The Senate passed an extension Tuesday to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund for the next several decades, which would compensate first responders who during and after the 2001 terrorist attacks rescued people and cleared hazardous debris and who now suffer injuries and illnesses as a result.
The Senate passed the bill 97-2, after it previously cleared the House, and it is now expected to be signed by President Donald Trump.
The extension was pushed by comedian Jon Stewart and first responder John Feal, who urged Congress to pass it before the fund expired in 2020. Back in February, the fund’s administration said that the increase in claims coupled with diminishing resources would inevitably lead to a serious reduction in the fund’s awards.
“For tens of thousands of people that are waiting to hear the outcome of this, my heart bleeds with joy, knowing that so many people are going to get help,” Feal told CNN. “Everything we asked for, we got.”
Feal then said that the passage of the extension would finally give him the chance to “physically and mentally heal” after his 15-year dedication to the cause.
The original fund established in 2001 distributed $7 billion to compensate the families of the thousands of individuals who lost their lives or were injured on 9/11. In 2011, the fund was reactivated and another $7.4 billion were appropriated for thousands of more people. The fund was set to stop taking new claims in December 2020.
The extension would move the expiration date to 2090 with an estimated cost of about $10 billion over the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The only two senators who voted against the bill were Mike Lee and Rand Paul, who last week criticized Congress for not offsetting its cost by not cutting government spending elsewhere.
“The Senate promised that we would ‘never forget,’ and today we finally lived up to that promise,” said Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
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