Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, over 13,000 responders are sick and receiving treatment today. Nearly 53,000 are enrolled in medical monitoring; 71,000 are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry. We have created Centers of Excellence across the country as part of this program so that people who were at the World Trade Center and have gotten sick can go to someplace with the expertise and a diagnosis without coming to New York or New Jersey. All of this is dependent on its continuation on passing this bill. Yes, we can do it through continued appropriations. We have had too many times where the hospitals had to send out notices to the people being treated that your treatment comes to an end June 30 because the appropriation hasn't come through. We cannot leave this to the vicissitudes of annual appropriations. On the Victim Compensation Fund, this House, indeed this Congress, passed it almost unanimously a week or two after 9/11. Unfortunately, people who should have been compensated by that fund could not be because their sicknesses did not become evident till the fund closed. That's why Ken Feinberg, testifying before the Judiciary Committee, urged us to reopen the fund, which is one half of this bill. This bill is necessary so that people in the future will know that you go and help people in a time of emergency. This is not a New York bill.…”