by DEVLIN BARRETT
A House committee Tuesday night approved long-stalled legislation to provide health care for first responders at the World Trade Center, after a long day of partisan debate about the bill's $11 billion price tag.
Democrats pushed the legislation through the House Energy and Commerce Committee despite repeated objections from Republicans that the program would drive up the deficit.
"It has been a long slog and you're on the verge of what appears to be a victory," said Texas congressman Joe Barton, the senior Republican on the panel.
He argued that victory would come "at the expense of the American taxpayer."
Two New York Democrats on the panel, Reps. Anthony Weiner of Queens and Eliot Engel of the Bronx, took aim at those who suggested the federal government couldn't afford to treat and monitor the health problems of those who responded to the burning towers or worked on the toxic debris pile.
In the audience were dozens of New York firefighters and recovery workers eager to see Congress create a permanent 9/11 health program.
Currently, such treatment and testing is paid for on a year-to-year basis.
"It's been dragging on for a long time," said retired firefighter Jimmy Lanza, who used to work at Ladder 43 in East Harlem. "We understand there's a budget crisis in this country, but these people put their lives on the line."
Republicans successfully added language to the bill that would bar treatment for illegal immigrants or those on the U.S. terror watch list.
The daylong hearing was mostly genial but marked by occasional flashes of temper.
"A lot of people are dying still to this day," Mr. Weiner chided his GOP colleagues at one point. "This is not an entitlement the way you think it is. No one can go back to 9/11 and get sick again."
A separate committee has already approved a portion of the legislation that would re-open the Sept. 11 victims compensation fund for those made sick by their work responding to the terror attacks. The full House and Senate have yet to vote on the measure.
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