Compensation for those injured by the Ground Zero clean-up is appropriate, but if Congress continues this program, it needs to be closely monitored for fraud and kept fair.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of this Subcommittee, for your kind invitation to testify today about proposals to expand the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 and about H.R. 3543, the proposed James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2007.
I serve as Director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest, and as a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, but I am not testifying here on their behalf and the views that I am sharing today are my own.
The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 ("VCF") was a uniquely successful shortterm administrative program to compensate victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks while limiting litigation against innocent third parties who had also been victimized by the attacks. Unfortunately, H.R. 3543 in its current form fails to protect innocent third parties from unfair litigation, does not have the advantages that made the VCF successful, and magnifies the disadvantages and fairness problems of the VCF. . . .
Click here to view the entire testimony as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.
Ted Frank is a resident fellow at AEI and the director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest.
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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