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9/11 victims win support funds for rest of their lives

Pictured: The twin tours in New York filled with smoke following 9/11 attack. Image: Getty
The 11 September 2011 attacks. Image: Getty

The US Senate has passed a bill which ensures a fund used to compensate first responders and victims of the 11 September 2001 attack will never run out of money.

The bill was passed on Tuesday following lobbying from the 9/11 first responders, many of whom have developed medical conditions after being exposed to the toxic smoke in the collapsing and collapsed buildings.

The bill authorises money for the fund until 2092, after it passed through the Senate with a vote of 97-2.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill, with the House of Representatives already supporting it.

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The fund was first launched in 2001 following the attack and distributed more than US$7 billion (AU$10 billion) to the families of the more than 2,880 people who died and the 2,680 who were injured.

The fund was reinstated in 2006, although there were concerns that it would run out of money by December 2020 as claims spiked.

The new bill means the government must continue to fund the service until 2092.

"I'm going to ask my team now to put down your swords and pick up your rakes and go home, and hopefully, we don't have to come back," victims' advocate John Feal said on Tuesday.

"What I'm going to miss the most about [Washington] D.C. is — nothing."

Comedian and advocate Jon Stewart applauded the passage, having advocated for the extension along with Feal for months.

However, he rejected claims from Senator Rand Paul - one of only two to vote against the legislation - that the fund will cost too much.

“Pardon me if I’m not impressed in any way by Rand Paul’s fiscal responsibility virtue signaling,” Stewart told Fox News, adding that Paul had supported Trump’s tax cuts which he argued “added hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit".

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