b'Conversations with Leaderssigned the Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer, and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. The VCF Permanent Authorization Act extends the VCFs claim filing deadline from December 18, 2020, to October 1, 2090, and appropriates such funds as may be necessary to pay all eligible claims.On the Responsibilities of the VCF Special Master When Congress established the VCF in 2001 to compensate the victims of the terrorist attacks and their families, it created the position of special master to administer the claims process. The attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, appointed Ken Feinberg to serve in that capacity, and Mr. Feinberg was given the sole authority to determine what each claimant would receive. By law, his rulings were final and were not subject to judicial review. When the fund was revived in 2011, this same structure was kept in place, and the same discretion was afforded the new special master. I was appointed as special master by Attorney GeneralOn the Implications of 9/11-Related IllnessesLoretta Lynch in July 2016. What has surprised everyone in the 9/11 community, myself included, is the increase in the number of people who As to my responsibilities and duties, they are veryare getting sick and dying due to 9/11-related illnesses. straightforwardand at the same time fairly complex. OurThere is no accurate count of how many people might missionmy missionrevolves around three tenets: beinghave been exposed to toxins stemming from the attacks. fair to the claimants, faithful to the statute, and defensibleThere is also considerable uncertainty about the number of to the taxpayers. While that is fairly straightforward, thereindividuals who ultimately will fall ill due to the long latency are many moving parts involved in making sure thoseperiods that can elapse before manifestation of the cancers expectations are continually being met.determined to be related to 9/11 exposure. Moreover, the VCF has suffered from an information gap; in the early On the Challenges of Managing the VCF years of the program, many eligible individuals were not This is an interesting questionand one that, on at leastaware that the VCF was an available resource. They assumed one level, is different today than it would have been severalit was meant only for New York City first responders. months ago. Ill come back to that in a minute. The topAs an example, even the FBI, which has lost at least 16 challenge I have is simple: getting claims reviewed in theemployees to 9/11-related illnesses, did not recognize until most timely, fair, and efficient way possible. It has long beenfairly recently that its employees might be eligible for VCF my goal to reduce the time it takes us to review a claim compensation. once we have everything we needto 12 months or less. We are not there yet, but we continue to make progress, andAs a result of increasing outreach, but also as a harbinger of I am optimistic that we will be there soon. Now backing upthe increasing seriousness of 9/11-related illnesses, the VCF to talk about what has changed. One of my top priorities,received a record number of new claims in 2018 and will until the recent passage of the VCF Permanent Authorizationexceed that number in 2019. For perspective, in the first five Act, was making sure that we did not exhaust our finding.years of the Victim Compensation Fund, through December That is a problem we no longer havebut that said, we are31, 2016, roughly 19,000 compensation forms were filed. still extremely committed to the type of fiscal responsibilityIn the two years after that, through December 2018, almost and responsible stewardship of government funding that20,000 additional compensation forms were filed, with over helped to get us the vote of confidence that the legislation10,000 compensation forms already filed to date in 2019. represents. Beyond that, our challenges are reflected in our ongoing missionwhich is to operate the VCF in a manner that is fair to the claimants, faithful to the statute, and defensible to the taxpayer. WINTER 2019 / 2020 IBM Center for The Business of Government 9'