WASHINGTON, DC — We are grateful that the Speaker of the House recognizes the outstanding needs that exist for $125 million in funds previously appropriated to New York to respond to the attacks of September 11th. As we wrote to the Appropriations Committee on November 2, we believe that this funding should be restored in whatever emergency spending vehicle is moving through Congress. It appears that Speaker Hastert agrees with that as well and we commend Mr. Fossella, and our other partners from New York's House Delegation, for their work on this important issue. The Senate passed an Amendment in October that would have restored this funding and thanks to the hard work of the Fire Department of New York, New York City Police Foundation, Uniformed Firefighters Association, Uniformed Fire Officers Association, the State Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Mt. Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and the Mayor of New York City and Governor of New York, we are one step closer to getting this money secured for our firefighters, police officers, workers, first responders, and other volunteers whose efforts will never be forgotten. The most important thing is that this money is one step closer to being restored to New York which would ensure the commitments made by the President and Congress are not broken. We welcome this good news and look forward to continuing to work with the entire New York delegation to make sure this money remains in New York.

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