Friends - Todays Chief! Great article. And they didnt edit me! Council Begins Drive To Pressure D.C. To Renew Zadroga Law · · · thechiefleader/news/news_of_the_week/council-begins-drive-to-pressure-d-c-to-renew-zadroga/article_148f5d96-9a74-11e4-82cf-73702c2ad0d8.html?mode=image&photo=1 JOE ZADROGA: Ease the ‘terrible price’ paid. thechiefleader/news/news_of_the_week/council-begins-drive-to-pressure-d-c-to-renew-zadroga/article_148f5d96-9a74-11e4-82cf-73702c2ad0d8.html?mode=image&photo=2 LEROY McGINNIS: ‘Thousands of firefighters sick.’ thechiefleader/news/news_of_the_week/council-begins-drive-to-pressure-d-c-to-renew-zadroga/article_148f5d96-9a74-11e4-82cf-73702c2ad0d8.html?mode=image&photo= JOHN FEAL: ‘We’ll steamroll opponents.’ Posted: Monday, January 12, 2015 5:00 pm By SARAH DORSEY | Though the fight to extend the Federal Zadroga Act will be resolved in the halls of Congress, it got an initial push Jan. 7 at the City Council, where Council Member Margaret Chin introduced a resolution calling for the law to be renewed when its provisions expire, in October of this year and next. The resolution marked the ninth anniversary of the death of James Zadroga, the NYPD officer for whom the bill is named. He died of Sept. 11-related respiratory disease at age 34. 1,350 Workers Afflicted About 30,000 people suffer from Sept. 11-related illness, including more than 800 firefighters and Emergency Medical Service workers and 550 police officers. The Zadroga Act, signed into law in January 2011, provides free medical treatment and compensation for those sickened or injured in the attacks. But the health benefits expire in October 2015, and the Victim Compensation Fund—which covers out-of-pocket medical expenses and lost wages—expires a year later. A gallery of 17 elected and union officials released statements endorsing Ms. Chin’s bill, including fire, police and District Council 37 union officers; State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Sen. Daniel Squadron; and U.S. Congressmembers Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler. The resolution was co-sponsored by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Civil Service and Labor Committee Chair I. Daneek Miller, and Council Member Paul Vallone. “The first-responders continue to pay a terrible price for the work they did at Ground Zero,” James Zadroga’s father, Joe, said in a statement. “The only thing that these sick men and women did wrong was to believe the EPA’s pronouncement that ‘the air is safe’...There is no greater way to honor the memory of my son, and the hundreds of other first-responders who have passed away as a result of their toxic exposure, than by extending the law which bears his name.” Funding Cut ‘Horrific’ Uniformed Firefighters Association Recording Secretary Leroy McGinnis said, “When our city and nation was attacked, New York City firefighters never paused once to ask if our government would be there to protect them, should they ever become sick or die as a result of responding to the 9/11 attacks. Over 100 of our firefighters who worked in the rescue, recovery and clean-up operations have since died, with thousands more sick ...Any reduction at all in available funding for the Zadroga program would be horrific.” Last September, Ms. Maloney and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced bills to reauthorize Zadroga. They hope to renew the program for 25 years, until 2041. Both the Senate and House versions were referred to committee last year for review. The original act was passed in the last days of the 2010 legislative session after weeks of tense political bargaining and a last-minute bid to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. Opponents of the bill forced a compromise, slashing its proposed funding from $7.4 billion to $4.3 billion. Expanded Cancer Coverage Since then, a host of new ailments have been covered under the law, including more than 60 types of cancer. More than 2,900 people have developed cancer believed to be 9/11-related, and thousands more are likely as latent cases emerge. Covering their medical care and economic losses could cause Zadroga costs to skyrocket. Pressure to drastically shrink the Federal budget has also mounted, with Congress in 2011 triggering a series of automatic across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester. About $1.1 trillion is set to be slashed between 2013 and 2021. But despite the new climate in Congress, at least one champion of the original Zadroga Act is optimistic about renewal. John Feal, a 9/11 health activist who founded the Feal Good Foundation and was himself injured doing recovery work at the Pile, said in an interview that he believed Zadroga advocates were in a stronger position this time around. ‘Case is Stronger Now’ “Last time, we brought a knife to a gunfight and got lucky,” he said. “Now we’re a lot bigger, we’re a lot stronger, and we have all these statistics and facts to show that 9/11 caused all of this collateral damage.” The stakes couldn’t be higher, he said—he knows of six Sept. 11 victims who died in December alone. But several medical studies since 2010 have shown stronger links between the toxic Trade Center dust and various illnesses, and Zadroga advocates have grown savvier over the years. ‘The Engine That Could’ “We were the little engine that could and now we’re the big engine that did,” he said. “We’re gonna steamroll members of Congress” that disagree, Mr. Feal added. “They have a job to do, and their job is to make sure that this bill gets reauthorized.”
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:40:55 +0000
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