work continues all around Ground Zero as the Freedom Tower (1WTC) is approaching the height of nearby 7WTC at a rate of about 3 stories per week. The steel is being erected in three story increments, which means that the tower should be nearing 900 feet by the end of the year. 4WTC, which is diagonally across from Ground Zero is also rising, but at a somewhat slower pace.
The North Memorial Pool has been filled and the waterfall curtain walls are being tested. Trees are continuing to be planted around the memorial site and will soon ring the memorial pools.
Meanwhile, the former Deutsche Bank building continues to linger as unexpected difficulties in tearing down the remaining six stories have added to the delays. The sixth floor turned out to be particularly difficult to demolish because it was a mechanical floor, and was heavily reinforced making it more difficult to tear apart.
In order to collect on the $712 million settlement, 95 percent of the 10,000 plaintiffs had to join up and file notarized paperwork by 11:59 Monday night.
But with just hours to go, the judge presiding over the suit issued a gag order meaning neither side could say if the threshold was hit until all the paperwork had been processed, something that could take a few more days.
Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein cited the "huge influx" of people joining as the deadline approached saying it "taxed the capacity to process" them on time, according to the New York Post.
They now have until Thursday afternoon to finalize the paperwork, according to the New York Times.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of workers who said they were sickened from cleaning up after the Sept. 11 attacks without proper protective gear or supervision by the city.
UPDATE:
Here's video of the tests via the NY Times:
Yesterday was the deadline day for thousands of Ground Zero workers who are part of a class action to approve a settlement deal that would be administered by Kenneth Feinberg. It will be several more days before we know whether at least 95% of the nearly 10,000 participants approved the plan.
As the deadline for more than 10,000 ground zero workers to opt into a multimillion-dollar settlement with the city and its contractors approached, the federal judge overseeing the cases said on Monday that it would take several more days to tally and verify “the huge influx” of responses.
Until then, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of United States District Court in Manhattan ordered the lawyers in the cases not to discuss the status of claims with the news media, “to avoid confusion and speculation.”
The settlement would officially end the lawsuits filed by firefighters, police officers and others who took part in rescue and cleanup operations after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The plaintiffs claimed respiratory and other illnesses that they attributed to inadequate protective equipment and supervision by the city at the disaster site.
The plaintiffs have until 11:59 Monday night to file their papers and reach the required threshold of 95 percent approval for the settlement, which would pay up to $712.5 million, to go into effect. The Associated Press reported over the weekend that a leading plaintiffs’ lawyer, Paul J. Napoli, said that 90 percent of those eligible had accepted the deal by last Friday.
This is a totally separate compensation package than the one that has been winding its way through Congress, the James Zadroga Compensation program, which would provide several billion dollars towards medical coverage and additional study of those who worked at Ground Zero following the attacks.
It's still unbelievable that the vote was not unanimous. The vote was 268 to 160, sufficient to pass.
The bill had previously come up for a vote at the end of July, but was defeated 255-159 when the Democrats demanded that the bill require 2/3 majority to prevent Republicans from attaching any riders to the legislation and Republicans in turn voted against the sorely needed legislation to aid workers affected by their work at Ground Zero during the recovery and relief efforts.
"This is not a New York issue, our nation was attacked and those who are suffering come from all 50 states, and 428 of the 435 congressional districts nationwide -- nearly every member of Congress -- has constituents who lost their health because of the attacks," said Democratic Manhattan-Queens Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, one of the bill's sponsors.
"The EPA, despite ample evidence to the contrary, kept falsely proclaiming that the air was safe to breathe. It wasn't," said Democratic Manhattan-Brooklyn Congressman Jerrold Nadler, another sponsor of the bill. "The terrorists caused an environmental catastrophe but the federal government compounded the damage by telling people that the environment was safe when it wasn't, and now thousands of people are sick and in need of special care. We have a moral obligation to treat those who became ill, and that's what this bill is all about."
"The toxins are in their blood. All of that now is coming forward," said Republican Long Island Congressman Peter King, another sponsor of the bill. "You see people in the prime of life -- 40, 50 years old, people who run marathons, people who were in the peak of shape -- dying slowly in front of us."
Ground Zero responders came from around the country and indeed from around the world to help recover the remains of those murdered on 9/11 and some of them have suffered horribly from the inhalation of a melange of chemicals and materials pulverized by the collapsing towers and set alight by the multiple fires that raged for weeks following the attacks. More than a few responders have died with the cause of death attributed to their exposures at Ground Zero.
Critics have complained that the fund would be open to fraud and abuse, and funding for the program.
There are ways to ensure that the funding goes where it is supposed to and that only those who deserve compensation receive it. But to deny all these workers compensation and adequate care for doing the selfless work of trying to rescue and recover the victims of the 9/11 attacks is simply abhorrent.
However, even the Senate version isn't a done deal given that the Democrats attached a provision to end "don't ask, don't tell" and another provision that would grant kids of illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship if they are in the armed services or college which has Republicans upset.
That's all despite the fact that a new slew of studies have found that those firefighters who worked at Ground Zero have four times worse lung capacity than those firefighters had before the 9/11 attacks. Children living in Chinatown have an increased susceptibility to lung ailments, and one study even noted that a group children born to women who were pregnant on 9/11 suffered from a wide range of ailments that are seemingly linked to the exposure to contaminants released in the collapsing towers.
In other words, good legislation that would ordinarily pass with widespread support is being used as a political football by both parties to attach (or threaten to attach) more offensive and controversial legislation.
Some legislation should be above this kind of petty politics; this is one of those situations.
Lawyer Andrew Carboy, whose firm represents more than 600 firefighters, said the FDNY had rules on the book requiring Bravest be equipped with respirators before Sept. 11.
But memos showing that weren't handed over until this summer - in a data dump of 3 million documents - five years after the legal battle began. "They provide everyone with helmets, with bunker gear, with [air] packs. They could have done the same with respirators, and they withheld the documents saying they had a program to do it," Carboy said.
Carboy's firm represents Firefighters Frank Malone and the late Raymond Hauber, whose cases are among a dozen picked to go to trial, starting in May.
Four were chosen from more than 9,000 by a federal judge, four by the city, and four by plaintiffs' lawyers. More than $1 billion in damages hinge on the outcome.
To show the city is liable, Carboy plans to wield memos about the FDNY's "respiratory protection program," which was supposed to provide respirators for "reasonably foreseeable emergency situations" like building collapses.
The FDNY didn't follow its own guidelines and had only 600 respirators for more than 11,200 uniformed members when the twin towers fell Sept. 11, Carboy said.
A 2003 FDNY memo called for the head of safety and health for the department, Tennyson Headley, to be canned in part because of the dysfunctional respirator program. But Headley is still on the FDNY payroll.
In a Feb. 5 deposition, he admitted he didn't know the FDNY had a program until well after 9/11, or that he was responsible for making sure firefighters were trained to use the masks.
The city's lawyers deny the memo was hidden, saying documents about the program were "irrelevant" because a separate respirator policy was created for Ground Zero after the attacks.
On Sept. 11, the FDNY ordered 5,000 respirators for $20 to $25 each, court documents say.
This suit is proceeding all while the compensation package is stalled in Congress that would speed compensation to those who need it badly to deal with a myriad of ailments sustained in working in and around Ground Zero during the cleanup. Many have faulted the FDNY for not providing respirators and other devices to protect workers from exposure to all manner of toxic materials emitted into the air following the collapse and subsequent fires that raged for weeks thereafter.
A pox on both the House Democrats and Republicans.
The Republicans deserve scorn and derision for their abject failure to support a measure to provide assistance and compensation for Ground Zero workers who toiled on the pile and were sickened by their service to recover the remains of nearly 3,000 people who were pulverized by the collapsing Twin Towers.
The Democrats had put forth a measure that would have provided $7.4 billion to compensate sickened workers, expanded the Victim Compensation Fund, and provided medical care. The bill fell 255-159, largely along party lines. It required a 2/3 passage. 95% of Democrats voted for the bill and 98% of Republicans voted against it. The roll call tells the tale of this measure. And among those who voted no was NJ Rep Scott Garrett (R), who knows or should have known that this would directly affect some of his constituents adversely - because his district encompasses part of Northern New Jersey and whose citizens were affected by the attacks directly.
That's absolutely insane, especially when President Bush, in the days following the attacks, asked Sen. Chuck Schumer, the senior senator from New York, what was necessary, and the President promised everything that the state needed it would get.
The same courtesy should have been extended to the workers who toiled to recover the remains of nearly 3,000 people and the debris that showered down all over Lower Manhattan. Nearly nine years later and the country is still treating these workers little different than the Soviet Union did the liquidators who toiled to put out the fires and enclose the nuclear reactors at Chernobyl.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their leadership deserve to take all the scorn and derision for their continued support and protection of corrupt Democrats, the latest of which is Rep. Charles Rangel, the senior Democrat from New York. The findings by the ethics panel reflect the news reports for more than two years that show just how Rangel gamed the system to his advantage and steadfastly refused to abide by tax laws of the local, state, and federal levels (and where at the federal level he was in charge of setting tax policy as Chairman of House Ways and Means), didn't feel that he was subject to rent stabilization laws, ignored ethics rules and guidelines, and generally treated his position as an entitlement and in the process disrespected his constituents.
The leadership refused to move against him in 2008, fearing that it might anger the Congressional Black Caucus (which is essentially a subgroup of Democrats in Congress). Instead, they let him keep his chairmanship until earlier this year when the evidence became such that even the leadership could no longer ignore the festering problem. That it's taken more than two years to act on this ethics probe shows the unseriousness that Democrats had to cleaning up the swamp of corruption in Congress (which is just as bad as when the Republicans were in charge).
In fact, both instances show that neither party should be trusted with power. The party out of power thinks that they can act as irresponsibly as they want without repercussion to their actions while the party in power thinks that they can act with impunity and without regard to the will of the people or in disregard to the law.
A pox on both their houses.
UPDATE:
Republicans claimed that their opposition was on procedural grounds.
Rep. Anthony Weiner was right in being outraged over the failure to pass this legislation. Rep. Peter King, one of the few Republicans to vote for the measure also castigated his fellow caucus.
Hellerstein had rejected an earlier deal because the lawyers fees were excessive and didn't devote sufficient funds to the compensation of those sickened by working at Ground Zero during the relief and recovery phase following the attacks.
The revised deal would raise the amount of the settlement to $625 million to $712 million and reduces the fees lawyers would collect from one-third to one-fourth of the settlement. Previously, the settlement range was $575 million to $657 and in both iterations, the amount was based on how many members of the class approved of the deal.
The settlement was announced Thursday evening by the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The deal, which still must be approved by a judge and the workers themselves, would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met.
Most if not all of the money would come out of a $1 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the settlement "a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances."
"The resolution of the World Trade Center litigation will allow the first responders and workers to be compensated for injuries suffered following their work at Ground Zero," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was "a good settlement."
"We are gratified that these heroic men and women who performed their duties without consideration of the health implications will finally receive just compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages, medical and other expenses, as the U.S. Congress intended when it appropriated this money," he said in a statement.
Workers who wish to participate in the settlement would need to prove they had been at the World Trade Center site or other facilities that handled debris. They also would have to turn over medical records and provide other information aimed at weeding out fraudulent or dubious claims.
Inevitably, I expect there will be some holdouts, but this may be a good deal particularly because it frees up care and funds that would have otherwise been held up in lawsuits.
If 95% agree, $575 million would be set aside, but if the entire class of workers agrees, the fund would rise to $657 million.
Individual claims might range from thousands of dollars to several million, depending on the nature of injuries and the illnesses sustained.
Operation of the fund would be akin to the Victim Compensation Fund where a special master would take the cases and provide a settlement figure.
Considering that there were dozens of defendants and thousands of workers suing, this streamlines the process. Also, the settlement would set aside funds to provide for workers who are not currently showing signs of illness. That's a potentially serious concern given that some illnesses may take years before they develop - sarcoidosis, emphysema, lung cancers, etc.
The state's two senators and 14 House members met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just hours before President Obama implored in his speech to the nation for Congress to come together and deliver a government that delivers on its promises to the American people.
So the legislators were floored to learn the Democratic administration does not want to deliver for the tens of thousands of people who sacrificed after 9/11, and the untold numbers now getting sick.
"I was stunned — and very disappointed," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who like most of the other legislators had expected more of a discussion on how to more forward.
"To say the least, I was flabbergasted," said Staten Island Rep. Mike McMahon.
The 9/11 bill would spend about $11 billion over 30 years to care for the growing numbers of people getting sick from their service at Ground Zero, and to compensate families for their losses.
The legislators were shocked the idea was falling lower on the administration priority list than other parts of the war on terror and financial bailouts.
"She made it clear that the administration does not support any kind of funding mechanism that goes into the bill," said Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel. "I think it's fiscal restraint… but you know what? They find money for everything else, they need to find money for this," Engel said.
"We were attacked because we're a symbol of our country." McMahon was furious that caring for the heroes of Sept. 11 would take a back seat to anything but military funding.
"I thought there was a complete lack of understanding of the issue by the secretary and quite frankly, I did not expect that lack of compassion and failure to understand the urgency of the issue."
In the aftermath of the attacks and with the ruins still aflame, President Bush and Senator Schumer basically came to an understanding that anything that the State and City asked for, they would get for the WTC response.
Then Senator Hillary Clinton played a major role in making sure that those suffering from ailments that were attributed to working at Ground Zero were cared for and the WTC screening program at Mount Sinai Medical Center. It's a real need, and that the Obama Administration is now pursuing this tact is a slap in the face of all those who gave their all to recover remains of the nearly 3,000 people murdered at Ground Zero. It's up to the New York delegation to get this done, and it looks like they're falling short.
So, why is the Administration pursuing this tact? This is a political hot potato that the Administration can ill afford right now, and alienating the New York delegation isn't going to help matters.
The White House confirmed it will more than double the budget for treating ill responders to $150 million in 2011.
The abrupt reversal came after the Daily News revealed New York lawmakers were shocked Wednesday when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration does not support an $11 billion permanent treatment plan.
The White House still isn't backing the permanent treatment plan, but is pushing ahead with a doubling of the budget for treating sick responders for the short term.
The White House is throwing money around at the New York delegation to make this go away; combine this with the decision to consider alternative locations for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his cohorts that AG Holder and the President said would go ahead in the SDNY in Lower Manhattan and you've got a White House that appears to be in disarray and running to cover its own bumbling and stumbling.
Fiterman Hall is finally coming down, and is now several stories lower than it had been just weeks ago. That stands in stark contrast to the often delayed demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building. Deconstruction was supposed to resume over the summer, but further delays have meant that the hulking ruin continues towering over the Southern side of Ground Zero and delays the rebuilding efforts throughout the site.
The law immediately allows more than 3,000 Ground Zero workers to revive lawsuits that were thrown out by a federal judge in July on the technical ground that they were not filed within 90 days of the workers' conditions being diagnosed.
-- PHOTOS: Ground Zero immediately after 9/11
-- PHOTOS: Ground Zero today
It will also allow new lawsuits from an untold number of workers who never even filed claims.
One of them is Chris Klein, 38, a carpenter from Broad Channel, Queens, who worked for three months at Ground Zero in 2002 and is now on disability with a lung condition. Attorneys told him he waited too long after his diagnosis in 2004 and couldn't file a lawsuit.
"I put my life on the line to help the city and the state, and we were lied to that the air was good to breathe," said Klein, who said he also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and chronic sinusitis.
Klein said he will now join a separate group of about 10,000 police, firefighters, construction workers and others who worked at or near Ground Zero in the months after 9/11 and who filed lawsuits seeking compensation for subsequent illnesses. They contend the government had told them, falsely, the air conditions were safe.
When you have an insurance company established to help provide aid to thousands of people who have suffered injury as a result of the WTC collapse, but which refuses to pay out claims, something would appear to be amiss.
Ailing ground zero workers are going to court to demand that the company overseeing a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund uses it to pay for their health care.
Attorneys for the workers argue that federal officials meant for the money in the WTC Captive Insurance Co. to be used as compensation for sick workers.
The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, possibly fatal diseases. The latest action, expected to be filed Tuesday, seeks compensation from the company in charge of money appropriated by Congress to deal with Sept. 11 health-related claims.
City officials have long said that the money must first be used to litigate claims before it goes to workers. But attorneys filing the lawsuit in Manhattan's state Supreme Court argue that the money was created to reimburse ailing workers — not fight them in court.
"She hasn't paid a penny to one of my 10,000 people," David Worby, an attorney representing the workers, said of the company's CEO, Christine LaSala. "It was their mandate."
Congress directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2003 to appropriate up to $1 billion "to establish a captive insurance company or other appropriate insurance mechanism for claims arising from debris removal, which may include claims made by city employees."
In the prepared claim, the attorneys argue that Congress and other federal officials never stated "that a captive insurance company be established solely to defend the city of New York and its contractors from all rescue, recovery and debris removal related claims, at all costs."
The company has spent more than $75 million on legal fees and other expenses, the attorneys say.
Roy Winnick, a spokesman for WTC Captive, said he could not comment on the claim until the lawsuit was filed.
More than 100 of the plaintiffs in Worby's lawsuit have died of respiratory diseases and cancers since the post-Sept. 11 cleanup. Last year, the largest study of ground zero workers determined about 70 percent suffer respiratory disease years after the cleanup.
The WTC workers deserve to have their claims dealt with fairly and efficiently. This situation is anything but. The WTC Victim Compensation Fund handled matters relatively effectively for the nearly 3,000 killed in the 9/11 attacks, with only a small percentage of victims' families opting out of the process to sue the insurers and various entities involved in the attacks.
What is happening here is a mess that must be dealt with promptly - the lives of quite a few people who worked to clean up Ground Zero are at stake.
UPDATE: Others blogging the filing of the lawsuit against the insurance company and the plight of workers suffering from a range of ailments they attribute to their time spent working in and around Ground Zero: Jewlicious, Vitabeat, The Daily Report, Politics & Law Enforcement.
