September 11 Health Bill Stalls; One Backer Blames City Hall

A leading backer of the push to secure nearly $11 billion for survivors of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is blaming the Bloomberg administration for opposing a federal bill that stalled in the House of Representatives.

The mayor's office had lobbied Congress aggressively for the $10.9 billion bill but balked when Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill insisted that city taxpayers pay $500 million over 10 years to fund a share of a health care program to treat rescue workers who came down with respiratory illnesses after toiling at ground zero. Lacking the votes to pass the measure, and with the proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial markets dominating debate, the House leadership did not bring the September 11 bill to the floor.

"The outcome would probably have been very different had the mayor's office been supportive," a Democrat of Manhattan and Queens, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, said yesterday, adding that she was "very disappointed" in City Hall's opposition to the bill.

Supporters of the bill criticized the Bloomberg administration for slowing negotiations with a hard-line stance over its share of the funding. The federal bailout then knocked it off the table entirely.

"If someone is going to pay you $11 billion, are you going to argue over the fare for the cab ride over?" one New York delegation aide, who asked not to be identified, said of the city's position.

Other aides said the city's opposition was only partly to blame for the failure of the bill. Republicans were opposed to the cost of the program, and the measure faced almost certain defeat in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most bills.

The city had cited its perilous fiscal position in opposing the measure, but Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that money was only part of the problem, and that the bill did not give the city enough control over how the funds were spent. "The bottom line is this was not a bill that got done that really gave the city the protection or the aid that we really needed," the mayor told reporters at City Hall. A Republican of Staten Island, Rep. Vito Fossella, defended the Bloomberg administration. "Mayor Bloomberg has been a strong and forceful advocate every step of the way," he said.