‘This is a priority of mine’: Malliotakis to discuss 9/11 health program funding with Trump this weekend

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) is planning to discuss getting money back on the table for the World Trade Center Health Program during her Mar-a-Lago visit this weekend.

Funding for the program, which treats survivors and first responders for health conditions contracted in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, beyond 2027 was cut from the country’s budget in December 2024.

“Just like I stood with 9/11 families to successfully get them the payments from the Victims of State Sponsors of Terrorism Fund they waited two decades for, this is a priority of mine and will be among the issues I discuss with President Donald Trump when I meet with him this weekend,” Malliotakis told the Advance/SILive.com.

Borough President Vito Fossella took to ink and paper on New Year’s Day with former New York Congressional Rep. Peter King to call on Congress to continue to financially support the program and the people it serves.

Though the program is authorized to run until 2090, the rate at which those who are contracting illnesses in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks is increasing, the op-ed said — meaning that “as the number of people who need help grows, so too does the need for additional funding.”

With no approved funding from Congress, the op-ed predicts that the program will begin to feel the ramifications in 2027.

“That means that, starting in 2027, responders and survivors who fall ill won’t be able to enroll in the program,” Fossella and King said in the letter. “Cutbacks in services to those who are being treated, many for cancers, will start soon after that. In short, if the program’s budget cannot be supported with more funding, it cannot fulfill the nation’s promise to survivors.”