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Floor Statements

Floor Statement on the Maloney Amendment to H.R. 3010, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006

Washington, DC, June 22, 2005
Mr. Chairman, the World Trade Center was in my district. I have dealt with hundreds of first responders who responded. The majority of all the first responders have now come down with respiratory ailments, and yet the State has betrayed them and we are betraying them because the insurance company that handles workers' comp has contested the worker comp claims at a rate of 10 times the normal rate of contest. And now we are going to rescind the money?


We have a hero who testified at a hearing last week that he got awards for rescuing people, and then at the workers' comp hearing, they said he was not even there.


The fact is thousands of people have come down with illnesses. Thousands more probably will. It would be the height of hypocrisy to rescind these funds and not have these funds available for the medical treatment of these people whom we know are sick. And, unfortunately, we know more will get sick, and the funds to treat those already sick are not there. I urge adoption of this amendment.

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