Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm is refusing to back a bill that would end the sequestration of 9/11 victims’ compensation funds because he wasn’t invited to a press conference, according to an organizer.
Grimm (R) was so peeved by the snub that he still hasn’t changed his mind about co-sponsoring the bill — a full three months after the press event introducing H.R. 811, said John Feal, president of the Fealgood Foundation.
“This is unacceptable and immature,” Feal said. “It was an oversight. He wasn’t invited, and he took it personally.”
The press conference — which touted bills from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, and Rep. Peter King, a Republican — also featured Democrats Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Feal was tasked with inviting first responders to the event. Gillibrand’s staff invited elected officials.
“It’s petty politics,” Feal said. “Congressman Grimm is someone I looked up to in the past and had a working relationship with. Shame on him for using 9/11 every anniversary and ignoring the first responders the other 364 days of the year.”
The bill — which has been sitting in the House Budget Committee — would make 9/11 health and compensation programs exempt from sequestration cuts that began in March.
Without its passage, at least $27 million of Zadroga Act money — $17 million from the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and $10 million from the World Trade Center Health Fund — will not be disbursed.
The bill’s 22 co-sponsors include other New York lawmakers like Reps. Jose Serrano, Joseph Crowley and Yvette Clarke. Democrats Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey and Hakeem Jeffries have not signed on as co-sponsors.
“We have come too far and our 9/11 heroes have waited far too long to allow sequestration to cut this critical funding,” King said in February. “It is simply too cruel.”
Grimm, an ex-FBI agent whose Staten Island-Brooklyn district is packed with first responders, did not return calls.