Republican and Democratic senators may have put lumps of coal in the Christmas stockings of firefighters like Perry Peake and other 9/11 first responders who got sick following exposure to dust from the World Trade Center’s collapse.

From left, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Deputy

Chief Richard Alles, and Sen. Charles Schumer,

D-N.Y., raise take part in a news conference, on

Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 22,

2010, after Senate passage of a bill to assist 9/11

First Responders. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

^{Courtesy photo}

Congressional aids say that a deal reached today would provide about $4 billion, or some $2 billion less than was originally proposed for healthcare benefits to first responders and survivors of the September 11 terrorism attacks.

Peake was assigned to Task Force 8, a San Diego unit that was dispatched to Ground Zero in New York in the days following the attacks of 9/11.

“Several of the responders that came out of the San Diego County Urban Search and Rescue Task Force,” he says, “have ongoing health issues related to their time spent working at the World Trade Center.”

Among the San Diegans who responded, Frank De Clercq, president of the San Diego firefighters union says there are “lung issues, breathing issues, and COPD issues that resulted from being there for that long period of time and from working in the dust and everything else that’s gotten into their lungs.”

“The symptoms of some of the people I responded with,” says Peake, “range from a minor annoyance to a severe health problem that they battle every day.”

The initial first responder bill failed 57-42 on December 9. Had it passed, it would have funneled roughly $7.4 billion toward the health care of emergency workers and other victims of 9/11. News of the earlier Senate rejection was met with anger. The New York Daily News reported that the Capitol Police were called on protesting first responders who were in Washington to register their opinions on the bill’s stalling.

“This is something that shouldn’t have to be questioned,” says De Clercq. “It should be an obligation and something the government should want to do to protect those people that risked their lives to go there.”

By October 2007 Discover Magazine was reporting that up to 70 percent of first responders had become ill as a result of contamination from dust and debris and toxic chemicals following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Based on the rate of illness among first responders, Discover projected that the number of ill New Yorkers could reach 300,000.

“We’ve been provided with appropriate healthcare thus far through our employers,” says Peake. “But, the question is long term, what’s going to happen? That’s a question on everybody’s mind. It’s been, like, nine years? And if you’re still having health problems nine years later, it’s highly unlikely they’re just gonna go away on their own.”

Congressional watchdogs said that Republicans had used the no vote on the first responder bill as leverage to get an extension of Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy.

“It’s incredible that politics would tie up healthcare. What they’re worried about,” says De Clercq, “is the amount of money it was going to cost,” which he says should not be an issue.

But it turns out Republicans weren’t alone in wanting to see the first responder bill shut down. On December 18, The Raw reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had lobbied to kill the bill on the grounds that passage would have closed a tax loophole benefiting foreign corporations.

“It should be a given,” says De Clercq, “that people will be taken care of for risking their lives and putting themselves in harm’s way.”