No surprise here: Congress failed to reauthorize the 9/11 victims compensation fund before it expired on Wednesday, leaving it among many loose ends that have yet to be tied up, reports Michael McAuliff.
"It’s very disheartening," Ray Pfeifer, a retired New York City firefighter who's been battling 9/11-related cancer since 2009, told The Huffington Post. "Everybody’s all in a panic and all in a huff because of the expiration. I must have had 20 people call me today."
"But I'm not panicking," he added. "I'm not in panic mode yet."
One reason Pfeifer isn't panicking is that while the health treatment program he relies on did expire at midnight, it has enough cash in its reserves to continue operating into next year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [...] Still, it hurts that the legislators Pfeifer met couldn't find a way to move a measure that is no longer controversial after five years in operation, and that is actively treating some 33,000 ailing responders across the country.
The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act currently has
57 Senate sponsors and
183 House sponsors.
Why every member in Congress isn't signed on to those bills is beyond confounding.
When pressed this week on when action might begin, either in the Health Committee or on the Senate floor, neither [Mitch] McConnell's office nor [Lamar] Alexander's would say. Both pointed to a statement Alexander released two weeks ago saying the bill is a "top priority."
Because nothing says "top priority" like pointing to a heartfelt statement from several weeks ago.