Eighteen years after the deadliest attack on American soil, Congress has given life to a fund that aids 9/11 survivors and first responders.

Zach Gibson / Getty Images Jon Stewart prepares to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on June 12.

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to provide health care benefits for first responders and survivors of the 9/11 attacks for the next 70 years. The bill, which passed 97–2, ensures that victims, first responders, and their families will receive benefits from the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, including health care, for 9/11-related deaths and illnesses. The measure — updated from a 2010 version of the bill — keeps the fund going through 2092 and allows applicants to file until 2090. Only Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee voted no. After the vote, people in the Senate gallery and some senators who remained on the floor applauded. First responders and a teary-eyed Jon Stewart, who had advocated for the bill, hugged in celebration outside the Senate chamber.

The bipartisan bill had overwhelming support in both chambers with 73 cosponsors in the Senate and 402 members in the House of Representatives who voted to pass the legislation. President Donald Trump signed it into law on July 29. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, who sponsored the bill in the House, vowed in February to sport an NYC firefighter’s jacket until the bill’s passage. "If you remember 9/11, you remember that we, as a nation, vowed to never forget,” Maloney told BuzzFeed in a statement. “With that promise, we committed to making sure these heroes never have to go without the support they need and never have to wonder if support will be there for them and their families. With the passage of this bill, we can finally give these heroes the peace of mind they deserve. We are finally turning that promise into law." As of May, the compensation fund approved nearly 30,000 claims totaling more than $12 billion.



Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Jon Stewart attend the funeral mass for 9/11 first responder Luis Alvarez.

The bill, formally named the “Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer, and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act,” is named for several 9/11 responders. Alvarez testified alongside comedian Stewart before a House Judiciary subcommittee last month urging Congress to pass the legislation. The 53-year-old former NYPD detective, who was diagnosed with cancer linked to his work at the 9/11 site, died just a few weeks after the congressional hearing. “Less than 24 hours from now I will be starting my 69th round of chemotherapy,” Alvarez told the House subcommittee. “Yeah, you heard that correct. I should not be here with you but you made me come. You made me come because I will not stand by and watch as my friends with cancer from 9/11, like me, are valued less than anyone else because of when they get sick they die.” Stewart blasted members of Congress for not sitting through the whole hearing. Members of Congress often duck in and out of congressional hearings to attend to other business, but Stewart called it “shameful” and “an embarrassment” that some members left a hearing on such an important issue. “Behind me, a filled room of 9/11 first responders, and in front of me, a nearly empty Congress,” he said at the time. “Sick and dying, they brought themselves down here to speak to no one.”

Awesome moment: Jon Stewart embraces a crying John Feal, the 9/11 first responder who led the organization pushing for the full extension of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, just after the bill passed in the Senate 97-2: