$10.2 billion
That’s the cost estimate issued Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office for compensating the people who are still dying and sick from their exposure following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It covers the next 10 years.
The number comes just a day before the House is expected to vote on a new bill to renew the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, which is running out of cash much faster than expected.
The so-called CBO score is often only a formality, but many lawmakers depend on the number, especially when considering larger bills.
Advocates hailed the development, and said it should clear the way for passage.
"Now that we have the CBO score, the House should move quickly and send the bill to the Senate," said Ben Chevat, who runs Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, a reference to the bill's former name.
The bill was rechristened last week as the "Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act."
Pfeifer, a firefighter who died of 9/11-linked cancer in 2017 was instrumental in passing the last 9/11 bill. Alvarez, who died of his Ground Zero-related cancer late last month, helped galvanize attention to the new bill with his stark testimony before the House Judiciary Committee just weeks before his death.
The special master who oversees the Victim Compensation Fund cut all pending payouts by half and future ones by 70% in February to try and make the money last until 2020. Of $7.4 billion set aside in 2015, just $2 billion was left, with illnesses and deaths in the program surging.
The new funding would include just over $4 billion fill the projected shortfall in the existing program, and would restore the cuts that have already been handed to hundreds of responders and victims.
The remaining $6 billion would fund expected future illness. Indeed, the monster lurking under the data tables is cancer.
The CBO said that while about a third of claims paid by the VCF since 2011 have been for cancer, they’ve jumped in the past year to half of all payouts. The estimate says the percentage will rise to 80%, and cancer claims are more expensive than others -- averaging about $415,000 compared to $214,000 for those involving breathing and many other disorders.
The death toll also continues to rise. On Sept. 11, 2001, the attacks killed 2,977 people. Since then, 2,355 people registered in the World Trade Center health program have died. The health program is separate from the VCF, and already is funded through 2090. The renewed VCF would have the same span.
While estimates of people exposed to toxins from the collapsed twin towers are uncertain, officials put the number at about 410,000. By 2029, with a population reduced in size by both natural causes and 9/11 illnesses to about 265,000, CBO expects 31,000 of them will get cancer.
"Tragically there are more responders and survivors who will be getting cancer caused by their exposures in the coming years and we need to have a program in place that doesn’t require dragging these heroes to Washington every five years," said Chevat, referring to past legislative battles to create and renew the funding in 2010 and 2015.
Alvarez was admitted to hospice after his testimony and died in late June. Jon Stewart testified along side of him that Congress's failure to make the funding permanent had cost Alvarez and others the most precious thing they had left -- time.
The House is expected to vote for the bill Friday on what's known as the suspension calendar, where non-controversial bills cannot be amended and require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority. With 333 House members signed on as sponsors, the measure is likely to pass, although some might object at the late-breaking cost estimate. Advocates would likely counter that the costs of the wars started in the name of 9/11 were simply added to the debt.
After the House, the Senate will also have to act. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky votes.) has pledged to advance the bill, but has not specified how. One GOP source told the News he's likely to bring the measure directly to the floor.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has repeatedly called for the bill to be passed as a standalone, free from extraneous riders that often complicate passage of legislation.
"Leader McConnell must commit to all the families and all the victims who rushed to the towers in those fateful days after 9/11, and say that we will fully and permanently fund the victim’s compensation fund," Schumer. "This is a bipartisan issue, we are both Democrats and Republicans on the legislation, we are pushing it hard, and I believe that the President would sign it."
President Trump has not weighed in on the bill, but seems unlikely to object.
“All we need is Leader McConnell to put it on the floor of the Senate right after it passes the House and it will get done, and all those families can breathe a sigh of relief,” Schumer said. "These families have waited too long, there’s been too much delay. It should be made permanent and done, asap.”
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