(The Center Square) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is accusing the Trump administration of “gutting” a federally funded program aimed at addressing chronic health problems facing police officers, firefighters and other first-responders to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
On Wednesday, Hochul called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security to “undo” efforts to “gut essential services” provided through the World Trade Center Health Program by reassigning personnel to immigration enforcement and other priorities.
Hochul said staffing reductions in the WTC Health Program’s workforce “directly affects the health, safety, and long-term welfare of first-responders” to the terror attacks, including members of the New York State Police, the New York Police Department, the New York Fire Department and the Port Authority Police Department.
She called the program a “lifeline” for the survivors and first responders who answered the call almost 25 years ago and afterward without hesitation” saying they “deserve the same support from their government today.”
“Reducing staff for an essential health program that has already faced drastic cuts in order to support an out-of-control enforcement agency with a history of failing to protect Americans is reprehensible,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Our first responders and their families deserve better.”
Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in southwest Pennsylvania during the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 2,700 of those victims died in the collapse of the trade center’s iconic twin towers.
The governor’s demands are the latest back-and-forth between New York and the Trump administration over federal funding and support for 9/11 first responders, many of whom are still suffering from debilitating illnesses, including cancer, which require regular medical treatments.
Cuts to the 911 health program were proposed last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the federal agency backed away from the plans after top Republican and Democratic lawmakers decried the move.
The Trump administration last year also restored two federal grants and rehired 16 employees to the program who were laid off as part of cost-cutting by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency after a federal judge determined the firings were unlawful.
The White House also faced a firestorm over reports that it was seeking to take over New York City’s memorial to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The memorial plaza, which includes two pools ringed by waterfalls, walls with the names of the dead, and an underground museum, is run by a New York-based public charity.
