Following years of advocates’ calls for Congress to shore up funding to support a health program for 9/11 survivors, this year’s budget will include a new funding formula — resolving a deficit in federal dollars that would have cut services starting next year.
The revised formula, part of a bipartisan budget plan that will go before both the Senate and House this week, will provide significant funding to the World Trade Center Health Program, which supports first responders and survivors who have long-term health issues stemming from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, and Long Island U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino, a Republican, are among those who worked to secure the funding after Elon Musk helped to torpedo a previous plan under the 2024 year-end omnibus legislation.
With the 2026 appropriations bill announced this week, funding is set through 2040. It’s a win for advocates who have worked for years to fill gaps the program, which serves roughly 137,000 9/11 first responders and survivors who got sick from living and working around toxic debris in the wake of the attacks.
Benjamin Chevat is the executive director of Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act — the 2010 law that provides health monitoring and aid to 9/11 first responders, volunteers and survivors.
“As we enter the year of the 25th anniversary, it’s just good to know that … impending threats of budget cuts to this program have been removed,” Chevat told amNewYork.
“People who are sick from 9/11 can just focus on their conditions and not have to worry about the impact of these cuts to their care.”
Gillibrand and Schumer celebrated the budget bill’s funding of the health program, without which deficits would have forced cuts to support programs beginning in 2027.
“The World Trade Center Health Program helps honor our promise to never forget by ensuring medical monitoring and treatment for the 9/11 survivors and responders who stepped up in one of our nation’s darkest hours,” Gillibrand said in a statement Wednesday.
“Allowing a funding shortfall to disrupt access to their car would be a betrayal of their service to New York and our nation.”
Gillibrand and Schumer also called out the Trump administration for slashing the World Trade Center Health Program’s staff and firing its administrator, Dr. John Howard.
The program was established in 2011, originally funded for five years at $1.6 billion. It was reauthorized in 2015 and extended through 2090 with bipartisan support.
