Mr. Chairman, I first want to thank Chairman Obey for including $50 million for treating the health needs of 9/11 first responders from all over the country in this bill. Without his leadership, the heroes of 9/11 would still be waiting for the Federal funding they so desperately need for medical treatment following their work at Ground Zero. Although this funding is an important step, we need so much more.

Just this morning the New York Times revealed a new study by the Department of Health and Human Services that says that the cost of treating 9/11 illnesses will reach $20 million a month, $20 million a month by the end of this year.

The Federal Government must drastically increase its funding commitment if it is to fulfill its obligation to those suffering the health effects of 9/11. But today's bill is at least a first step.

We have all heard the harrowing stories of those first responders, firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and countless others from all around the country who responded and put their own lives in danger to save others. But they are not the only victims of the environmental disaster that resulted from the attacks on the World Trade Center.

The toxic mixture of asbestos, mercury, benzene, dioxins, jet fuel and other harmful substances landed inside apartments and schools and office buildings. The dust settled onto furniture and carpets and onto curtains and air ducts.

Before buildings in Lower Manhattan had ever been tested to insure that they were safe to
reoccupy, residents were urged by the EPA to return to their homes near Ground Zero, and students were sent back to school, where they breathed poisonous dust for months.

Residents and students followed EPA instructions to clean up the dust in their apartments with a ``wet mop or a wet rag,'' a completely inadequate, not to say illegal, method for cleaning up asbestos and other toxic materials.

Students at Stuyvesant High School returned to a building that sat next to enormous piles of toxic debris being carted off to landfills. To this day, there has been no comprehensive testing or cleanup of World Trade Center dust in buildings in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and Jersey City. More than 5 years later, an increasing number of residents and students are now becoming ill from 9/11 toxins.

Residents and students, in addition to first responders, should be eligible for 9/11 health funding as our colleagues in the Senate seek to do but this bill does not do.

I had planned to offer an amendment that would have made residents and students eligible for 9/11 health funding, too. I will not offer that amendment tonight, but I will express the hope that the chairman will support, as we go forward, the work to provide treatment to the tens and thousands of residents and students who are now suffering and will suffer the health effects of 9/11. And I hope we will accede to the Senate version of the bill.

On a separate matter, I would also like to say that I am extremely pleased to see that $39 million has been included in this bill for arts and education. In past years I have had to offer amendments to add funds in this area, but for the first time we have a bill before us that does a very good job in arts and education. The funds provided in this bill are vital as they bring the arts to schoolchildren across the country, many of whom would otherwise have no other opportunity to experience the arts.

I again thank the chairman for his initiative in this respect.